Video Game Spaces

“As far as I remember, I found myself, as I walked into the open, bright, and cheerful street, in a romantically adventurous state of mind, which pleased me… Everything I saw made upon me an impression of friendliness, goodness and youth. I quickly forgot that up in my room I had only just a moment before been brooding gloomily over a blank sheet of paper." — Robert Walser's "The Walk" (1917)

I have such a love for wandering around, even in those depraved evil cities that allow beasts (automobiles) inside their sacred walls. Whenever I visit a new place, it’s hard for me to think of anything to do other than to start exploring everything in sight that interests me. But so rarely do I even get a hint of this feeling whenever I play video games touted as “fun to explore.”

I have to state again that I do not make games, and I don’t know anything about level design. But whenever I think of my favorite spaces to explore, both real and imagined, I find that the common thread between them is that they foster a sort of relaxed contemplation of them. Cities with so many alleys and pathways that to not go in circles becomes an active effort, villages filled with so many interesting characters that it’s impossible to go for a walk and not be pulled into their orbit. I’m not doing a good job describing this, but there’s something really special about exploring spaces that we lose in the endless quest for bigger and more detailed locales. I don’t want to say that they “demand” our attention, but it is impossible to not explore and feel your attention being pulled at in so many ways. I have to imagine that if you’re wandering around and your brain is not filled with a million questions regarding the space, then you’re doing it wrong.

I spent four years at the university where I graduated not long ago.  You would think I am thoroughly familiar with the campus of my own alma mater.  But in truth there are facilities there I would not be able to give you directions to because I never had the occasions to make use of them. If you asked me what our business school building looks like inside you would only get a blank stare from me.  In four years I was never in it.  I would bet most people have similar memories. That is, they develop a routine and as a result remain surprisingly ignorant about some fixtures in their lives.  They may only frequent certain parts of their hometown so that they feel like strangers in a foreign country when they venture beyond them.  Or, when asked the name of the middle school they have driven by every day for ten years, they may realize with a start that they never learned it.  You get the idea.  But the castle is an entirely different story.  I have spent only a few hours "inside" it.  Yet its memory is vividness itself.  I know it like the back of my hand.  How is that?  Well, I have been everywhere in it.  I have been to, and have had to contend with,every chamber, tower, bridge, courtyard and weather-beaten cliff. I left no stone unturned.  The game would not let me proceed otherwise.

The castle from ICO is permanently etched into my brain, and probably for everyone who’s played it. I find myself thinking over and over again to the windmill (big surprise) and just how much time I spent walking around and jumping into the water. A huge part of that I think is that the castle is its own character, one that is built without the character’s freedom in mind. I think that when most people talk of exploration in video games, it usually sounds instead like a demand for a completely unobstructed freedom of access which I find completely boring. I think it’s this complete subservience to the player that makes these spaces bland, they were not built for anyone but the player and the artificiality of these spaces becomes harder and harder to ignore.

Rather, it’s the virtual spaces that indicate that there was an intention beyond just the player that I find most interesting. This “intention” is obviously manufactured, but I don’t see any reason it should be less of a priority than any given aspect of world design. It’s baffling to me that games seem fine to let a player get to a waypoint in the most efficient way possible without requiring the slightest bit of contemplation. That in practically every video game you can look at your minimap and just run forward and for the most part nothing will happen. My favorite part of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games is trying to get to my objective and an anomaly sending me in the air and tearing my body apart, or a bloodsucker sneaking up on me in a village at night. You should be forced to find out for yourself the most efficient way to get to a location, and for video games to shy away from this basic demand is to completely give up on making a realized space.

I don’t want games to be harder or to demand any more attention than the player is ready to give, but there has to be some space for tension within the world. Areas that ask something of the player, and that something doesn’t have to be particularly difficult. These can range from learning to deal with the particular weather of the environment or what enemies will be active during certain hours, anything that lets the player interact with the environment and figure out for themselves the best way forward. There isn’t a city on earth whose shortcuts and paths will be known to a visitor unless they go out there and find them.