you know what vidgam thing I think about a lot
how come two dev companies can basically do the same exact thing but one feels amazing and one feels so much like garbage that you wouldn’t be shocked to learn they were a mafia money laundering plant
why doesn’t all motion in videogames feel incredible. Does not everyone feel limited by their pitiful meat husk? Just me?
(This stream-of-consciousness psych-horror Viewmaster reel brought to you by Luksusowa genuine Polish potato vodka)
Why would anyone work multiple (more than one!) hours on a locomotion scheme for their game and not try to make it feel the way they’ve always wanted to feel, like movement itself was a joy
I don’t dream because my brain is broken but I am given to understand that the Flight Dream is a common recurrence for people. Dreaming of being untethered from gravity’s slavering maw, soaring unfettered over the earth with ease
I don’t dream often, maybe once a year. My brain doesn’t work the way yours does and please, understand that that cannot be further from a brag. I am lording nothing. I am a shattered homunculus created as an attempt to combat God.
My brain doesn’t work right, and so I don’t dream often, but when I do, and it’s a movement dream, I don’t fly. Flying is too smooth, like a drop of coffee in a glass of milk.
I slide. It’s like ice skating, but I’ve never done that and I presume in reality it feels much different from how my inexperienced mind guesses it would be. It’s like omnidirectional rollerskates. there is a push, and weight, and then… friction dissolves. Motion is smooth and slick. Speed isn’t won with tooth and claw like a racing game, with screaming engines and screeching rubber. Speed is collected; it gathers at the bow, like a ship sailing through custard, piling up as I carve through space. Gliding is the most natural motion. This is what kind of game I would make. Flying has no friction. the freedom is too free.
The last game that really made me feel something with its movement was Steep. I only played the demo but it really made an impression.
I’m not saying that it’s a copmletely rad game from head to toe and that everything about it is perfect
But when I was playing it, I was able to go to the top of a high mountain and just slide down it for a very, very long time, in a way where weight felt like it had meaning. Subtle shifting of weight made a difference in where on the slope I went, and it really helped pull me into the feeling of sliding down this snowy mountain on a piece of wood. The lay of the snow ahead of me made a difference in how my board would react. The texture itself of the landscape was the playing field, not some built obstacle course. I slid down a mountain for some 20 minutes straight and the world around me dissolved. All there was was this mountain and this snow and my board, and I shifted my weight and the board responded. The board slid through the snow and the snow relented. All of this had feeling and texture and weight.
I forgot everything.
Just snow. Just me. Just sliding.
It was enough. I didn’t need a speedometer or a map. I didn’t need other people to measure up against. All I wanted to do was slide down that mountain, and feel it. And the game said “yeah, I get that. here you go, have a good time…” I did.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was Perfect. It was the distilled moment of movement that I’ve sought all my life. I’ve found it in other places, mind, this is not worship. But it has been far too long since a game has been able to reach that level of fidelity.
I know we’re supposed to be all “every game sucks, games are stupid and we only like games because everything else is even worse” around here, but… Even despite everything, this game spoke my language and offered me what others couldn’t be arsed to.
So in a sort of longwinded, roundabout way, I guess the takeaway Videogame Thing I Think About a Lot here is that, even though what I look for in games isn’t as common as I would like, it’s not dead. If I look in the right places (and sometimes that even includes AAA!), I can still find the sorts of things that got me into all of this in the first place, and that gives me hope.
Maybe someday, somewhere, someone with a better mind than mine for game development will make a game not for money, not for sales, but because they want to FEEL what their soul has been chasing for so long. And just maybe their brain might be broken in the same way as mine, and they’ll make something that will let me feel the things I’ve been looking for for so long. Because in gaming, we have such a unique opportunity. Never before in the history of humanity have we been able to craft with such clarity a space that feels so close to reality. And that reality can be anything of our choosing! All we have to do is to dream the right dreams.
I might be a little too drunk. sorry.
