Spelunky

Picked up this game thanks to an impassioned write-up at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, that pack of Brits tend to have sharp eyes and good taste when it comes to indie stuff. It's a roguelike mixed with a platformer and the results are fantastic. If there were a prize for games like this it would be "Outstanding Achievement In Getting Me To Play Just One More Game Even Though I Really Need To Get Some Work Done." I'd pepper this with explanatory text but the game is free to download so just go try it. I've also decided on an official scoring policy for these kinds of games.

If you're not going to charge people for your game, I'm not going to belittle you with a score.

In other news, blar blar blar studying blar blar. Ben Abraham's comment on the dream thing has reminded me of a problem that has been gnawing at me for a while now: I haven't got any proof. That's not to say that I think I'm wrong, but rather acknowledge that generally speaking I'm willing to believe a lot of really weird metaphysical stuff that most people aren't. I'll have to think of a new approach for the ending that quits worrying about being the answer and tries to explain the question a bit better.

And finally, methinks I owe CLINT HOCKING and the folks at Ubisoft a beer. When I posted that FC2 post I figured I'd get some arguing about the ending (check) and then it'd slip away since the game had such a mixed cultural reaction. Looking at the wall stats though and I think it's safe to say it's the most viewed thing I've ever written for Popmatters. Which is both awesome (it's a damn good game) and depressing, because it just confirms that I have no idea which thing I write is going to be popular.

Like trying to get a particular color of gum ball out of a quarter machine.

Video Games and Dreams - 3

In the last essay I tried to establish a connection between the overall experience of a dream to the overall experience of a video game. Using the term mandala as an all-encompassing unity of design, visuals, plot, controls, etc., the argument was that our relationship with both activities has numerous overlaps. Since both are dealing heavily with the unconscious, there isn’t much concrete to point to but it was worth the effort. The more conscious aspect of these mandalic experiences are built out of archetypes. Like game designs, an archetype is a formless system or structure that induces a predictable behavior in a person.

The universal nature of archetypes is the reason that absorbing an artificial or dream from another person is potentially beneficial. Jeremy Taylor, the dream therapist whose work was mentioned in Part 2, explains, “The language of the dream is our original native tongue, a common language shared by all human beings…this universal, cross-cultural, common language of the dream is also shared by the world’s mythology and religious texts and rituals.” Jung referred to them as the permanent remnants of evolution past in our unconscious. Religions are often filled with them such as characters who sacrifice themselves for the greater good or Kings who use their power for selfish reasons. They do this because they induce a typical reaction in people, something that becomes much more noticeable in dreams because it is the person themselves behaving. As Joseph Campbell once commented, “A myth is a public dream and a dream is a private myth.”



How do people relate to archetypes in dream work? Although Taylor describes several methods for group dream therapy, the main technique is to have everyone go around describing their dream then have people respond. Each person then describes what they would think the dream was saying if they themselves experienced it. Hearing the rephrasing of the dream will often allow a person to experience a personal breakthrough or the undoing of a repressed memory. Selective amnesia is typically a defense mechanism used by your brain to help you get over traumatic events. Constantly thinking about and remembering abuse or trauma inhibits growth and makes living difficult, so your brain simply covers it up. Although generally healthy, in childhood the amnesia defense gets problematic because the corrective forgetting and behavior adopted often no longer works when you’re an adult. Fighting back against bullies may be necessary at some point, but learning that not everyone is a threat is important as well. Over-compensating for insecurity induced by trauma is necessary for healing, but it becomes problematic once the person has matured and is still behaving in the same manner.

A great deal of these cases involve sexual abuse, which is sadly more prevalent in our society than anyone will ever admit, but it can apply to pretty much anything. A woman shared a dream about a giant balloon animals filled with water while cowboys rode them, always about to fall over on a fence that will make them pop. She personally felt the dream was cute and playful so she had everyone act it out in the group. As everyone assumed the positions however it became obvious that there were extreme sexual overtones and repressed memories at work. The surprising thing was that experiencing the dream and seeing the subject’s shock at realizing the truth ended up unlocking repressed issues for other people in the group. The fragility of the balloons and their precarious situation, the cowboys riding them, the spiky fence are all archetypes generating this shared experience.

Another dream involved archetypes that were about transformation. A woman dreamt a large demon demanded she sacrifice her daughter to it. The dream had been about patriarchs, men forcing her to do things, and the demon was another manifestation of that. She fought the demon, only to discover that it was turning into her father. Taylor calls this the Willing Sacrifice archetype, breaking out of the trance of fear and submission to change the force that govern us. Although the dominating archetype changed form several times in the dream, from cop to professor to demon to father, it remained in essence the excess control men had in her life. The child, though connecting to her daughter, also has an archetypal meaning for people. It is the “as-yet-unrealized creative energies and possibilities” of a person, the part of the woman that wishes to grow beyond these dominant forces.

Another key element to working with archetypes is that their meanings come in layers. The child in the previous dream was on some levels her daughter, another her hope for growth, yet another a creative idea, and on some levels it was just the stress from that day. I don’t think there could ever be authorial control of the meaning of an archetype, the person engaging with it reflects on the experience and generates that meaning themselves. While their behavior may be instinctual and predictable, the ultimate message is still going to be all their own as they discover things about themselves.



In terms of video games, I’m not sure many people expect to uncover trauma by blasting through an FPS, but the archetypes at work can still generate reflection about ourselves in a safe and non-threatening manner. A griefer, presuming they ever pause to wonder why they like to mess with people so much in games, might stumble on a self-reflection they otherwise would not. A person who takes games way, way too seriously might do likewise when they stop and wonder why they feel the need to be in control so much. Taylor justifies this self-discovery by explaining, “These ugly, scary, dark, powerful, sexy, violent, irresponsible, dangerous dream figures are vitally alive parts of my own authentic being, and you know what – they aren’t so horrible after all.” The notion of thinking of games as dream simulators proposes that playing these dream simulations and having these alien experiences may be able to do cause a similar acceptance of the self through universal archetypes.

Much like the range of human experience and game designs that induce them, archetypes are essentially unlimited in their number. Since Heather Chaplin’s rant declared that everyone is making games for “stunted adolescents” and that most games are “male empowerment fantasies”, this seemed like a good way to narrow the focus. Rather than try to invent something new, I figured it would be best to rely on what we’re all familiar with. I picked up a copy of Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine and will go through each archetype he outlines and apply it to games. Since they never distinguish who wrote what, I’m going to refer to Moore as the author when quoting.



What are the archetypes of a male empowerment fantasy?

Moore breaks the male psyche down into four different modes of behavior: King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover. Each one is an archetype that we aspire towards and connotes certain forms of behavior. We have these archetypes in us throughout our development and their expression changes as we become more mature. The King archetype in a child, for example, seeks to establish order in its life by being bossy and also yearns for praise from other sources of order in its life. When the archetypal expression remains juvenile, it cannot recognize the value of other people or that they themselves may not be the best source of order in their lives. Proper development of this matured archetypal expression involves building on top of the boy psychology. We take the impulses we have as a child and channel them, manage them, and transform them into more positive behavior. When they become negative is when they drop into their juvenile qualities. Presumably what Chaplin is upset about is the way that games are relying on this natural behavior from males while only encouraging their most juvenile expression.

Continuing with the King Archetype, Moore explains that it is often expressed in men by their reconciliation with authority. Someone will have a dream about meeting an Emperor and bow down before them. It is the organizing archetype, the role upon which all other archetypes of the male mind conform. Moore explains, “The King is anti-chaos, they organize the world and they do this to manifest fertility and blessing. Expression of the life force, the libido, the will to live. To make life possible.” Doing so means recognizing the value in the other aspects of your own personality and the people around you. The expression of the King in its most mature form is “a sense of being a centered participant in creating a more just, calm, and creative world.”

In terms of game design this finds expression in a variety of ways. The ability to create order in a chaotic environment would be the underlying principle and it finds expression in many games. In SimCity or other management games we turn a wild landscape into a city and watch it prosper. Bulldozing hills, creating roads, and managing the economy are all activities that make up the King Achetype. The life-giving properties come from watching this world prosper under our control, giving us a greater sense of accomplishment. RTS games feature a similar concept with the added complication of enemy forces. These must be purged, the chaos taken away, so that our expression of order can be more solid. You can also see the archetype expressed in some FPS titles that don’t use endless spawn points. Being able to kill every single enemy in a level expresses the psychological desire for things to be safe, orderly, and all because of us. Games that allow this kind of conduct typically rely on the plot to assure us that we are helping others while the sim variation of the archetype builds that sense into the rewards.



Easily the most complex and prevalent in video games is the Warrior Archetype. This archetype revolves around two key tenants: discipline and consequences. They are flexible in their tactics which comes from razor-sharp evaluation of any situation. Moore writes, “what enables a Warrior to reach clarity of thought is living with the awareness of his own imminent death….this awareness leads him to an outpouring of life-force and to an intense experience of his life that is unknown to others.” Expressing the warrior archetype is to feel the thrill of engaging in conduct that, should you fail, will be painful. It is the expression of dominance, often subservient to the need to create order coming from the King archetype, and it is rewarding precisely because of real risks being overcome. The archetype is expressed negatively in two basic ways: acts of passion and acts without passion. The overly hostile and aggressive expression is a consequence of insecurity. The passionless expression often manifests itself through tireless, mindless work. The workaholic, for example, often devotes hours attacking task after task with no real sense of purpose or accomplishment. They cannot stop working because they do not know what they want to work towards.

Both the positive and negative traits of the Warrior Archetype are expressed in video games in numerous ways. Any game that can generate actual consequences for death is tapping into this impulse. Far Cry 2’s distant save points, Nethack’s roguelike design, or something as simple as Contra all express the urge to develop discipline and engage with real risk. Intrinsic to a design that seeks to tap into this Archetype is not creating an environment that is ever fully controllable. What Clint Hocking at GDC described as “improvisational play” could easily be explained as simply pursuing a Warrior archetypal design instead of a King design. The player cannot ever tame the game, they must instead always live with the fact that they could be killed. Call of Duty’s endless spawn points are key, much like in FC2, because the player must always access the Warrior to deal with the threat. The JRPG’s never ending enemies and constant pushing into new territory also tap into this: an RPG channeling this archetype must constantly push the player and keep them at risk. You can see this developed well in Persona 4’s distant save points and the steep difficulty curve. Stopping and grinding is a part of the Warrior Archetype, the training we undergo to continue being competitive. Intrinsic to this design is the failure component and the recognition that death, in its dream and archetypal form, represents change. Taylor explains, “no matter how it appears, death is always associated with the growth and development of personality and character.” In relation to the Warrior, the artificial death in video games is their chance to evolve, to adopt new tactics, and to try again. Jesper Juul commented at GDC that there is a certain kind of failure that people don’t mind in video games, the key element is that they learn from it and can change.

In its most negative expression, bully and workaholic, the Warrior Archetype is tapped into through irresponsible game achievements, systems that encourage obsessive meaningless play, and crude behavior on Xbox Live. A recent article on The Escapist outlines the difference between a poorly designed achievement and a responsible one. The good ones encourage new styles of play and get the player to explore the game world. The bad ones are just mindlessly collecting crap like flags and having a player arbitrarily perform a task multiple times for no real reason. MMO’s like World of Warcraft are rampant with their mindless grinding and collection of meaningless goods. The bully is most rampant on Xbox Live, where players seeking to express their dominance are thwarted by opponents. They lash out at everyone, say horrible things for no real reason, and generally manifest all the symptoms of insecurity that are prevalent in any competitive situation.

The Magician is the archetype of knowledge, of specialized training and helping people by using that training. Like the Warrior, it is an impulse that is expressed in supplication to the King Archetype’s desire to create order and produce life. There is also an element of the aloof, of using an outsider position by judging and putting people in their place. The Shaman, Fool, or Magician is the only person who the King listens to because even rulers need someone who criticizes them. It is the part of ourselves that analyzes our actions, figures out what’s going on, and tries to get us to think. Moore writes, “He is very good at deflating Egos, our own and those of others. And often we need deflating. He can spot, in an instant, when, and in exactly what way, we are inflated and identified with our grandiosity. And he goes for it, in order to reduce us to human size and expose to us all our frailties” In its negative form the Magician Archetype is expressed by being a Trickster. These are people who cannot admire others because, like the faulty King, they do not have a firm sense of their own worth. They are insecure in their knowledge and are often uncertain of their specialized knowledge’s value.



In terms of game’s the best representation of this Archetype would be a straight-forward puzzle game. Something like Braid takes work and reasoning to master, the knowledge realized after doing so then creates an authority over those who haven’t beaten the game. You can see this kind of need expressed in something like the gamefaq forums as well, people voluntarily writing lengthy essays about how to beat a game’s challenges is again showing the need for people to share knowledge and feel helpful. MMO games also give people an opportunity to use specialized knowledge to help others, sharing loot and offering tips is a positive activity engaged with regularly. Since games are inherently learning experiences, this is often an intrinsic part of the processe. It can be as simple when the player is forced to step back and reflect on what they’re doing wrong in a combat situation. The Magician archetype is the masculine desire, when mature, to accumulate information and apply that in a helpful manner.

The Lover is the archetype of play, of being in the world and enjoying it and one’s own body without shame. They are “deeply sensual, aware and sensitive to the physical world in all its splendor.” Moore believes that this is the part of ourselves we draw on for creativity and art, it is the archetypal desire to be a part of the world and enjoying it. Creating a painting or blog post, for example, taps into this archetype because it is attempting to be a part of the world. It works with both the Magician archetypes desire to spread knowledge, sometimes the Warrior’s need to have one’s views be dominant, or it simply does it for its own sake. In the negative aspect the Lover is an addict. They are so desperate to experience everything that they fail to impose proper boundaries on themselves. The sex addict, drugs, etc. are all manifestations of an inability to force oneself to not experience all things.

In games this archetype is just beginning to become prevalent. Games like Fl0wer are paving the way for games based on being sensual, creating a sense of movement while navigating a beautiful landscape. Titles like Fallout 3 explore this by creating such a rich world of characters while Grand Theft Auto IV maximizes a world of details. For many games, this is the holy grail of difficult designs to manage, it is the archetype of immersion. The more mechanical aspects of the Lover, creating the desire to participate in the world, are seen in several forms. Level editors and the ability to share them would be a prime example. The ability to design your own home, add something unique to a game, or simply participate in a world that is expressive and provides feedback are also elements of this archetype. The negative expression, though perhaps manifesting itself in other forms of behavior, has its roots in the desire to constantly feel that one particular experience a game is providing for us. The thrill of the Warrior, the knowledge of the Magician…these archetypes when expressed feel good and the Lover makes us unable to relinquish them. In its most negative form, the Lover is the manifestation of not being able to quit.



If you’re noticing a lot of overlap between the archetypes, that’s because there is. Moore believes that the healthy, mature male balances these four archetypes and gives them all proper outlet. What he refers to as boy psychology is when one of these archetypes becomes neglected by a person. As far as games are concerned I don’t imagine trying to cover all four bases would be healthy. Focusing on one, as many games do today, would probably produce better results and attract the same audience members. Moore also believes that his archetypes apply to women as well, replacing King with Queen and making tweaks to other parts of their details. What the game design represents is a way for a person to manifest these elements of their personality through archetypes that resonate with the unconscious in the same way that a dream does.

Which brings up the final question of this series: if a game is an artificial dream that uses a symbolic language to allow us to express deeper personal issues, what is our responsibility with them? To the players? As this excellent interview with Jane McGonigal points out, part of what making video games more mature really means is using them for something new. Why not therapy? Part 4 will explore this issue more and wrap this series up. Thank you for your time.

Edit: To make your life easier, here is Part 4.

Bit. Trip Beat

Pong with music. These emergent games are always great about having catchy music but they never have a way to scale back the difficulty. This is a bias in me when it comes to this genre, something I expect because I think being able to enjoy the music in these games is the real key to the experience. As a consequence, not being able to curb the difficulty or even turn the difficulty off makes the game suffer.

It's about the music, man.

ZA Critique: Beyond Good & Evil

I was inspired to pick BG&E up when Brainy Gamer's VGC started their play through but I found my pace of playing was too fast to stick with the conversation. I ended up finishing the game then waiting until they rapped up and reading their discussions.

This is a hard game to write about. Narratively it's a fairly unique theme for games: questioning authority and not trusting propaganda are always great messages for people to hear. The game design though...is really odd. There are over a dozen different applicable skills in the game, well beyond what something like Zelda manages, and they are all taught on the fly and used for a fairly limited number of times. Typically when a game tries to do this it has to teach the player the ability, show them when it's relevant, and then sprinkle that throughout the game to sustain the need for remembering the skill. Here, every puzzle is a kind of self-contained mini-game that varies itself only once or twice.

My initial impulse was to think this wasn't meshing with the narrative and it made the game feel jumbled. Although I'm not particular about which is emphasized, the plot needs to reflect the game design or the design needs to reflect the plot (or not have one, depending on what we're talking about). This changed when I got to the last level and the game chucked most of its mini-games in favor of a few tense puzzles and long walks across wide spaces. The pacing of the mini-game puzzles, much like the narrative, was layered in such a way that you sort through the lies and complexity to get to the simpler, humbling truth about Jade's origins.

A few gripes here and there, some pacing issues, but mostly praise.

Scheduling

Simon Ferrari asked me in the comments over at Popmatters about my schedule. Given how rare the opportunity to talk about yourself comes up in life, I figured I’d take up the offer. He also made an interesting point about my claim on the FC2 ending: if the purpose of the game was to create a frustrating ending as a moral to all the violence, doesn’t the fact that it irked me mean it succeeded?

Before we go into the details of how I produce all this copy I want to point out that this is kind of a fluke. I don’t have kids, law school has reduced my love life to being slightly more barren than the Moon, but I have huge amounts of a very odd kind of free time. My day is filled with little empty hours that I can get research and writing done in. I couldn’t really dedicate a whole evening to, oh say, my last couple of ex’s but on the other hand I certainly can chip away at this hobby of mine. So I don’t really recommend this for everyone but if you’ve got time to kill like me then this is how you can use it.

I originally had a long ramble about how to get by in law school but that seems a bit worthless in retrospect. So here’s a basic summary of how law school in America works: the first year is really hard because you have to learn a foreign language (legal jargon) overnight. After that…it’s not really that bad. It’s a bit like gaming, once you can do the basics the rest is just intuitive. For the first part of the semester I just need to get the reading done so I have a lot of time to work. While the Far Cry 2 article is fresh to you, I technically beat the game in January and wrote the column in early February. The Kael summary was written in December, same for the Half-Life 2 piece. Mid-semester I start cutting back while the final month is one ungodly study and read as fast as you can session. Which I’m currently stuck in right now, so I’m not doing much game writing.

I typically have several projects going on at once. I create a word document and will paste links into it when I see an article relevant to my interests. Then I go back and read it, pulling out quotes or taking notes when I see a good one. When ideas or insights occur to me, I also write them into the notes as well. I roll all of this into a Katamari Ball of random quotes, notes, and pictures. I take a break in the afternoons to go to the gym and read while I’m on the treadmill. That’s where I get all the book research done like the Jung or Kael pieces. Dinner at 6, then back to the library until 9 or so.

In terms of the actual playing of games, I just have to plan that out carefully. I play for an hour or two after I stop studying on a weeknight. Friday I go out to the bars and party, Saturday is my day of rest from law work. On those days I play games in the morning while I nurse my headache, go to the beach for the afternoon, and do whatever in the evening. Sundays are just sit in the library days. If I have to review a game all other work is put on hold until I grind through it. I have several gaming buddies who do co-op work with me over beers, so some Thursday and Saturdays are spent doing that. Short games, 5 to 12 hour ones, I go through in a week or so. I build up a couple of essays on these to make room for playing longer ones like Far Cry 2 or Ocarina of Time. JRPG’s are too damn long (Denis Farr does excellent work with them if you’re hunting for that kind of stuff). I take notes while I play games and these get compiled into the research stuff. I almost never watch T.V. or movies unless I’m Netflixing a particular series.

The key to making this whole lifestyle work, in addition to having no real personal life outside of drinking buddies, is being able to turn it off when I’m sick of gaming. For as much as I make it sound like I work constantly, countless nights I just say screw it and do something else. That’s where the whole Vapor Culture practice comes into play. All this copy I’m producing typically gets set aside for publishing on a later date. At the time of this writing, I have 9 blog posts written out and ready to go whenever. So basically when the Muse inspires me I produce copy BUT I create the illusion of being some hyper-productive writer by jumbling the publication dates. It also allows me to revise stuff and improve the essay in ways I couldn’t while it was still fresh. I’ve gone days without writing a word or even reading about games and I can do that because I build up posts to keep the machine going when I’m on break.

And that’s the gist of it. I’m crunching for exams for the rest of the month so I won’t be doing much actual writing. This summer I’m taking a full-time job so I probably will be cutting back once that happens. There’s also the problem that this semester has been tough on me in terms of workload for school and it’s starting to take its toll. Having had my friends, several strangers, and my landlady comment that I was more snappy than usual this year has gotten me to start reflecting on my habits. I wanted to produce a large body of critical work on individual games and I wanted to establish it quickly. 3 columns, 12 ZA’s along with plenty more incoming and I’d say I’ve accomplished that goal. I may pick things back up once the summer ends and I’m back on the school schedule, but I’ve got the BAR to start prepping for then.

Plus, I think I need to work on relaxing and maybe getting a stable personal life going at some point. I don't really mind it now because law school is what it is, but afterwards I hope to get a bit more balance. Otherwise I might start to fall into that classic trap: if all you do with your time is work, then when you’re ready to quit you won’t know how to do anything else.

Far Cry 2

I just snapped that off with my cellphone. Christmas without Christ I have read a lot of Jungian dream crap. I didn't do it all at once or anything, I got interested in this topic months ago and didn't start writing about it until that first piece a while back, but still. That is excessive. Anywho, the research is done and all that remains is to write the final two pieces, which is still going to be a while. The third one will be interesting and useful for people, the fourth one is going to launch into the final conclusion that games have enormous potential for psychological therapy and personal insight.

I sorta wigged out in a PixelVixen 707 thread after reading her coverage of Heather Chaplin's rant on immaturity in games. The issue with approaching games like dreams is that a dream can be explained on some levels as your instincts giving you a feedback report on how your conscious mind is running things. So if a person is playing the hell out of a game, the dream theory is saying their unconscious is being expressed through this game. Whatever the archetype is inducing in them is what they're missing out on. People have often said as much when discussing game addiction but the dream approach means taking it a step further. A person may enjoy RTS games because they don't feel like they're in control or engage with Morrowind to feel a sense of purpose and success that is missing for them personally. By looking at their specific conduct in the game, you can determine what their artificially dreaming and thus what their instincts are reporting about the mind's current state.

Enter the back pedaling. The average person isn't particularly comfortable with this, Hell I'm not. We all feel small doses of insecurity or disappointment and games give outlet to those emotions in a healthy manner. Like anyone else I have a mountain of personal issues as well and it's kind of startling to think that my preference in games is a reflection of that. Up until this point, I'd just assumed it was skill or arbitrary. But thinking that every time I get into that obsessive groove with a game is because my unconscious is responding to it kinda makes everything become...one-sided.

Like dreams themselves, I think I've mostly just excavated another level of what's going on with games. It's just another way of looking at them and every artistic medium needs as many of those as possible. Considering the fact that every mammal on the planet actively dreams about all manner things, I do find myself realizing it's not that big of a deal to say loving a game is an indication of an undercurrent of personal issues. We've all got them after all.

Oh yeah, I wrote a giant essay about Far Cry 2.

An Immodest Proposal

A recent article by Rebecca Carlson on the role game critics play in society today has raised some great points about the evolving nature of our craft. She argues that as capitalist societies increasingly depend on consumerism and information, mediators must be hired to step in and regulate the flow between producer and consumer. She explains, “As they mediate, they perform their expertise at the same time as they work to (in)validate the expertise of others—the producers and fans. Their practices and functions, while not necessarily unique, serve as a useful example of a kind of (commodity) mediation.” Citing the Gerstmann Gate fiasco and N’Gai Croal’s condemnation of the “parasitic dance” that critics and journalists often engage in, the article explains that this relationship is becoming so broken that the only viable option left is for mediators to break away and develop independent sources of revenue. They must, in fact, learn to make money off the consumers instead of pandering for the producers.

She explains the issue succinctly, “Producers and publishers also act on this perceived "marketing" relationship with the enthusiast press with more strong-arm tactics: pulling advertising or withholding a magazine's access to game data (such as stills, descriptions, and code) if the magazine doesn't positively rate or discuss that producer's company or games.” They withhold the previews and coverage, nobody buys the magazine, and the journalist has to go hungry. Citing the crude treatment EGM received by various organizations after their opinionated E3 coverage of demos the article also notes, “The idea that game journalists work positively for the benefit of consumers—to provide them with honest and straightforward opinions without the framework of the market interceding—is largely a myth.”

If, as Carlson argues, knowledge about increasingly large and complex quantities of information is itself becoming a commodity, it seems logical for an aspiring game critic to focus on what they’ve got instead of begging for scraps from the producers. What the game critic controls is then, “new needs and wants"—how to appropriately be a video game fan.” I like the sound of this new role. Since my Inbox isn’t exactly overflowing with requests for me to write game previews, I imagine I can manage without that particular commodity. I’ve also been having a good time carving out a particularly affordable niche for a critic by only writing about old games. Publishers are so obliging about their games eventually becoming cheap that all I have to do is sit and wait if they don’t want to send me a free copy. My articles will always be relevant because the game will always be available online in one form or another and I hardly need someone’s permission to spend ten bucks on a year old game. And it’s not like everyone is itching to spend 60 bucks on a game these days.



If I am indeed to be a mediator between consumer and producer, then perhaps we should try having a “parasitic dance” with the consumer instead of the producer.

A few swapped e-mails with an old college pal who works in PR and we’ve put together a basic plan on how I can start making more money at this gig while remaining independent of any corporate authority. I need to be more profitable, more exciting, caring, and possibly a less pedantic L.B. Jeffries if I’m going to become appealing to a mass audience. Here are a few of the new merchandising and image changes we’ll be introducing from now on here at Banana Pepper Martinis, Inc.



Rene Magritte Action Figures

I’ve always wanted an action figure based on a symbolic representation of myself and apparently so do several slightly drunk test marketing groups. A variety of models will be available, including the hunched over a glowing laptop model, the screaming at traffic figure, and my personal favorite, the “I just drank your last PBR” shrugging figurine. All models will have a karate chop and wide range of wacky hats. We’re also working on a plush doll which will have a string and several recorded lines of dialogue from my own writing. Your youngest can now yank a string and hear such amazing bits of wisdom as:

The question that this brings up is whether or not to penalize a game’s puzzles when you can get to a point where you’ve figured out what you’re supposed to do, but because of the high skill barrier you still can’t do it.

Or how about this amazing gem:

Through clever anime art, sound, and dual-screen pacing, the game told me to feel only one thing at this demon hag. As Ryu raises his sword in this moment, you, the player, are guided into thinking, “Bitch...do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

Click here to see the store handling this stuff for me.



BPM Games

What better way to circumvent the need for lengthy content from publishers than by putting together some of my own games? I’ve gotten to know several indie developers during my time writing here and they’ve always been happy to send me their games. In exchange for a ridiculous amount of free publicity and wordy arguments supporting their games, a few have agreed to produce a few games according to my own designs. The first is setup a bit like an RTS in that you and a few units are dropped onto a large map. Horses will then randomly fall out of the sky and splatter onto the ground. Your units, which represent your fans, will go to these dead horses and then “beat them”. This generates points that go back to your blog which can be used to buy more fans, upgrade your layout, and eventually take over other people’s blogs. Whoever is first to the dead horse gets the most points, but eventually other critics will start beating on it until it only produces a trickle of resources. Then you all have to scatter around the map and find another dead horse to beat before the aggregate news sites have sucked the blood out of the corpse. The demo will be appearing on Steam shortly but you can see the screen shots here.

I’ll also be releasing an FPS soon. The game is strictly multiplayer and web-based. It has all the team and competitive modes that you would find in a normal game except for one catch. There are only three kinds of guns: rock, paper, and scissors. Much like the game as you know it today, rock can only hurt scissors, scissor is immune to other scissors, and paper can only kill rock. The player picks their weapon after each death and proceeds to run around the map looking for someone carrying the weaker weapon while avoiding whoever has the counter. There is no way to know what a person is carrying until you hit each other. Maps will consist of various famous landmarks such as the Louvre, Central Park, and the Gettsyburg Battlefield just to name a few. Beta testing keys are available at this site.

Comments/Links for Cash

I’ve also decided to become more proactive about commenting by offering a monthly comment service. For a set fee, I will read and comment on every single thing that you write. Pricing varies depending on how many comments you want per post and a special agreement to never disagree with you that can be added on to the original cost. I will also begin posting a weekly roundup of the week’s best stories which will solely consist of articles written by people who have paid me money. For an even larger fee I will post you under the “Blog’s I Read” list that will be going up shortly. For a better understanding of the pricing scheme and what kind of package I can fit you into, please check the options at this Paypal site.




Attitude Adjustment

Finally, a lot of therapy and several prescription drugs have helped me get in touch with a calmer, less argumentative, and friendlier L.B. Jeffries. All comments that are anything but gushing praise will be prefaced with “I could be totally wrong but...” or “I may be drunk but I think...”. These will help people feel less threatened when I post some long pedantic ramble on their blogs. I will also now begin sending a monthly set of random e-mails to various game critics telling them that I love their work, how useful stealing their ideas has been for my writing, and that I can’t wait for them to produce more. I’ll be sure to include a handy reminder of my own stuff and links to various articles that may be of interest to them in each of these e-mails before telling them again how much I love their work. As the descendant of a long line of workaholic sociopaths who use sarcasm as an emotional crutch, I can only promise that we’re doing this one touchy-feely day at a time.

Final Notes

T-shirts featuring jokes I’ve made the past week that generated a large hit count, witty posters, and shot glasses will soon follow. Who knows? Maybe in a few years I’ll even have my own gaming convention.