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That's another weird thing. There hasn't been any game analysis. You'd think that'd be obvious, right? "Here is a game that does some things well and some things not well; here's why they work and how they could be better." Except of course the latter part would be posed as a question.

But they don't do that! I think I've mentioned Extra Credits before (maybe that was on the Other Forum), and their episodes on Journey are exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. They pull off The Monomyth perfectly without any dialogue, which is one thing, but on top of that they clearly have an idea of what they want the player to feel, to get out of the experience, and design around that!

On Journey, and How Bitchin' It Is from a Design Perspective (contains actual spoilers):

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SpoilerJourney was clearly intended to promote a bond between strangers, and they figured out some really clever ways to make the players subconsciously want to bond within the context of the game.

If you stay within hug-range of your partner, you regenerate Scarf. If you sing such that your partner is encompassed, they regenerate Scarf. These two mechanics reinforce the whole idea of camaraderie and, purely from a mechanical standpoint, help you to bond with your partner. You subconsciously create this connection wherein you want to stay close, you want to "talk" and it makes this... Legitimate Emotional Investment. One time a dude sat down in front of an approaching enemy; I figured he was disconnecting, right? Still tried to coax him out of the way. (I ended up getting smacked in the face and partnerless. Serves me right playing at 3AM, I guess.)

These are then modified later on, most notably on the mountain. You start freezing up, right? But staying close still regenerates Scarf faster than the cold can leech it away, so something you've been doing for efficiency throughout the game (assuming you knew it was a thing) become this... huddling for warmth. Literally how I was thinking of it by that point. And then as you ascend, you can't sing as loud. Oh, okay, because the air is thinner, I thought to myself. That was an actual thought I had. But aside from immersion (which, really, I can think of plenty of games that would just forget to do this), it further disincentivizes getting separated, and reinforces the feeling when you fall behind and they can't hear that you've fallen behind. That is a horrifying feel.

A game made me feel feelings. I can't even begin to explain how Holy Shit that was at the time, and how much it really shouldn't be in future.

The short of it: Journey, from a design perspective, is p. f'n bitchin', and people need to be figuring out how they can use existant games to teach how to design games.

The obvious argument is that there aren't really "classic" games which exemplify- no, that's dumb, stop trying to make that argument. The sooner you find games that are even kind of maybe classic-ish, you need to start teaching people about them so that we can have "classics" faster. The whole idea of a "classic" work is kind of dumb on the whole, anyway: it implies some dead guy did everything better than anyone else ever can, has, or will. Basically: film analysis is a thing, lit analysis is a thing, television analysis is a thing; game analysis needs to be a thing.


what's that, this is a games thread

nope sorry too busy bein' mad at academia