The World Within, Beyond, and Around the Game

When I was little and had the special treat of visiting my best friend’s house, we would play Wii games late into the night, often foregoing the original narratives the game expected of us and instead attempting to reach the hidden corners of each page. I distinctly remember flying the plane into the Wii Summer Sports volcano and finding a small blurb of information left for us down near the lava. The thrill of discovering something that was left there secretly for a curious player was one I couldn’t get enough of. My friend and I would race off the road of Mario Kart tracks in attempts to find secret passageways and small shortcuts within the walls of whatever dungeon or ski resort we were driving through. Though I loved playing Wii as a child and discovering the worlds within the games I was playing, I haven’t been much of a gamer in the years since, preferring to watch films and read instead of playing games. However, with my recent interaction with class material and the incredible New York Times Op-Doc called Hardly Working, my curiosity in the worlds of video games has been reignited.

Hardly Working follows 4 nonplayer characters (NPCs) around the game Red Dead Redemption 2 for a few days, tracking their movement, narrative arc, and routines. While watching the documentary, I was continuously struck by the momentous effort and attention to detail that the creators dedicated to building the game. These 4 NPCs show a complex side narrative of life in the Wild West that has nothing to do with the linear plot of the game, but who serve to simply further bolster the richness of the experience and world. It reminded me of the in class discussions that we have had about the processes of creating a digital artifact and representation. Specifically, how there are coders who decide the rules of the world and of each character, but it’s the computer that actually turns their efforts into a viewable and playable representation. These players are coded to perform specific actions over and over again in a series of code with some if:then sequences – such as how their behavior changes when it begins to rain – that are supposed to run in the background of the game. These moments prove that each character’s code isn’t just a small amount of movement, they are actual narratives and stories with emotion, choices, consequences, and beyond just that idea, these stories reminded me that there can be multiple forms of rhetoric in any one form of media, and this game had many variations.

The stablehand walks around the farm aimlessly, hammering things, moving hay, making soup, drinking 3 sips of beer, and standing in fields.

Visually, the world is artistically rendered to look like the Wild West, its NPCs dressed as farm and town workers, carpenters, and citizens of the well flushed out and animated town. It’s a persuasive and immersive environment that further supports the characters’ side stories as they wander the hidden alleys at night, ‘build’ things on the dock (that never grow or get smaller), and stumble drunkenly from the bar to the stables. The repetitive audio bits that come from the bar combine with background music and bells to create another persuasive aspect of the immersive world. All of these elements make the NPCs’ storylines more fleshed out, but also highlight the monotony of the work and manage to make subtle comments about the repetitive aspect of working under capitalism. The characters hardly glitch, hardly break their routine, and hardly ever notice the player who is recording them – but in the few small instances they do, it’s as if a lightning rod hits the viewer, pulling them suddenly out of their role as a player and instead into the lives of these NPCs. In glitched moments, like when the carpenter looks directly into our eyes, these characters become rounded, human-esque beings in a display of narrative and storytelling. 

This documentary was deeply intriguing as a study of both impressive video game storytelling design and as a representation of humanity. Each character’s story had some kind of arc or challenge that had nothing to do with the plot of the game, and it is assumed that the many other NPCs in the game all had their own storylines too. This is just one game that balances the very present, but background, animated film media with playable procedures in a game of progression through numerous predetermined storylines. I am really looking forward to continuing my exploration of side characters, places, quests, and the limits of a game when playing LOTRO. The more I learn about games, the more impressed and in awe I become with their complexity and the immensity of creating a playable, immersive world simply from 1s and 0s. 

-Mariah

Sources:

• in class discussions and NYT Op-Doc Hardly Working

How Diffusing Bombs Can Help Your Communication

Growing up, I was not unfamiliar with the idea of video games. When I was in elementary school, my older cousin came to town and he taught me and my family how to play Mario Cart on our family’s new Wii console. This opened up a new and fantastic world for me and my younger sibling. We spent hours playing that game competing to be the ultimate champion. From there, Wii games such as Wii Party’s Board Game Island and Wii Sports tournaments became a staple for our family game nights and quality time spent with my sibling. However, when my peers at school would talk about video games, I always thought to myself I’m not a gamer.

Mario Kart Wii game

I held onto this mentality adamantly, and when I started dating my boyfriend, about a year and a half ago, I was slightly resistant to expanding my repertoire of video games since I never associated myself with “gamer culture.” He introduced me to a variety of games including Minecraft,  Brawlhalla, and Rocket League. I have enjoyed learning all of these games, but my very favorite game that we have played together is called Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. This game is centered around effective communication with the main goal of the two players being to diffuse a bomb riddled with puzzles. This sounds like an easy enough task, but the catch is that the players have to find a way to speak the same language. One (or multiple) players has a bomb diffusal manual while the other has the computer that displays the bomb and the puzzles. The most challenging rule of the game is that players may not look at each other’s setups, so the player on the manual cannot see the bomb and the player looking at the bomb cannot see the instructions for completing the puzzles necessary to diffuse the bomb. The players must find a way to use descriptive language and develop their own communication style in order to succeed. This is why Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a game that is ideal for developing and strengthening communication skills that can benefit those who play in many different aspects of life. 

Trailer for Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes 

There are seven different sections of the game and various amounts of levels in each section. These levels and sections include many different puzzles and challenges including different amounts of time provided. The game gets progressively more challenging as players beat the levels. Here, I will focus on three specific puzzles that improve and challenge players’ communication skills in a variety of different ways.

One of the most common first puzzles to solve in section one of the game is called “Wires.” In this puzzle, the person who sees the bomb displayed sees a grouping of colored wires, and the person with the manual must ask them a series of questions that ultimately leads them to figure out which wire they need to cut. This particular puzzle challenges players to figure out which questions to ask and in what order to ensure that the right wire is cut. The manual displays a series of statements such as “If there are no red wires, cut the last wire,” and these phrases must be transformed from statements into questions that can guide the players in figuring out what wire to cut. Simply stating the words from the manual can result in confusion, and I have found great success in asking a series of questions such as “are there any red wires?” While figuring out what wire to cut in order to not explode a bomb is not a skill often used outside of the context of this game, the skill of what questions to ask and in what order, in order to come to a common understanding, is a skill that is necessary for many professions and in everyday conversations. 

“Wires” Page from the Bomb Diffusal Manual 

Another puzzle seen during a fairly early stage of the game is called “Keypads.” This puzzle is challenging because the players must figure out how to describe symbols of varying complexities to one another to determine the order in which buttons must be pressed. The symbols may resemble something familiar such as an upside-down question mark or be something altogether new. Regardless of the familiarity of the symbol, the players begin to develop a common language by learning that “the weird symbol with the line and the triangle” means a particular figure that appears in different iterations of this particular puzzle. I have found that the communication skills and seemingly new language developed through completing this puzzle at different stages of the game extend beyond the game of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. There is a new connection between players of this game, and I firmly believe that communication skills developed in the context of the game are useful when describing other objects or daily events to one another. 

“Keypads” Page from the Bomb Diffusal Manual 

In the later sections of the game a puzzle called “Morse Code” starts to appear. This puzzle is by far the most challenging for me and my boyfriend since using Morse Code is a skill that very few individuals our age possess. Determining when the message starts, when the flashes of the code are long or short, and when spaces between letters exist are all challenging factors, not to mention the impending doom of time passing and the bomb potentially exploding. It is on this puzzle, that we have had many bombs explode on us right before we have cracked the code. While Morse Code may seem like an irrelevant skill for people to possess in their everyday lives, digging down and finding the perseverance to try again when you have messed up perceiving the quick flashes of the code is a skill that can be applied in frustrating situations that we encounter daily. There can also be benefits to going with your gut and making an educated guess in this puzzle. When you have less than five seconds left until the bomb explodes and you only have a letter or two of the code figured out, looking at the manual and telling your partner in the game to try something can sometimes lead to great success. This is a valuable skill since it can be challenging to trust your gut and take a risk in a stressful situation. 

“Morse Code” Page from the Bomb Diffusal Manual 

This was by no means a comprehensive description of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes nor did I describe all of the ways that this game can improve and assist the communication of those who play it, but I sincerely hope that I have convinced you to give this game a try. Maybe diffusing a bomb will help bring you and a loved one closer…you never know! 

Full Bomb Defusal Manual: https://www.bombmanual.com/print/KeepTalkingAndNobodyExplodes-BombDefusalManual-v1.pdf

-Emily