Spent: Failure Done Right

I think that most casual gamers would agree that videogames are about winning. This is most applicable to competitive multiplayer games like Halo or Mario Kart, but there is also a great deal of satisfaction in "winning" through progress or achievement in single player games (Super Mario, for example). This means that when you come across a game that is about losing-- a "No Win" game-- it stands out from the rest of the pack. I was particularly interested in two of the "No Win" games that we played this week-- Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment and Spent. While both games present a scenario that cannot be overcome, they engage the player in very different ways.

From the start, Let's Play hides nothing from the player. Whether or not you have studied Greek mythology, it's probably fair to say that most people have at least come across the name Sisyphus. Each of the mini-games created by Pippin Barr is backed by the player's prior knowledge-- that the tasks you are asked to perform are by definition impossible. No matter how many times you mash the "G" and "H" keys, you are not going to get the boulder up the hill. After coming to terms with this, you have no choice but to close the tab, left with only the frustration of being mocked by the game. You cannot win.

On the other hand, Spent appeals to our own arrogance. It makes no claim to be impossible, and instead challenges us to win:

"You'd never need help, right?"

We play the game because we think that we can win. I probably played it five times in a row, just because I refused to accept my inability to succeed. We think that we have the intelligence, the planning skills, the understanding necessary to pull ourselves out of virtual poverty. But we fail. As many times as we play, we fail. However, this failure does not mock the player. Unlike Let's Play, Spent does not make the player frustrated with the game, but rather with themselves. The game is not unreasonable, nor unrealistic. It backs up every scenario that you face with a short blurb or statistic about poverty in America. These interjections serve to not only make the point of the game clear, but also to remind the player that while the game may be unfair, its object is not deception. Instead, it is the player who has deceived themselves, believing that they were entitled to fairness from the beginning. So while Let's Play gives you carpal tunnel and a headache, Spent raises an issue of perspective, and fairness. This means that Spent is more fair to the player, though neither game is truly fair. But of course, neither is life.