Save the Date is the first game where I have been content to leave a game in an unfinished state. This in direct contrast to the other games we have played for class. I still come back to games like Return of the Obra Dinnbecause I did not have enough time to finish the game for class. Save The Date’s insistence on forcing the player to reconsider their motivation for continually re-playing the game. I have always approached games as a puzzle, with a single way to get to a certain ending, and there is a reward for reaching it. Instead of offering a reward, Save the Date becomes a maze with no path to the ending, and my experience felt like trying to draw the same path over and over again.
When Felicia asks the player, “Are you really just waiting for the game to pat you on the head, and say ‘Well done, you finally did the right thing?’” I felt stunned. I thought that games were meant to have an ending that I could reach. Instead, Felicia follows it up with telling the me to think up my own ending to the story. I would like to say that I immediately decided to stop playing the game and accept the game’s apparent ending. Instead, I continued going through the different paths and tried to find some new opening that would save Felicia.
I categorize this internal conflict as a belonging to the “games without games” metagame. This game forces me to abandon the game and forge my own video game without any guidance over how to proceed. What surprised me, though, is how the game succeeded in getting me to stop trying to find a “true” ending. I had plenty of time in my personal schedule, so I did not stop just because I had to focus on my next assignment. Instead, the game’s insistence that a game does not need an ending served its purpose well enough for me.
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