Hoping and coping

The prospect of failure is familiar to most individuals. Failing, retrying, overcoming or quitting -- so goes the typical narrative of any persons whose attempts at life are their first. Gamers, however, arguably experience this cycle in many iterations and many perspectives. Games are a veiled formulation of the cycle mentioned above, each with differing and exciting variations, but never truly original (never truly separate from the life we know).

When a gamer (in the loosest definition: an individual who has played games to the point whereby they willingly identify as one) begins a game, the conventional expectation is that challenges are meant to be overcome; that their destiny is manifest in a narrative of overcoming. The dominant form of games have historically been vested with a victorious narrative, an accumulation based system, unlocking mechanisms, leveling progressions, and other such processes by which challenges are overcome and self-actualization simulated. Iterations of failure in Metroid and Super Mario do not spell insurmountable obstacles, as iterations of failure in ranked games of Warcraft or Starcraft do not mark a full stop on a player's career. Absolute failure seems a mythical creature that cannot be properly acquainted to gamers: it is only presented through impossibilities as set by the form of the game, or through personal standards that in retrospect render certain instances absolute failures.

Absolute failure is not a concept individuals -- gamer or not -- are accustomed to accept. Impossibility, on the other hand, is one we readily accept. If impossibility marks a despairing sentiment that is prospective, an absolute failure marks the other end: it is retrospective. To say that something is impossible is to feel at full force the unrelenting opposition of circumstances against our intent. To say that something is an absolute failure is to assess in retrospect that what has happened happened with unrelenting opposition against our intent. Failures, then, are corpses of failed experiments, and impossibilities untouched subjects. But seldom do we accept that our failures are absolute. The process of retrospection allows for many instances of recovery: we retrieve meaning, takeaways, lessons, successes in each iterated attempts that led to failures.

Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment (referred to as LPAGP) and Spent enter the conversation as the concepts of absolute failures and impossibilities take shape. LPAGP pits the players in five situations wherein each sprite is pitted in infinite torment. The game itself prevents any formal success -- as each iteration of smashing G and H keys is met with hopelessness, LPAGP seems to establish itself as a game about failure. However, LPAGP is a game rooted in impossibility. More specifically, an understanding of the mythical context of LPAGP and its demonstrated gameplay will reveal itself to players as a game that is formally impossible to overcome. Hence, "failures" experienced in LPAGP are in reality "impossibilities" as determined by formal circumstances. With impossibility verified, LPAGP should theoretically no longer deliver to its players a sense of failure; of personal accountability. However, with each iteration I diversified the cadence of my G H inputs, hoping to proceed through insurmountable obstacles. Failure was defined by an individual standard that urged me to perform specific actions in specific contexts. Whether formal impossibilities permitted such actions or not were no longer important: the affective aspect of gameplay was what dictated the retrospective assessment of my LPAGP gameplay.

Spent offered a seemingly formal contrast to LPAGP: it was a game that could be ultimately beaten. It did not possess any objective impossibilities inhibiting the player from getting through the month, but posed many affective dilemmas that rendered it almost impossible to exempt players from a sense of "failure". It pitted players against situations with torturous trade-offs and had them constantly incur subjective failures that could not be justified by a simple attribution to formal impossibility. Whereas in LPAGP I could say, "the game doesn't allow me to do that", in Spent I couldn't. All I could say was, "I have to get through the month", or "I want my mom to be healthy" as I incurred one financial/affective failure after another.

There isn't a clear and concise point to this post. If there were one, it would be that both games made me wonder which circumstances I reluctantly preferred. I found solace in knowing that LPAGP was not meant to be beat, and that my subjective failures were only the offspring of my standards. The frustration and resentment towards an impossible outcome in LPAGP, however, offset that comfort. I found a tint of hope knowing that Spent could be beaten, and that my choices do matter. The guilt and anxiety that followed each decisive click, however, offset that hopeful sentiment. Whether it be coping with the impossibility of beating LPAGP or making my family happy as I proceeded with excess cash in Spent, or hoping to beat LPAGP and make my family happy as I proceeded with excess cash in Spent, hoping and coping emerged at various points of both games. Tying all of this back to the earlier part of the post (in a desperate attempt to give the post have some closure at 5am in the morning), "Games are a veiled formulation of the cycle mentioned above, each with differing and exciting variations, but never truly original (never truly separate from the life we know)" perhaps these small and seemingly insignificant experiences offered to us by games can effectively help us hope and cope through our first attempts at life.