Learning of A Videogame Language: Metagaming and Mods

The interesting modifications and metagames classified in this week’s theme are evidence to me that the creators of game modifications or even metagames are developing a way to converse with the original creators. Let’s assume that each game that one is able to play is a language. The game can be considered analogous to some sort of school where the player needs to learn how to play it and navigate its mechanics. Although play can show understanding and a sense of “verbal” communication with the game, the ability of a player to create a metagame or modification based on the original game can be seen analogous to writing a novel. Playing and manipulating mechanics in a game may be a simple way of “speaking.” However, the creators of metagames and mods that emulate an already existing metagame achieve a much deeper ability to communicate to the creators or other players about the language of a particular game.

For example, Breaksout takes the simple format of Breakout and creates 30+ iterations of what it may be like to play the game if it had different themes. For example, Breakout is presented as a glitchy in Freakout with blocks randomly disappearing and appearing in places that they should not be present. Koutbrea explores what the game might be like if there were no walls and the block/platform were able to circle back around to the other screen. Ballout has the game play for you, Eke out has smaller blocks eliminated at each hit making the game harder, and Tragic Breakout creates a memorial for each block that is eliminated. The breadth and variety of modifications signals to the way Pippin Barr satirizes and play with the idea of such a simple game. Taking the game and modifying shows a command of the videogame language. After all, our command of language is usually assessed in classes by our ability to come up with new ideas from text or other media and write about them. In a way, our essays are almost like metagames.

The meta/mod games represent the original game and the context in which it was created. Separation from this is not possible, only a reaction or interpretation to these context is possible. Boluk and LeMieux discuss how the metagame “does not merely signify the games we play within and around videogames, but extends to include specific historical, gendered, classed, raced, and embodied conditions of play that can never be ignored and are in fact essential to play” (p. 59). The theme and early gaming styles of Breakout cannot be separated from Breaksout even though there are many other ways to play Breaksout. Instead, this mod just seems to comment on how many more ways the game could be constructed and how far technology has come while still using the simple language of Breakout that is centered in a more restricted, simple technological era.