Full disclosure: I found myself disappointed with Loved. Perhaps it's because its accompanying material, The Stanley Parable, addresses many of the same concepts (player agency, choice, whiny narrators) in much greater detail and creativity, but I couldn't see anything particularly stunning in Loved’s execution. Not just because of the Stanley comparison, even, but because as a game there's rather little meat to it, diegetically or otherwise.
Miguel Sicart defines the basis of ethical gameplay as moments that require the player to pause and make decisions not through strategy, but through what he terms ludic phronesis, "the practical wisdom that illuminates decision-making processes based on moral arguments in the context of game experiences." He in particular notes the need for morality to be present in ethical choices for them to feel impactful: "the player has to be morally invested in the decisions taken, and there has to be a clear, deep reflection on what the choices are and what do they mean." (104) An ethical game is one that presents an ethical dilemma to the player, one not easily resolved by binary decision-making, one that defies the idea that “games are always solvable.” (108)
With that in mind, how does Loved, a game whose main mechanic and point of appeal is choice itself, hold up? And keep in mind, this is in fact the salient point of the game—the graphics and platforming mechanics, while functional, are nothing to write home about, making the choice component the most appealing to new players. Observe the first choice the player must make: to declare if they are a man or a woman. The resulting choice affects the narrator’s dialogue (and establishes them as a contrarian to the player), but otherwise does not affect the core game world; with no appreciable impact, the player cannot consider its meaning.
The first decision in the game world itself, to jump into the spike pit or not, also falls short. For one thing, it is a binary choice; a rather consequence-free one at that. All death in the game, whether in obedience, disobedience, or otherwise, merely sends the player to their last checkpoint. To disobey the narrator results in the screen’s pixels rapidly changing color from their usual monochrome states, but this does little to change the gameplay experience. The game, in that sense, is always “solvable,” with choice never meaningfully impacting difficulty or options positively or negatively. There is a moral component to the decisions, to be sure, as the narrator grows increasingly pleased or frustrated depending on the player’s obedience, but since their dialogue is largely restricted to terse statements of approval/disapproval, it’s hard to get a gauge on whether or not obedience is the right thing. In other words, the morality of the player’s actions isn’t clear here either. For a game largely about choice, Loved falls short of making those choices meaningful.
Now, in fairness, it is perhaps a stretch to compare Loved’s moral depth to that of a game like The Stanley Parable, which had the resources and (most importantly, in my opinion) voice talent to make memorable moral experiences. Indeed, I didn’t go into this game expecting a complex tale of decisions and self-reflection on the same level. But it bears repeating that moral choice forms the game’s main appeal, the one thing that stands out from its otherwise unremarkable platformer design. I’m left wondering: is this the best that Alexander Ocias could come up with?
I would point to Liz Ryerson’s Problem Attic as a more effective example of moral communication through restricted mechanics. Problem Attic, unlike Loved, is a fairly linear game with little decision-making, but at no point was I unsure of how it wanted me to feel. The game world is an incredibly hostile place, where gameplay often works against the player and clear solutions to levels are rarely within reach. The vague messages of self-loathing and agony throughout can be nebulous, but combined with the aggressive and conflicting game world/mechanics I am left with an indistinguishable sense of anger, an anger that makes the game’s stance against its themes of abuse quite clear. As a moral message, Problem Attic is comparatively strident. Loved is certainly a functional game, and Ocias clearly put some thought into conveying uncommon video game themes, but it lacks the same sort of punch that would make its decision-making worth investing into.
Bibliography:
Sicart, Miguel. "Wicked Games: On the Design of Ethical Gameplay". 2010.
While I agree that the decisions in Loved are largely binary and for the most part do not impact gameplay, there is something to be said about the fact that it is unclear whether or not a player's disobedience is good or bad for the game. I found that to be one of the more interesting parts of playing Loved -- being unsure of whether or not I was supposed to listen to the narrator, reflecting on how his verbal abuse or misleading instructions made me feel, and wondering what ending I was going to achieve. Maybe the point of Loved is the fact that we do not fully understand what message we are supposed to receive, mimicking the confusion…
I really appreciated your discussion and juxtaposition of Loved and Problem Attic, and I must say I can see where you're coming from when you're talking about Problem Attic and say "at no point was I unsure of how it wanted me to feel." When I played the game, the entire time I was immensely frustrated, and from the get go, I realized that this in part could've been an emotion that the game was trying to convey. Yet at the same time though, when looking at it next to Loved, I wonder what we can make about the notion of intentionality with regards to emotions/choice, and when we put this in conversation with the idea of the "end result.…
I think that it is interesting to look at Loved in terms of morality and ethics as that is something I did not think about at all while playing the game. In fact, in my interpretation of the game I'm not sure how relevant ethics are in the decision-making mechanics. I think that playing Loved leaves you, as discussed, wondering why should you care about the choices you make if they don't significantly affect the gameplay. If you die and just start again and again until you don't, then what's the point? I think that in ending the game with this feeling, one is getting at a point that Ocias may be trying to make. I think that the game…
I agree with your criticism of Loved's binary results to disobeying the narrator's orders. The way I interpreted it, there were only three outcomes: An ending where the narrator was obeyed, an ending where where the narrator was disobeyed. I was never compelled to think about why my choices were leading to these outcomes. Going further, I never understood why Loved's narrator should care how I played the game. In The Stanley Parable, the narrator occasionally references how Stanley is just a figment of the narrator's imagination, or how Stanley is entirely daydreaming. In that sense, I gain some structure as to how the game should be approached as a dream-like state where anything is possible. Loved, however, sticks to…
For me, it is exactly what this post phrases as the “consequent-free” nature of choices makes Loved intriguing. Loved gives players limited choices and limited significance in game, but that is in accordance with the abusive/patronizing relationship it tries to present. Also, The Stanley Parable gives players an illusion that they can have control and make choices while it actually wants to show that players do not have choices at all; in this regard, Loved is somewhat the same. The beginning conversation over the player’s gender identity illustrates exactly this: you do not have a choice, and I decide who you are; if you consent to this, then let’s get started. I do not agree that the inconsequential choices i…