re/cognition (4).
for this re/cognition post, i decided to dive into there is no game, a not-game created by KaMiZoTo.
mechanics.
i don’t think the game had any blatant mechanics at all. upon starting the game, the player is immediately primed with the contradictory labels and images on the screen: a loading bar with the label “not loading”, the x cursor, as well as the title implicitly inform us that the narrator of the story (perhaps the creator? a character?) is lying to us. we, then, naturally come to the conclusion that there is a game, and that the game will come in a form of a puzzle as we attempt to figure out the narrator’s schemes.
priming occurs as we are exposed to details that may affect our future behavior. for example, i wouldn’t suspect the narrator’s intentions of “not having a game” if i weren’t presented with obvious examples of how the program lies to the player.
what makes it fun?
the game is essentially a collection of puzzles and mini-games, all of which are simple in nature but are heightened because of the amazing writing involved in the dialogue. the game master is an interesting character that breaks the fourth wall and acts as if the player is talking to him. (it reminded me a lot of another game called the stanley parable, which has a lot of interactions between the narrator and the player.)
the one-sided interaction not only gives clues and sparks the player into engaging with the different items on the screen, but it also keeps them interested enough to keep going because of the sharpness and wit of the script. ⠀
the narrator, too, comes around in the end. it seems as if he is running from glitches, and that he needs your help to get rid of them. from that point on, you two are working together: you solving the puzzles, and him giving you hints for you to be able to make decisions and solve the problems.
problem-solving.
problem-solving seemed to be the most salient concept that popped out to me as i was playing the game. it’s pretty cool how we can figure puzzles out with subtle hints tossed in from different parts of the game, even when there are no mechanics given and that the problems are hidden within the interface. this game is essentially a collection of ill-defined problems, where the player is left to figure out how to solve things and which details are important in solving the problem.
gestalt approaches.
i figured out a lot of the mechanisms in the game using the trial-and-error method—clicking randomly across the screen and watching to see if there would be any changes in the scene with every press. while i didn’t do this for every step, it was something that was integral whenever i was stuck at a certain spot—i would click random things as i listened to the hints from the narrator, which eventually made my guesses more spot-on and less random.
i think that the gestalt approaches were really useful to me as i played through the puzzles; reproductive thinking helped me in solving repetitive puzzles such as the [THERE IS A GOAT] puzzle in the photo above and the [THERE IS A TREE] puzzle, as those were solutions that were already utilized earlier in the game [THERE IS A GAME]. productive thinking, on the other hand, was something that i had to use in the ‘newer’ kinds of puzzles, such as the part where i had to give a cracked nut to the flying squirrel on top of the tree.
while playing, i had some ‘aha!’ moments, formally called insight, whenever i figured out how to do things. when i first met the goat in a cage within the game, i really had to think about how i was going to open the lock. i tried smashing it with the heavy box before i realized that one of my games was still left ‘unfinished’. the bouncing ball game! upon breaking the last ball, i was given a key and a trophy, both items that had pretty obvious uses that were confirmed later in the game.
a lot of the problems solved in the puzzles were analytically-based—they could be solved in similar but not identical ways, keeping a huge part of the puzzle in the same vein and allowing me to actually solve them without spending too much time rethinking and rearranging my ideas to get the answers. i think this was done on purpose because puzzles that are too hard aren’t exactly too fun for the general public; we want a challenge, yes, but a balance between difficulty and fun is important to create a compelling puzzle game.
i didn’t really allow much thoughts to be incubated; i was solving puzzles pretty quickly, as the one in the website seems to be only a small part of the actual longer game.
do i recommend it?
yes, 100%! it was really a fun game to play, both because of the funny, witty banter of the narrator and the simple yet really creative puzzles and mini-games within the game. it’s hard to believe that this was created just with an HTML5 game engine, and it just goes to show how creative people can be even with more simple tools.