Mechanics as Metaphor - I: How Gameplay Itself Tells a Story - Extra Credits
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2012
- Game narrative can be conveyed through so much more than just a dialogue script, or in-game lore, or even the visual aesthetic of the world you play in. The design mechanics and gameplay itself can represent the story of the player's actions. (---More below)
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(Original air date: August 8, 2012)
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♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM
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♪ Outro Music: "Fisherman's Revelation" by Bladiator, Tepid
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An option that you guys didn't mention, and that I feel like is important, is to start avoiding the groups not because you thought "screw these jerks," but because you didn't want to destroy their patterns and formations. I just feel like that was a key part of the narrative, especially since the game was meant to make you feel like a lonely person, and that's one way a person who doesn't approach people often might think.
Thank you, that's what I started to do. I figured if they were going to flee from me when I got too close I may as well leave them be so at least some of us are happy. I did think that jumping dot at the end wouldn't run though...that was sad.
Haha, I avoided them like obstacles from the get-go until I hit the first busy stream of people. I halted shortly to time it right and came to realize that they run away anyway.
At first I felt relieved that this seemingly impossible hurdle wasn't a problem at all and that I didn't have to put effort into avoiding them and started hitting up all groups to scatter them from all kinds of angles and tried to chase one down...
Until I got bored when I felt like there was no challenge to staying "lonely". What's the point if I don't have to work for it?! :/
Dissatisfied I kept rushing forward to at some point finally reach the end and started embracing the gradually intensifying darkness as a sign of progression towards my goal.
Along the way I kept scattering groups to relieve ~some~ of the boredom of hurrying towards my end (dramatized :D).
I left the two dots at the end alone as I identified them as a guy humping his (jumping dot) GF and didn't feel like interrupting them at this point in time.
I admit I was curious to see if the last dot would force some kind of BS happy go lucky good ending on me, if I bumped into him. Yeah...
Having finally reached the end I was testing if the text was tied to the movements of my at this point engulfed in blackness dot.
To that comment I though something along the lines of "I've been "alone" for the most of my life and I'm fine with it.
It's not my fault they can't figure out how to entertain themselves without friends..."
Yeah, so what does that say about me? Probably that I live in self denial as I even bothered to write stuff like this in a TH-cam comment section. I'm a failure at life.
Anyway, I didn't even bother to consider the others' structures or feelings until I found a couple doing it outside at night...
Similarly, I avoided them because I thought they were being destroyed since they faded into nothing after being scattered.
Interesting! The weird option that I chose was to flip-flop, running up to the groups some of the time in hopes that a couple of the dots doing different things would stay with me, whereas other times I avoided the groups because it felt pointless to go up to them. But I didn't keep with one behavior pattern during any part of the game; I kept flip-flopping like that. Luckily I was in the "hopeful" pattern at the end of the game so that I could be crushed when the last dot fled and feel the full impact.
Collin Ommen
This is the exact same reaction I had!
Holy shit...
This game seriously made me nearly cry at the end. Because it touched me. Sometimes, i didn't try to go to some groups because i, for some reason, knew that the game was programmed so i couldn't get into them. But then, when it got very foggy and i only saw like five more people in the rest of the game, i ended up trying the last two times. Then i saw the ending, and the fact that loneliness is a huge problem. Then i remembered the fact that i gave up on someone special *TODAY*, and got my eyes full of tears. She doesn't deserve it. It's this beautiful experience that does.
Seriously, i still didn't see the next part, but i seriously hope this gets more used in the future.
No, when I played the game, I thought I was scaring them away, and with fun's intention. Like, "BOO I'MMA SCARE YOU".
***** that was my experience, it was like asteroids, the point is to break all of the groups down, I didn't realise you could go backwards until I missed a group of dots. I think it says something about the game that I assume everyone thought of the dots as people rather than cars or spaceships or rocks but maybe that's just my interpretation of other people's views
+nonobaOMGWEEGEE2
But... the game is called "Loneliness." And the music sounds like it conveys someone who is looking for attention.
Or... maybe I only perceive it as that from hearing it during the game. There isn't really anything inherently sad about the song, but it's definitely far from the music of someone scaring others off.
+nonobaOMGWEEGEE2 I tough I was mean to create dispersion like it was the purpose a sort of poetry in movement I didn't think about the loneliness of the single square...
Loneliness was AMAZING! I've never felt such empathy for a pixel in my life.
At first, I thought this was like other top-scrollers and avoided all the things coming at me. When I noticed that the things were avoiding me, I tried to catch them... but I couldn't. The entire game seemed futile, which really it is - and that's was the point. It's poetic, painful, beautiful, pointless truth. Or true pointlessness. Either way, it made an impact, in a way that no AAA game ever has.
If ti made an impact, it wasn't pointless!:)
I tried to go to every group until about 2/3rds into it. I didn't avoid them because I felt above them. I avoided them so I wouldn't disturb the other groups. I felt like a burden to them. And I did try the last two groups, just hoping.
+16 Bit Images That's the same as what I did; except I didn't bother with the last two. I assumed that a group that would accept me would become apparent in some visual way. I assumed the darkness would end, and there'd be a group, just for me. I think I'm more used to that kind of message, rather than; "well, that's it; darkness forever, now."
+Multihuntr0 I did that as well... and when I finished, and I realized what that could mean about me and how I experience the world around me, I felt... disturbed...
Few games manage to that. It's just brilliant!
+16 Bit Images Perhaps a bit late to the party, but this was my sentiment as well. Right down to a small hope at the end with the last groups. After all, they seemed alone too.
Pegging avoidance down as simply arrogance or being a lone wolf actually compelled me to scroll down and comment, since it was so far from my own interpretation of my actions.
+16 Bit Images It's strange. I tried avoiding them right from the start, figuring they would only kill me, or do something equally as bad, ending the game and forcing whatever point the creator was trying to prove.
Weird. This game has probably revealed something about me that I hadn't anticipated.
I played Loneliness, and was at first distraught at my dot's inability to make friends with any of the other black dots.
Then after a minute, I started laughing maniacally and screamed something like "FLEE! FLEE BEFORE ME PUNY PIGEONS!" and had a lot of fun as I charged each and every group revelling as they scattered.
Now I'm curious: did I do that as a conscious rejection of the game's premise, or a subconscious fear of identifying too much with its premise?
It's probably the reverse of if you can't fight em, join em. If you can't join em, fight em. It's the basis for scorched earth. IF YOU WON'T JOIN ME, THEN I'LL CRUSH YOU
That's what I did. That is not how I deal with loneliness in real life. Because I have no friends.
The game is surprisingly deep... From looking at other comments it seems the common trend was first, avoid the dots since they might be dangerous. Second, realize they ran away from you and get depressed trying to chase one down. Then, make the best of it and tell the little pigeons to flee before you. Finally, you meet less and less dots as the game grows ever darker. Of course, not everyone did all of these, though I know at least one who did. Life translation?
-We flee from others since they are are both scary and unknown.
-We feel our human nature seeking some form of friends or companionship and reach out from loneliness. Others are repelled by the stranger.
-To make the best of a bad situation, we laugh at the foolishness of life. We can't change life, but we can change our reactions.
-A life empty of friends grows darker and darker.
Or... my experience relates primarily to me. Well, that's dark.
Lol, I did the same thing. I think the reason I did that was that I thought it that they deserved to have their activities ruined if me being close to them scared them away. I thought that I was above that type of thinking. It was neat to explore that a little.
I haz sadness
I started that game trying to avoid the dots thinking that was the objective. Then I realized that they just ran away. Then I thought the objective was to try and catch one. But when I did, they just dissapeared again. I avoided each one. Knowing that it is pointless to try. Then I saw one last one. I thought to myself that it was alone. I was given the impossible choice. Try and face the pain of nonacceptance or ignore it and face the pain of not trying. I took the first one.
Similar to me, but when i realized that dots disappear, when i catch one, i just gave up. I thought the game is endless watching of dots.
For me it's not loneliness, but confusion. I just tried to understand the game, but it won't let me.
jarlfenrir It's mainly to do with how we see games. I always think that there's a objective. But as said in the video, the mechanics are what makes our objective and our story. To think this can be done in such a simple made game...
I had no idea what it was about until the text at the end. I thought I was killing the black dots.
But what if I realized what was happening and then went out of my way to hit every group and cause them to scatter?
It makes you think even deeper in it... And realize it...
I totaly started going "IM A DRAGON FEAR ME" then i wondered maybe one of these dots will do something if i touch them
Adam De Leon tI did the same(minus the dragon part).
Does that make you the villain of the game?
TalonSky I did much the same thing. When I was rejected by the groups, I decided to chase them away. I didn't start as the villain, but I feel the rejection led me on that path. Only at the end when I saw lone blocks like me did I hope for interaction.
I began by avoiding them because I thought they were dangerous, then I was forced to get near them and they fled. I kept going frantically trying to find one that didn't run, and when the screen got so dark that I couldn't even see myself, I tabbed back here.
Man that's depressing.
god me too, i tried to move towards them 3 times at first, but then i just gave up and tried avoiding them all xD (didnt work 2 times afterwards cuz they build like a wall) ~ that means, i give up really fast :'D
This, and part 2, is my favorite Extra Credit's video. It's helped me immensely in thinking about and designing my own games :D
My favorite moment in the first season of TellTale Game's "The Walking Dead" was the last playable scene.
As the player begins to loose agency over the world, so too does the protagonist. This was reflected in the mechanics brilliantly.
Me before trying the game: "Ok, time to learn something new..oh, a flash game? Alright!"
Me after playing the game: "Screw this happy Game Break song, quit being happy!!!"
In Loneliness , quitting halfway = suicide.
At the end of the game, eternal solitude.
Please don't lead me to believe that's what the afterlife is like.
In 2 We Believe What if you died and go back to the beginning, and do the same shit all over again without noticing you're doing it again.
MrKatakatt It better give me some of my previous gear or something.
In 2 We Believe new game+ am I right!?
You guys rock! I pray to God you never stop making these videos. Possibly the most interesting and informative game-related channel on TH-cam.
I talked about this game (and video) today at work, I watched this video back when it was first uploaded, and all of a sudden today it came to mind. I'm going to host a social skills group for children who have trouble with social skills, I feel the game really tells the story of what happens to children who experience loneliness (from shyness or rejection or lack of understanding for social situations) - and in our group our main goal is to work with kids to change that story's end :) thinking about the game, playing it again, and even talking about it today at work brought me to tears. Which is a powerful thing for the particular message of this game, and for game mechanics as metaphors. I love the idea of using both the video and the game with my co-workers and maybe even the kids in our group in some way, so thanks for making this episode and choosing such a clever example.
At first i tired to join every group, but when i saw what happened, i just avoided them...kinda with the thought that "they are happier without me there"
And by the end, i did try to join the few little dots left, thinking they were a bit lonely, too, and they just... puff
i almost cried, stupid game X'D
I was running into all of them just to see them break and scatter. It was beautiful. Although right at the end, when I saw the last one, it crossed my mind - "maybe that's the one!"... Nope. Oh well, the sea is full of dots anyway
I wonder if Toby Fox (Undertale's creator) watches these. There's one game that certainly takes meaning from your actions
Yes!!
This is why Extra Credits is a truly brilliant show. Please keep up the amazing work, you prove that the game industry has such a huge potential, if only we strive for it!
Your videos are great, keep it up. I'm learning a lot.
I thought that there had to be at least SOMEONE who would accept me, turns out there wasn't.
That is the first Flash game that made me cry.
Before I start the rest of the video, just want to say...Wow, that was incredibly well done and was very touching, and even a little freaky thinking how I tried to move threw it after learning how it worked. That was surprising...thanks
Ok finished now, aaaaand that was kinda the point you were trying to make....well played :)
Hi! I'm teaching a postgrad class on narrative and hermeneutics, and I spontaneously remembered I had watched this 10 years ago, so now I'm bringing the game to our next class.
Thank you, Extra Credits 😁🙏🏼
Aw crap, I totally cried playing that, even BEFORE the ending.
+WrathOfMega you did too? at some point near the end i realized my dot started moving into the dark zone on it's own, and i freaked trying to get it to go back. "NO! DON'T ENTER THE DARKNESS. COME BACK, IT'S OKAY YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO THERE!!!"
+Ferret Prince See and I didn't see the ending as a bad thing. I can see how people looked at it that way. Instead I noticed that it was a large area of like colored squares. I looked at it as though after trying to fit in with so many others and they all just ran away he finally found a place where he was meant to be. A place that accepted him for who he was. So when he started moving on his own it was like he was finally happy.
setoMuuvari
i love how differently we interpreted the ending :D
There should be a replay button at the end.
I tried to go to a bunch of the groups, then I just walked straight forward. If i hit a group, they'd spread out around me. If the groups were on the side, I didn't go near them. By the end I was avoiding them because I didn't want the group to be broken up and I knew they'd run if I got close. I tried that last dot though.....
I cried at the text at the end. I don't know if I'm just feeling particularly vulnerable today but the beautiful simplicity of this game shook me to my core--and that almost never happens.
I took a moment to figure out the controls and then just moved up the rest of the game so I could see everything. The metaphor works well enough for what it is, but it's rather blunt so I knew what to expect. It's hard to have much of an emotional response to something that is made obvious before you even have the chance to care about it.
I tried a few ways to get them to not run away. I found that first group that's in an orbital resonance and sat just outside the furthest one. When they got close to me by their own movement and ran away, that was devistating.
That last dot, the lone, jumping one... I stopped for a bit. I just stood there. Do I want to risk this one rejecting me too? I eventually decided I'd never know unless I tried... and then was totally crushed.
It don made me cry, only at the end though. See, I've actually played this before, so I knew what I was expectin', 'cept I forgot what it was 'bout. Then I read that there thingy at tha end and was all "Those poor kids in korea grow up all alone!" D':
same here. I know what it's like to grow up on the lonely side of things so this game actually has me in tears right nowI played through, hoping with each group I'd find someone to talk to, and got to where I started passing groups because I felt there was no point, they'd reject me anyway. A lot of people grow up like this in school, I know I did till highschool and it was devastating. I am gonna share this game as much as I can.
I started to go up to each group just to mess with "people"
I did scroll back down to see if the groups reformed after I passed by. I was a little disappointed that they didn't.
It made me cry.
I have a lot of... Social and emotions problems when it comes to friendships.
Those dots represented a lot...
A game as simple as "loneliness" made me, a child, cry.
The game was amazing, and I'm really happy EC made an episode about it and metaphors.
I feel like I get so much more out of these when prompted with a task before watching. Playing that game helped me get the message so much faster and in-depth in this one. I'd encourage you have more "do this first, then we'll talk" segments!
When I realized that the groups scattered upon nearing them, I immediately started to approach all of them in ways that I thought would generate an interesting scatter pattern.
Morale of the story; my dot breaks everything apart just to see how interesting the fallout will be.
I started avoiding the blocks not because I thought they were jerks but because I didn't wnat to bother them
Effective narrative, my friend.
I want to say THESE type's of video's are some of my fave you do! I like how you can take something simple dive into deep topics!
Found it interesting that I followed a bit how I am. Real life I was social would talk to anyone, now I only stick to people who are in my circle rarely leave my group. In the game I went up to all the group, then later just bothered anyone that was along my way to get to the end.
Wow... the simplest game I've ever seen... and it helped me understand the world from a different perspective... so sad. :(
It's astonishing how such a simple concept can be so insightful. This is a perfect example of how games convey meanings differently than other mediums
sethraptor Games like this could change the way humanity thinks if we could simply get them out to the masses.
Of course the Federal government wants to keep us stupid so we're easier to control.
DARKGORZ something tells me they wont be able to keep that up forever.
I think the way that our culture and general philosophy is going, we're doing a fine job keeping ourselves stupid.
Matt M Oh no, certainly not. They're tripping up more and more every day, and their "plan" to crush humanity is not happening fast enough.
The Feds and the banker families/tycoons are going to lose this game.
when I played it I realized that I can go away from the others avoid them eventually I got a bit sad and I was at a single dot I felt sad about avoiding the others since they avoided me but I gave up and tried to reach the dot but it left me. so I continued avoiding all the other dots. was that the right decision I really don't know.
For something so simple, it was really powerful to me. It acted almost as a bit of a trigger, as I damn near started crying towards the end. Everyone has felt lonely, or at the very least "alone" at some point, and the notgame did an amazing job instilling the feeling of being on the outside.
The beauty is that its so vague that you can imbue the actions and reactions with your own narrative and personal experience with lonliness.
Needless to say, it hit me right in the feels :(
Dark Souls does a really good job at this. Where your undead resists going hollow because they have the strong purpose of going on, but if the player were to get frustrated, or annoyed, and says "screw this" then quits; the player quitting essentially is their undead going hollow.
I Believe the recent death of Adobe Flash has rendered the game unplayable. I'm not sure if you'll read this on account of it being an old video but if it gets fixed let us know in a newer video at the end maybe so we can know to come back. Loneliness sounds like an interesting experience.
I just played it on my mac using chrome
Well flash is now officially dead....
I literly tried to appoarch nearly every single block in the game thinking something might change.....but after realizing nothing going to change I ignored the last block thinking its not worth it it,mind fuck so hard.
I really like this artist's way of doing things.
I just remember how desperate I was becoming towards the end and how I began to pause and hesitate before going up to a group, I didn't want to be rejected again, but I needed to feel I belonged and that desperate, painful hope keep me reaching for people I was almost certain would only cause me pain. I even remember thinking at the end that, 'That can't be it. It can't end like this.', staring at the screen even after all the end text had appeared hoping, wishing, praying that if I just waited long enough I would get that mythical happy ending. An amazing game.
I'm not sure I started avoiding them as a way to spite them, I just felt bad dispersing their groups, especially the block jumping around having a good time. Though I did go up to one of the last ones to see it it would be my friend. No I don't find it pretentious, though the message felt slightly... ham-fisted (it doesn't help the game is CALLED loneliness =P)
As a programmer, I was probably a little too "meta" to get the full experience. Once I understood the basic mechanics of the game, every new group of dots just became an experimental setup for sussing out the exact parameters.
Is the avoidance triggered by actual proximity, or just the advancement along the Y-axis? What is the exact distance at which it is triggered? Is it the same for every group or variable? This group is very loose; will the trigger affect all dots, or only the cluster you approach? This group looks hard to avoid; is it possible to "sneak" past it, or is the trigger enforced, in order to affect players who chose avoidance?
Just like reading TVTropes can ruin movies and TV for you, being too deeply into programming and game mechanics, can rob you of otherwise moving experiences.
I went up to all the blocks :3 .....amazing how something so simple made me think about what it was doing while I was playing. The title really set the tone I think.
At first I went to every group and when they dispersed I gave chase to find I could not catch them, I noticed the screen was slowly getting darker, maybe as a metaphor for the ebbing of existence or the hope inside of us all, in the end I chose to run past the last two groups.
This game actually made me cry and I'm not ashamed to admit that, as simple as this game was it allowed me to reflect or maybe because it was so simple it allowed me to reflect, all in all I think it was a great experience
I didn't understand the meaning of the game until I read the script afterward. At that point, I interpreted it in a way as a sort of insight into our human nature. Let's face the facts; we are social creatures, and we crave contact. When we are denied this, we devolve into inhumanity and insanity, and even if the most we've seen of the insane is on television, that in itself is accurate enough for us to feel unnerved whenever we encounter it (again, whether in real life or otherwise). Obviously the squares are the societies that refuse to accept you, so that doesn't need much explaining. But what about at the end, when the screen darkens gradually to black?
Some might say
"Oh, that was the way to end the game, hurr-durr." In my opinion, it's indicative of the descent into insanity that occurs whenever our baser needs of human contact is denied to us. The more we are denied, the further we sink, until eventually it becomes an irreversible affliction that, to my best knowledge, has no cure.
Even if we ignore the fact that insane people frighten us to an extent, we can't help but feel sorry for them, because we know at some point they were human in the truest sense of the word. To have let one of our own descend to a level below us is both saddening and shocking, and we should do better to take care of those that desperately need the help.
I somewhat disagree with the idea that "humans are social animals". I mean, objectively our brains are dedicated primarily to understanding social interactions, so yes, human being are geared towards being social; however, I think that the extent to which that is true is often exaggerated by what our society teaches us in the first place.
We learn that being social = normal, acceptable, and right; while being un-/less sociable = strange, wrong, and even frightening. All of this leads people who are alone to feel that it's wrong for them to be alone, making them stressed, and since stressed people aren't any fun to be around, the whole thing quickly turns into a vicious cycle where no one wants to be around you because you're a loner. The "loner" then feels that certain behaviors are expected of them and proceeds to continue to act like a loner because that is now who everyone else has decided they are, but they'll continue to feel guilty and stressed about it.
Really, the entire stigma we have of loneliness = insanity is entirely unhelpful.
I'm a loner myself; I tend to shut myself in my room for long hours of the day, and sometimes I even get tense. When I'm around my friends, however, I tend to relax a bit more. Plus, I've got Asperger's Syndrome, and I don't give a crap about what other people think of social stigmas. I'm pretty sure our sociability needs aren't exaggerated.
ODCS well it is actually a documented scientific fact that people need human contact. its literally fact. there are case studies (back in the 80's when all this was legal, mind you) where people were subjected to months without any human interaction. they were fed via food and water dispensers. the people that came out of these studies weren't just behind on the all the latest fashion statements by a few months, they came out fundamentally broken, fundamentally changed individuals then when they went in. Most of them (the ones that didn't commit suicide within a few months) needed years, and years of intense therapy to undo what a couple of months in total isolation did to them.
Emerald Dragon It is greatly exaggerated. To be social is more of a survival tactic and societal custom than it is an essential part of the human psychology. Introverts are today considered a natural part of variance in personality, but they are as a whole thought of negatively in most any society because being an extravert is the norm.
Yet you do have to admit, isolation causes, wether directly or indirectly, many problems that may arise from the mind.
I've said it before (not sure if it was on here, and I'm too lazy to look 0~0), but I myself am an introvert. I'm more than content to be by myself in my room for as long as I don't need external amenities. But every now and then, when I hang out with friends, I feel a portion of stress lift away, and I know being social does that for me. Besides, there have been extensive tests done that show that humans in general do not adapt well to being left alone in dark, cold places.
This game is about an ugly Barnacle.
Just see it! Everytime you get closer, everyone dies!
+Henry T How could a barnacle be ugly or kill people.
L McD Is a classic story about an ugly barnacle, he was so ugly, everyone died.
The end.
+Henry T Fair enough.
+Henry T Our very own Patrick Star is the keeper of this tale.
I played it 1st not think of the dots as people and as sound note that at the time I thought change the music but see my dot as a person and the other dots as people make this game really emotional for some reason so deep I'm glad I got to play it with both mind sets
The attempt to construct a representation of abstract issue like negative social interaction (anticipation, rejection and depression) with the tools within the creator's reach, is the definition of the process of art. It's beautiful!
that game made me sad :(
I found myself noticing what was going on and then just progressing looping.. approaching every group. I wanted to see what all the reactions would be.. in what ways they all shattered. This game didn't give me the same feeling of loneliness until it faded to black. something that was missing was the inability for the groups to come back and reform after having been scattered.. i felt more like an observer who only noticed the fractures when i came close.. Perhaps my reading was deeper then it should of been. I don't agree with the authors delivery of his story because i didn't feel alone untill there was nothing left. you could literally tack on almost any end line dialogue and have it be the same experience. Those who haven't felt that kind of loneliness probably wont experience it in that game. .they won't understand exclusion. So in the end the game fails at being the Object lesson it wants to convey
The drawing of the one who was oblivious to everything cracked me up.
me, I tried everything. Going to every group, avoiding every group, try to go backwards after getting each person, going back after avoiding each person.
some of us are so late to this that flash doesn't work anymore and thus have next to no idea what gameplay mechanics are being described. including some gameplay footage that's representative of the themes you're hoping to discuss would have increased the life of this video.
I think that this video is trying to find more meaning than there is. Not everything has a deeper meaning, it seemed to me like a very simple game that people are looking for meaning in due to its lack of anything else.
Saddest game I've ever played.
You blew my freakin' mind with that. Holy crap.
Thanks Extra Credit. You guys always have something intelligent to say and such wonderful articulation when saying it. You're beautiful people. Keep it up:)
When I came across the first arrangement of dots, I thought I was to put together a symbol, and it looked to me like a question mark, and my controllable character was the dot. That all changed when they scattered, and immediately saw them as people and understood the premise, seeing them as groups of people and corridors of bodies crossing a busy crosswalk. I continued to try to meet up with the dots, and continued to do so even after I 'caught' several of them, ignoring a group here and there.
Such a thought-provoking and sombre concept, and the end text was very poignant. Quite a memorable and valuable experience. Thank you EC for sharing this with us!
I began going by going to every group, thinking "Maybe just one of them will stay." In my mind, this was tentative optimism, a mid or low light level.
Then I started avoiding the groups, or getting really close to them and pretending to be part of it. A feeling of sadness or desparation, no light.
Then I approached one of the groups that just spanned across the screen, one you had to go through to pass. Worried, I backed up, looking at the beginning for a path that didn't have groups. This was a fear or anxiety, and a desperate hope there was another way.
When I hit the bottom of the screen, one of the groups had respawned, and I had a conscious decision that was rooted in my real life. I moved to the middle of the screen and just kept going. If the groups rejected me, oh well, this was my way and I wasn't about t change it for them. With the light metaphor, this would be brilliant, vibrant light. It felt so good. I would still stop and look at the groups, imagine what was happening with them and their stories. But I still got one of the most fullfilled feelings in a long time from the playstyle I settled with.
Between the game and the video and it's comments this has probably been the most surprisingly unique, but intellectually satisfying 8 minutes of my life.
I was apprehensive of the dots until I saw them float off if I stood still. Then it was this really relaxing stroll.
Dude, that's awesome!
The mechanics of "Braid" are perfect as an example for this video. In that game, each level's mechanics directly comes from the story it's telling.
I went up to every group. Not because I was trying to fit in, but because I wanted to see how the groups would react from different angles. I tried to make one group collide into another, run off the side, make all but one stay etc. The game, until the end, didn't seem to be about loneliness. Rather, it reminded me of when I was really young and would chase the pigeons that stood around on the street. It was really fun.
I went through observing the movements, when a group was still I would immediately go right into the group to mix things up, but when it was already in motion I'd just hang back and watch, it was kind of relaxing to just watch them move. When I saw two blocks moving in the middle of a crowd I decided they were fighting and broke it up. I liked to imagine after my journey, that last block was one of the fighters.
That game brought me to tears because I could relate to it. Like damn that was powerful
wow that was an interesting game i went to every group and realized that i was alone and no one wanted me there but i kept trying and at the end it really hit me full force and made me feel like no other game has sure ive had my share of great game moments that pulled my emotions one way or another but none of them hit sooo close to home thank you for that it opened my eyes to something i might not other wise and it did so with such a simple concept that i am excited about what will come in the future
My experience of this game brought out something else. I did not notice/see the title before I began playing. I didn't even necessarily see the dots as "them" - they way the dots went about their business until I showed up, I felt like someone interrupting, but also shaping the world by my presence, just in a way in which I had low control. About halfway through I glanced up at the url and say the word "loneliness" and suddenly the game changed. I think I would have gotten this message on my own if I had kept playing but it's amazing what a shift in perspective that one word did give me.
Wow...that hit rather hard. Well done to the creator.
WOW! I liked how you dug even deeper! Saw that if you ran into them they become lonely as well. Earlier on I tried to go up to them to see if I could stick next to any of them. Sometimes I went by them to watch how they move and disperse.
The fact that you could touch some of the other squares if you really tried, but that they continued on to fade away regardless hit a little too close to home. You touch people's lives but they always move on. It was a surprisingly haunting experience.
I recognized what the mechanic meant pretty early on...
And now I feel so freaking sad.
The Beginner's Guide made me sit stunned at the end but I think that it was because of how intimate the story was.
I decided half-way through the game that I didn't want to hurt anybody else. That's something you could never discover of yourself from any other game.
Welp, another great episode.
I loved how I could control where they went just by going up to them.
Wow! In 3 minutes and with the most basic details/mechanics this game made me cry more than games I have sunk hundreds of hours into.
This small simple game is in fact one of the best games I have ever played :o Seriously... No other games have made me think so much in less then 3 minutes. No other games have made me this sad before. No other game have made me connect to the character(dot) before so quickly.
Thank you for showing me this game Extra Creditz! This is a game I will never forget
Love these two videos and the loneliness game. Very inspiring. Also I would like to note that the player loses control as he slips into the darkness in Loneliness.
Man, I couldn't imagine how happy I could become if I would've find a pixel for me somewhere along the way after 3 minutes of gameplay. Very strong emotional notgame.
I, personally, stopped and considered both options (without having watched the video first, mind). I'd started out avoiding the squares, because running into other objects is a no-no in video games. When it was revealed that the other squares would avoid yours, I started trying to move closer, only to get the same result. By the time I got to that last square, I noticed that not only would the others scatter, but they'd vanish entirely, never to return to this little game world. To me, that wasn't outright rejection. In my mind, the way I internalize this sort of thing, it was my fault. My presence caused these other 'beings' to leave. I was driving them away. So, when I reached the last one, I paused, debated, then left it alone. If my mere existence would cause this other thing, this 2-D square in some flash game, to cease to be, then I preferred to move on and let it be. Because, I discovered after thinking about this, it's not loneliness that frightens me. It's the knowledge that the loneliness isn't someone else's fault, but my own. My insistence on being there driving them away. Again, this is all internal, and largely the product of not sleeping, but it's something I realized.
Well, that got me in stitches.
Have tried in my childhood to walk up to a group of classmates, talk to them, and feel like I wasn't there. No response. The feeling of loneliness is... A bit too familiar for comfort.
I tried every group, I almost skipped the last one but then thought, might as well try, it can't hurt.
That was amazing! After a couple of seconds I needed to understand how the game works, I tried to manipulate the other blocks to create beautiful patterns. It was almost sad when the game forced me to finish... And I have to admit: I never thought of it as a metaphor for loneliness...
You start off by standing out in the white surroundings, alone, and slowly start blending in to become one with it. That's got to have some symbolism there.
half way i started avoiding every group as i was thinking " i should not scare them, i need to let them be", i recurring tought on the beach as i see schools of fishes darting around, or camping with other animal, heck even in malls around other people
Guys, sometime I think your show is too good to be real. That's the best compliment I can give.
I tried to get to some groups, didn't try with others. At the end, though, I tried to go back, but it was too late, the ending auto-scroll had started. One of my personal most emotional moments in gaming, up there with the ending of Super Metroid.
I was bullied for seven years similarly to this. Eventually I gave up and avoided people, the dots, and stuck to those wandering like me. The worst is when the groups accepted me, chewed me up, and spit me out. I was that annoying kid nobody got. I eventually got to deliver a speech on this kind of thing to help change my school for the better. We are the gamers. The people who accept others in open arms? That's us. Sadly, we have issues with harassment and alienate some groups. Not all of us, but many. Nobody should have to go through life like this. Nobody. We should reach out to those wandering and looking that approach us. We should find and invite those who give up. If we want games to gain respect, having the gaming community as a whole is a great start. Not just some of us. All of us. Every single one.
I started tearing up near the end of the game...That stuff hit me...
WOW. just WOW.
that was amazing.
There were a few times as I was playing that one of the blocks in the group stayed onscreen as a approached it, only to leave the second I touched it. really, the one little block at the end was the most depressing one. Once you feel as through that you have finally connected with someone, they're gone before you got a chance to know them.
Its funny how easily things that are that simple are able to tell you and express through simple mechanics, being someone who spends most every day alone with my thoughts, Loneliness struck home.
i love shannon's drawings of herself
I though the objective was to scare all the dots away so everytime I left one unchanged I went back and try to move it off the screen. At the end when the letters came out and the metaphor sank I felt terrible for a while knowing I purposely went after EVERY SINGLE DOT trying to make it go away. 😢
This game really drove home for me the ability video games have to convey a powerful message. I'd never even thought of the idea that games could be an immersive poetry, but while playing loneliness I couldn't shake this idea. This medium has HUGE potential, and in many respects could provide a more powerful message than traditional poetry and art! mind=blown. Thankyou very much Extra Credits
i read your comment right before i played, and i couldn't get the image of a dog scaring pigeons for fun out of my head for the first half, then it got depressing