↑ index
← back
whispered by eye sister on February 10th 2025
Evil Devil Gaming Mario
I'm forgetting their faces
Let me tell you a story about my childhood. I was fourteen years old, walking home after a really bad day. The other girls in my class ripped my homework in half and I had to hold it together with my hands while the math teacher read it but it was hard because they were calling me lurid variations of obscene nouns and laughing, you know how it is. I think he was laughing too. I get home and immediately switch on my videogame console. It's him.
Mario. This guy again. I press start and get running. It's hard to see through the tears but I know these levels like the back of my hand and I have nowhere else to be.
Then it hits me. I know these levels like the back of my hand. I can do this with my eyes closed. Why am I doing it? Do I need to rationalize it, or is it enough just to get through another day? There's plenty more to come. I forgot to buy groceries.
To be clear, dear reader, what I was experiencing was a loop. A game loop, to be precise. To be completely exact, when a game has things that happen multiple times, I consider it a personal offense, especially if it's bold enough to alter them insignificantly each time. Each tiny bit of fog cleared from my mind as I involuntarily reflect during a level is a stinging reminder of the chasm revealed beneath it, and so it is their responsibility as game developers to keep the gaming flowing, preferably without whining about it on SocMed.
I would go as far as to say that this crime is what separates good art from bad art. Or, in other words, what separates gaming from being good. Listen to me for a second. Hey! Listen to me. Think back to the last song you listened to. No, you're a nerd. Think back to the last Original Soundtrack you listened to. Are you thinking back to it? Good, I knew you could think. Now tell me: Does anything in this musical delight repeat?
Okay, so, maybe a few things do repeat in music, I guess. But it's a good repetition. It has purpose, it has confidence. The sound eats its own tail with elegant grace. If you removed that, it would probably suck lollipops.
Now let's apply that to games. Imagine your favorite game. You don't need to think back to it, I know you're always gaming. Now, still imagining it, remove every single recurring element in it. I know you can do it.
You might notice something peculiar about this imagined game.
The Pecularities of an Ideal
It's Dark Souls. I don't know how they did it, I don't know how they keep doing it, but it just happens to be that this is the one game (or one games) that can be considered art out of all games ever made. Remember that guy that one time? It turns out he was right all along. Videogames are not art, because, at the risk of seeming pretentious, only Dark Souls is art.
In the interest of maintaining our relationship, I have to remain honest with you, my dear reader. I am relatively slightly intoxicated at the time of writing. I apologize if my writing is not up to my usual standards, I just don't really feel like editing anything I ever make.
feed on me