The renaissance of the pure form video games

These are great times to be an indie game developer.

Angry Birds is probably the most played game of 2010 and every-other person is now a gamer, thanks to the proliferation of casual game devices such as the iOS and Android’s.

These platforms, with their low-risk barrier to software development, allow independent game developers to experiment, to try things that a big software house wouldn’t, in fear of losing millions in investments.

And we, gamers, are receiving the benefits of such experimentation: from art-like games that emphasis experience and emotion to the merge of gaming with other media creations, like music or visual design (like the game Auditorium). This rich diversity leads to innovation in game design.

Some of this new wave of games challenge the traditional structure of story and others challenge the concept of gaming itself (see Today I Die), while asks the question: Why do we play video games and what makes video games a distinct medium?

An interesting result of this low-barrier to game development is the proliferation and increase of popularity on what is called “retro-games”, made in the fashion of “8-bit”, “16-bit” or “32-bit” games popular over 15 years ago, during the first to fourth generation of video game consoles.

It is possible, and highly likely, that this is in part due to a nostalgia factor: most of the game developers, and players, of these games grew up playing on their SNES, Genesis or similar gaming console and the “bit-era” games brings back fond memories.

But I believe that this is also a response to the general trend of a gaming culture that started in the 90s: a pursuit of graphical realism and traditional story narrative in detriment of what makes a video game an unique medium and art form.

This reminds me of what happened in the Comic Book industry a few years ago, when it started to rebrand itself Graphic Novels or Sequential Art (apologies to Will Eisner). The truth is that not all Comic Books are Graphic Novels but every Graphic Novel is a Comic Book.

This need to disguise themselves as a “superior medium”, like literature, disappeared when the medium became as powerful, or more, that those it looked up to. It is a maturation process that has happened with every new form of media: to battle the shadow of it’s ancestry.

Nowadays most movies are adaptations of comic books and video games outsell movie DVDs. These are industries that are mature enough to come out of the “media” closet.

And as such, video games are starting to abandon the need to boast “life-like graphics or “novel-like stories” and begin to think about what makes them an unique form of entertainment. And this begins with a return to its roots.

The simplicity of the 8 or 16-bit era in game design made them the most identifiable, be it in sound or graphics. If we take a look at the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World the video game references are easily identifiable because they are all inspired by video games made in this era (Super Mario, Mega Man, etc). In music we have the genre “chiptune” that mimics the sound chips of video game consoles made from the early 80s until the mid 90s. 8 Bit Weapon and Anamanaguchi are good examples of this genre.

In terms of gameplay, this return to roots is represented in a simplicity of mechanics and controls, where the user has a very limited selection of actions (move left and right, jump and, maybe, shoot), and the narrative is divided in different levels that need to be restarted if the player loses. The Platform genre is the ideal representation of this, but other genres like “space shooters”, racing or maze games can also be evocative of this “retro”, distinct video game feel.

Another characteristic of these new-old video games is its difficulty. In an effort to increase video game popularity, video games’ difficult level was increasingly lowered until a video game was much less of a challenge and more of a passive activity with a few decisions along the way. (In Final Fantasy, for instance, and particularly in the latter titles, most of the interactivity between player and video game was reduce to navigate the player-character between point A to point B in order to start a new CGI cutscene. The few battles in between, other than the “boss battles” were hardly challenging and are there mostly for XP. The game experience is more akin to watching a movie or reading a book, with a linear narrative and fixed ending).

Part of the experience of playing one of these “video-game video games” is to achieve the satisfaction of finishing a particularly difficult level. The game Super Meat Boy, that perfectly exemplifies this trend, was in fact critically acclaim for its difficulty levels, winning the IGN’s Best of 2010 “Most Challenging Game” award. The game rewards dedication, attention and reflexes. It’s an active engagement between player and game that’s completely unique to the art form.

I believe that this trend of “bit-era” games will eventually pass or be replaced with something else, but what will remain will be one step closer to a definition of what makes for a pure video game as the representation of the medium. With the industry reaching it’s adulthood, it will learn what its true identity is and if it’s more Pac-Man and Super Mario or Crysis 2 and Final Fantasy XIII¹.