“One of the key tasks in designing any digital game is developing good, intuitive controls.” This statement, from Game Design Workshop: A playcentric approach to creating innovative games, is easy to agree with. The advice “to make the controls as effortless as possible,” comes across as a natural principle for designing good games. After all, if the control scheme of a game serves as a bridge between the player and the game— and the goal is to make the game as immersive as possible— shouldn’t all game designers strive to create minimally invasive and seamless control schemes? Shouldn’t the player concentrate on the actual “art” rather than being bogged down by an inhibitory interface?
Well, I suppose then that some game designers just want to watch the world burn.
If one thinks of the control scheme of a game as being a medium between the player and the software that manages the game, then the famed words of the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan— that “the medium is the message”— are absolutely relevant when playing QWOP, a 2008 ragdoll-based indie flash game literally defined by its cumbersome controls. The game itself appears to be quite simple; the goal is to guide the titular protagonist— described as a “small nation’s sole representative at the Olympic Games”— on a short journey 100 meters to the right on a straightforward track, without allowing any part of his body other than his legs to touch the ground. While walking to the right doesn’t immediately come across as an arduous task, the control scheme, which utilizes the Q, W, O, and P keys to control muscle groups in Qwop’s legs in order to propel him forward, is a source of major difficulty. The control scheme specifically work by designating the Q and W keys for manipulating Qwop’s thighs, and leaving the O and P keys for managing his calves. These extremely unfriendly controls don’t allow the player to effortlessly navigate the track, but instead force the player to consciously think about the controls— even for the smallest of movements. Additionally, this control scheme is extremely divorced from how a human actually perceives walking or running, making it exceptionally hard to intuitively grasp.
I think it is safe to assume that Bennett Foddy— the sole game designer and developer of QWOP— might not be a big fan of the advice spouted by the Game Design Workshop textbook. At Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2012 (in a talk titled “The Story Behind QWOP”), Foddy once said that “More than anything else, what [he loves] about making games is griefing the player.” Completely contrary to the notion that players want effortless and friendly controls, Foddy believes that players fundamentally enjoy “being confused,” “humiliated,” and “frustrated” by the game designer. He claims that these desires stem from the nature of “adversarial,” or competitive play. Many multiplayer games and sports are inherently adversarial, and embedded within them are several cultural practices frequently practiced between adversaries, such as trash-talking and humiliation tactics. Foddy claims that even single-player games are fundamentally adversarial, with the player’s main adversary being the developer.
The Olympic setting of QWOP is very appropriate for transmitting adversarial cultural practices from multiplayer venues to the single-player realm and allows Foddy to employ humiliation tactics with a dose of surreal humor. The entire premise of QWOP, that a man who doesn’t know how to even walk fluidly is the only representative that an entire “small” nation has to offer, is quite absurd. This absurdism is littered throughout the short introductory message that greets the player as one starts the game, especially considering that the entire message is written from the perspective of a citizen of this nation. This sets up the stage for the player to be humorously humiliated every time they fail; an entire nation is depending on the player’s success and the player can’t even lift their leg up without falling flat on their face. This humiliation is amplified by the presentation of a patronizing participant’s award every time the player loses.
The sound design and music of QWOP also seem to capitalize on the potential for humiliating the player. The game is normally quite quiet and doesn’t employ any resting ambient music or noise. When a player loses (i.e. one of Qwop’s non-leg limbs came slowly flailing to the ground), either a very audible “crunch” sound effect or a humorously brief male grunt is heard— just to taunt the player. Upon gaining a significant forward velocity, a synth playing a major chord accompanied by intermittent percussion can be heard. While this, in itself, can evoke an epic feeling of progression in the listener, it is contrasted by the visuals of Qwop struggling to take steps forward with the thigh and calf movements that the player inputs. This music can be quite patronizing to the many players who struggle to slowly inch onward with a pathetic crawl. Even for players that manage to make visible strides, the grand music seems to clash with the somewhat pitiful labored steps that Qwop makes in order to navigate through the track.
The game also employs some “dirty tricks” to frustrate the player, apart from simple humiliation. In order to progress meaningfully through the game, players generally stick to rhythmic patterns to carefully propel Qwop forward. This requires a certain level of focus from the player, who, after a certain distance of pressing Q, W, O, and P in a fragile pattern, would be quite ill-suited to adapting to new challenges along this path. This strategy of avoiding adaptation may seem to hold for the first half of the game, but at precisely 50 meters past the starting line, the player encounters their first obstacle.
The mere sight of the hurdle 50 meters into the game may send the player into a panic, causing them to deviate from their rhythm and lose control of Qwop. Even if they manage to keep their balance, the player would not immediately know how to clear this hurdle. They may be inclined to jump over the hurdle through judicious use of the calf muscles, but this would end in failure; Bennett Foddy designed this hurdle to be impossible to jump over. The way to proceed past this hurdle is, like many aspects of this game, somewhat counterintuitive— Qwop can simply knock the hurdle down by walking (or perhaps more realistically, crawling) through it. The main feature of the hurdle was not primarily as a physical obstacle in the game, but rather as a scheme to break the player’s concentration. A similar, but less severe, distraction exists at the end of the track where there is a sign prompting the player to jump; if this sign is able to throw the player off, then they will have to suffer an excruciating defeat a mere meter away from the finish line.
QWOP wasn’t the first game that employed a control scheme that directly manipulated muscle groups; Microsoft Decathlon (1982), a multiplayer game that consists of multiple sporting and athletic events, used controls that allowed for direct manipulation of tricep and shoulder muscles during the shot put event. Though QWOP derives a fair amount of its identity from its control scheme, what distinguishes it from other games is not solely its controls, but also its profound impact on the world. QWOP grew to be virally popular— being played by millions— and, by 2010, it was practically an internet meme. QWOP’s success had a tangible impact on Foddy's future games, such as GIRP (2011) and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (2017). It could even be argued that QWOP normalized the notion of single player games being “adversarial“ in the sense that Foddy describes and may have indirectly contributed to the success of later games such as Dark Souls (2011) and Cuphead (2017).
QWOP ultimately serves as an ode to frustration and humiliation, and perhaps the best way to describe the game can be seen at the bottom of the game’s introductory game. The game “is not about whether you win or lose,” but perhaps rather about whether you were irritated and shamed enough along the way that you actually ended up enjoying it.
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