Time to Play

The central conceit of Braid is the ability to rewind time, and change the course of events. In that game this is explicitly integrated into the story — Tim, the protagonist, works through the puzzles to try and efface some event in his past that he regrets. But this concept is relevant to any game with a save system.

In a recent ‘Game Club’ play-through of The Thing, RebelFM joked about various points in the game where a companion character would reach a point where they are scripted to turn into the ‘thing’ and attack the player. The player then dies, and has to reload. They have moved back in time — but this time armed with the knowledge that a certain character is infected, and will turn somewhere down the road. The RebelFM solution? Shoot them then and there, before they turn and cause damage. In this second play-through of the scenario the game does nothing to acknowledge that the player holds this information. Other companions would rightly be shocked at what would appear to them to have been the random killing of someone that appeared to be helping out.

This is an interesting and unique element of games as a narrative form in their own right. Films, books, radio — in every case if you rewind, turn back the page, when the scene plays forward again it will be the same. The text on the page will never change.

Game design often seems to (consciously or not) assume this malleable sense of time. The  modern Prince of Persia games are obvious touchstones. From the Prince’s narration in The Sands of TIme (“No, no — that’s not how it happened….”), to that game’s rewind mechanic. The forgiving hand that snatches you from danger in the 2008 reboot of the franchise assumes a great deal of ‘trial and error’ experimentation.

Braid aside this concept is very rarely an explicit part of the narrative of games. The grandest experiment with time-bending is almost certainly Planescape: Torment. The Black Isle RPG casts you as a nameless immortal, living through what appears to be one of thousands of lives, none of which he can remember. The great twist to this concept is that all the other characters in the game very much so remember previous incarnations of you. Playing through the game gradually reveals that each version of ‘you’ has behaved differently. Some people knew you as a saint, some as a villain. This dovetails creatively with the huge amount of freedom that the game allows you. One could think of the character’s past lives in the game as the play-throughs of other players.

Planescape came out in 1999. Ten years have given us Braid — but not much else that really moves the relationship of games and time to fresh places. More games need to push forward and explore what the form could allow.

The Wizening of Jodruth Knell

Games have come a long way. They look great, they play great. Some of the most memorable stories I’ve ever encountered have been in games. Grim Fandango holds a place alongside the very best of films in my mind.

But good God they have terrible names. This recently hit home with me when I wanted to reference Bioshock in a film master’s class. Bioshock is a fantastic game. When it came out I was firmly in the camp holding it up as evidence in the now tired debate over whether or not games can be art. All that aside though…. That is a ridiculous name. What does it say that one of the premiere video game franchises — the poster-child for artistic achievement — sounds like a particularly dumb B-movie?

Planescape: Torment? The Force Unleashed? Even by the admittedly low standards of the Star Wars movies that’s pretty weak. For all Bioware’s touting of the game as a dark, intelligent fantasy, Dragon Age sounds like the worst dime-store novel on the shelf.

There are exceptions, obviously. My love for the game might be hiding something from me, but I do like the name Grim Fandango. I was hoping to manage one post without mentioning it, but Braid is an example of a good title. Mysterious, evocative of the game’s subjects and themes. Mysterious — which reminds me of Myst and Riven — simple, clever titles that invite you to investigate and find out what’s behind them.

Half-life, Grand Theft Auto (a name just as good as when Ron Howard used it for a movie thirty-odd years ago), and a handful of other franchises have landed on great titles, but they are the exception to the rule in a market where this week’s big new releases are called Bayonetta and Darksiders. Okay, so neither one of those are particularly egregious, but only by the standard of games. So come on, guys — every time I tell someone what I’m playing, I don’t want to have to follow it up with “I know it sounds stupid, but it’s really fun/interesting/deep….”

Coming soon: 10 Rules for a Good Title.