Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Eolirin says:

Disagree: http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/freedom-bridge/flash

They haven’t learned how to unravel complex linear narrative sure, but that’s really not something they *need* to do. And relying on complex systems is probably not the right way to go if you want to be expressive. Simple systems work best there. Complex systems are great for teaching complex lessons, but narratives, at least the powerful ones, are typically very *simple* at their core. I really think that’s a large part of why most games don’t manage to be emotionally engaging; there’s too much simulation and not enough raw interactivity. Agency requires immersion, and rules just get in the way of that.

If you want to split hairs over the definition of ‘game’, then you’re probably right though; anything that’s fundamentally about winning is going to be hard to use to express anything meaningful unless you subvert that motive like with Train. Mechanical systems cannot inherently provide context. If the focus is entirely on the mechanics there’s no way to get a message across. So the only time messages are going to get across is when the player no longer cares about optimizing for the mechanical system you’ve put together. Train breaks if players try to win it; the emotional impact is robbed if players don’t connect what they’ve been doing with the horror of the concepts underlying it and want to stop. And allowing players any incentive of any kind to optimize for your mechanical systems is going to shift the focus in that direction, so you have to subvert that desire in some way, or remove it entirely. It’s unclear if you’re still talking about a game once you do that.

If we’re talking interactive media though? You absolutely can do something really compelling.

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