Showing Not Telling

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”  I happen to agree with Einstein on this (and pretty much everything else).

Looking back on some of my most memorable gaming experiences over the years I have noticed a few trends.  I have noticed that, in order for a game to resonate with me I need to be provided with some kind of mystery.  I need the ability to engage with it to be able to look, analyse and postulate on my experience if I so desire.

For me there is no better example than Silent Hill 2.  The story and the characters are never laid out. On the surface you get the gist of who they are, which is important – however the implicit details are where I come in.  The onus is then on me to use that information to make sense of the game’s world and characters.  It is here that the game can become a more personal experience.  The character’s stories aren’t forced upon me but from my own observations and life experiences I can fill in the blanks. A dialogue if you will.

Another benefit to this kind of game is the discourse it makes possible with other people who have played it.  Late last year I made the time to play through Silent Hill 2 with a friend (via Skype) and, let’s just say I’m glad I wasn’t footing the bill for that international call.  Needless to say we went on and on ‘til the small hours, waxing lyrical over each aspect of the game.  That back and forth was only doable because it is presented in such a way that it welcomes it.  We concurred at some points and drew some radically different conclusions from others.  This wouldn’t have been possible had the game tied the story up in a nice, tidy bow (like the film did, but that’s another story).  It left elements of the game open to interpretation.

A much less character-driven game, Demon’s Souls, did something similar and that was to convey the story and world through art.  At times the game world may feel for some as if it’s being intentionally evasive by not conforming to standard storytelling methods.  At no point is it easily discernible who you are, where you are, in what time or in what world.  What you do know is understood by looking at the world.  Demon’s Souls manages to be simultaneously vague but also convey effectively the mood and atmosphere of the world.  This is a really powerful form of expression especially in videogames because unlike other mediums, games are interactive.

I am looking forward to the likes of The Last Guardian and Dark Souls, however I am also very excited to see art being used in new and more interesting ways.  Ninja Theory did a wonderful job in creating the lush and evocative world of Enslaved as well as the ludicrously detailed characters of Monkey and Trip.  They conveyed the history of the environment and characters by giving me all the visual information I needed to understand the state of the world. I was able to make well informed assumptions but never expressly told.

It is this convergence of styles I look forward to seeing more of in the future.  In the right hands, whole worlds can be realised, stories can be told and people’s imaginations can be captured.  So before those aforementioned games are released later this year I strongly advise a play through of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West to see if you feel the same way I do.

The rest of that quote: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” Which I first came across in the Silent Hill 2 Bonus Disc.