Soul Games – Crazy Games

In any typical review, there are parameters by which you can always evaluate a particular game. The main pillars of any review are gameplay, music, story and graphics. In a picture, you can measure the number of polygons, the quality of textures and stylization, in music you can analyze variability and diversity, in history you can study depth and characters, and evaluate gameplay mechanics from the standpoint of freshness, originality and repetitiveness. But in this rating system, sometimes, a fifth element appears, which is quite difficult to evaluate, and this is… sincerity.

And I wanted to understand, what is this “soulfulness”? Why are some crazy games called soulless and empty, while others find this very property. What does a game have to be like to be called a “game with soul”?

First you need to decide, what is a game without a soul? And the very first Internet commentator will answer you that this is any conveyor project that is designed for a mass player and created solely for making money. As an example, you will be given a dozen AAA projects or mobile online crazy games, the purpose of which is to maximize the pumping of money from a gamer for loot boxes, skins and any microtransactions. In such matters, commentators are more united in their opinion than ever, but are they right? More on this later.

But what a mental game is, it is much more difficult to explain. To classify a game in this category, it must have certain properties, which can be conditionally divided into two categories: objective and subjective .

To objective criteria, we can include quite specific specifications that can create an areola of sincerity. It’s a plot that includes story, characters, and lore. It`s music. And of course, it’s the atmosphere.

For example, a game can have a very heartfelt plot that can hook and give food for thought, an unusual story with vivid characters, or scenes that hit our emotions. The twists and turns, the well-written heroes and villains, the unusual lore, and the skillful manipulation of our mood and empathy, all of these elements can well give a sense of soulfulness and can make the player believe what is happening on the screen. So it’s no surprise that crazy games with rich stories like The Last of Us, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, or To the Moon fall into the soulful category. Or, alternatively, the Mass Effect trilogy, where many people love to remember their partners and NPCs, which makes this space opera quite soulful. Yes, even banal quests, the “kill 10 rats in this basement” level, if they are done well, can give you a whole bunch of emotions.In general, everything in the game that resonates with our thoughts and gives us emotions can give rise to the effect of sincerity.

But let’s not forget about the music. For many, it is she who creates all the magic. Personally, I immediately come to mind notes of incredible music by Jeremy Soule, airy motives from Journey or many beautiful compositions from a dozen of the most diverse indies, in genres from elementary chiptune to soulful ambient and orchestral epic. Music that not only complements the game, but is combined with what is happening on the screen and ideally, causing goosebumps. After all, it is precisely this kind of music that can be perceived by us as spiritual. As I’ve stated before, a game is a piece of work, and music evokes a sense of soul when all the parts of the game work together. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but they are exceptions.

But the atmosphere in crazy games is a very loose concept and requires a lot of separate analysis. It is difficult to measure, calculate or insert into some kind of framework. The right atmosphere of the game appears only when all the mechanisms work smoothly and nothing destroys the effect of immersion. The atmosphere can be directly dependent on music, game sounds and effects, pictures, story, lore and other seemingly insignificant elements, such as the interface or game environment. But it is precisely such strokes that form the overall picture. Why did Chrono Trigger become a cult game? Not only because it is a great JRPG, with unusual characters and plot. Everything about Chrono Trigger, from the music and dialogue, from the pixmap to the combat system, creates an incredible adventure atmosphere that just works. Which, in turn, turns Chrono Trigger from just a great game into a cult one. It also happens that the game has that same indescribable atmosphere and depth that can immerse us in the gameplay and give a sense of immersion. Regardless of the genre, whether it’s a dark horror or a summer adventure, the atmosphere directly affects the feeling of soulfulness. Again, about the atmosphere and what you create it, you need to do a separate analysis. But in short,atmosphere is what contributes to a deeper immersion in the game, by creating a mood and how this mood is conveyed to the player.The perfect example for me is Journey and Firewatch, two different crazy games, but with a very intense atmosphere, something grand and sublime in Journey and something simple and down to earth in Firewatch, all conveyed through a beautiful visual style. It would seem that this state is very easy to destroy, for example, by human-narrative dissonance or in-game bugs. But the paradox is that a game can work poorly and be buggy, but still create a halo of atmosphere. For example, buggy and broken on the release of STALKER, which lacked a lot of features that the developers promised, became a cult game, due to the very atmosphere, post-Soviet gloomy reality, with abandoned places and wastelands.

But everything is not so simple, if such parameters as history, characters, music or atmosphere can still be described somehow, then the second large category, which includes subjective things, is already much more difficult to describe. And let’s call it ” personal perception.”

Works, including crazy games, that we want to return to have value for us. And returning, we discover more and more facets in them, especially if the work is deeper than it seems at first glance. After all, playing and plunging into this process, we get a new individual experience.

If the game resonates, but with our internal state, with our thoughts and ideas, with our inner worldview. At the same time, it answers some of our questions, gives us new and fresh impressions, allows us to read something between the lines and leaves an unusual, bright and fresh aftertaste, and, ideally, gives us an experience that we have never experienced. That’s the kind of game we really remember. It will be imprinted in our memory and will sometimes pop up in our thoughts like a bright flash, because it was able to give us real emotions. And it is precisely such a game that will receive from us the status of soulful. But how does this resonance occur?

I remember well how the third Witcher came out in May 2015. And I can talk endlessly about the plot, about the characters, about the side quests, about the world, about the music of this masterpiece. How the game got into my mood and in that not the best period of my life, it became a real outlet, opening for me a huge and magnificent world full of adventures. But one thing I remember especially clearly and this is the first small location “white garden”. As in real life, May is the time for apple blossoms. Not far from my house was a huge flowering apple orchard. And I went for a walk and looked at how the wind walks between the branches, and the flowers in the garden slowly crumble to the ground, covering it with a carpet of white petals. This state was comparable to Zen, giving me a feeling of peace and tranquility. This is how the game resonated with me.

What does it say?That often the “soulfulness” in crazy games can be directly related to events in our real life, with our memories, especially with memories from childhood and adolescence, when everything new and previously unseen was most clearly perceived by our brain. Many people have entire stories associated with it. When a simple game became a page from the past, a link with that bygone reality and with those days that can no longer be returned. For example, someone remembers his first cartridge or disc, which was presented to him by a close and dear person, and now this game is associated only with him. Or he remembers how, on a frosty evening or a bright summer day, he returned from the local market, clutching a box with a long-awaited game to his chest, in an agonizing expectation to discover a new world full of impressions. Someone remembers his friends whom he has not seen for a very long time, how he played this particular game with them and it is dear to him for the reason that it is associated with them, because in those days he will not return. Perhaps a simple video game helped me get through some difficult period in my life, in which I just wanted to escape from reality and game escapism became a saving solution. Everyone has their own reason and their own personal history, in which the atmosphere of sincerity is born.

Or maybe it’s just another story from the past. For example, how an NPC got stuck in textures during an important mission. Or how a player got lost, but a simple accident helped him to go further. Or maybe it was a very difficult boss, but tactics and cunning helped to win. In general, it can be any story based on personal experience. After all, all these small details can make the game “spiritual” for a particular player, as they delivered an incomparable and unique experience to him. Therefore, let’s go back to the very beginning to those very conveyor crazy games. That is, if a game is able to give a person pleasure, is able to give that same unforgettable fan and unique situations and stories, such a game will become spiritual for him, no matter how conveyor or soulless it is for other players.This is the unique property of “soulfulness”.

The concepts of “Soulfulness” and “Nostalgia” are often very tightly connected. Yes, so hard that a person does not care if this game is good or bad, interesting or not, the emotions that it delivered to him in a certain period of life are important. Our brain likes to smooth corners, tries to eliminate the negative and leave only the good in the memory. This means that a mediocre game, if it has become a bright event in our past, will be remembered especially clearly. And such a game, with the greatest probability, a person will call “soulful”. This criterion of subjective sincerity is very individual. After all, what will cause a smile and nostalgia in one person, will cause absolutely nothing in another. As I mentioned earlier, the very concept of “soulfulness” is something that is directly related to our personal perception. People don’t always remember everything clearly. our memory is selective and our real memories are often overlaid with a powerful stream of emotions. This is how nostalgia works.We remember our emotions, but often not what caused them.

And the developers are well aware of the power of nostalgia and soulfulness and are actively flirting with these phenomena. For example, I recently stumbled across the game Tunic, and it’s a true declaration of love for the classic Zelda adventures. The game skillfully copies a lot of things from the classics. Moreover, the authors tried to destroy the 4th wall a little, creating a whole game mechanics on this. The fact is that most of the inscriptions in the game are written in an incomprehensible language and it is not entirely clear to the player where to go. But along the way, you constantly come across a piece of the in-game manual, which is made in the very real form factor of books that used to be placed on game cartridges. And you, as a player, need to constantly look for answers to your questions in this manual. And often you can see in the manual and inscriptions made with a pen, like the previous owner of the game, tries to help you with the passage and gives advice. In theory, this should cause a powerful nostalgic effect for those players who spent their entire childhood on the classic adventures of Link and flipped through the physical game manual in the same way. But you and I, as players in the post-Soviet space, are unlikely to have encountered this, and at the same time …. The game still evokes the same feeling of sincerity. Thanks to the music, the atmosphere and many of the classic tricks that we have seen in other crazy games, which in turn were inspired by the Zelda games. It turns out here is such a recursion. how the players of the post-Soviet space are unlikely to have encountered this, and at the same time…. The game still evokes the same feeling of sincerity. Thanks to the music, the atmosphere and many of the classic tricks that we have seen in other games, which in turn were inspired by the Zelda games. It turns out here is such a recursion. how the players of the post-Soviet space are unlikely to have encountered this, and at the same time…. The game still evokes the same feeling of sincerity. Thanks to the music, the atmosphere and many of the classic tricks that we have seen in other games, which in turn were inspired by the Zelda games. It turns out here is such a recursion.

But what influences this sincerity and why is it so important? Soulfulness directly affects your personal perception, and this means that this is the game you will remember years later. It is these projects that get a second life, they are supported by fans, continuing to release modifications, graphics improvements and the ability to run these crazy games on modern hardware. These are the games that are waiting, creating petitions to companies in the hope that they will release a remake or a sequel. And these are the crazy games that inspire me. The game exists as long as there are loving fans around it, ready to keep this game and tell the next generation of players about it.

Sincerity is impossible to measure or drive into some kind of framework, but from all of the above we can make an affirmative conclusion that sincerity is about our personal experiences and feelings. When you wander through the White Garden and watch the blossoming apple trees sway, when the cheerful stalker tells another joke around the fire and prepares to leave for the zone, when Joel hugs the frightened Ellie and the long journey home is almost over. When you are almost killed, but managed to fill up the hated boss in Souls Like. When you ride on the right horse through an empty, but atmospheric world. When on a distant planet you watch the end of the world and wait for everything to start all over again. When your emotions, experience and experiences resonate with what the game gives you, all this gives rise to the effect of sincerity. And that’s one of the reasons we love video crazy games.