Jake

Idle Thumbs 75: Save the Razzin'

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Relistening to this ep now, I take serious exception to Chris's categorization of Super Hexagon as being like a Zynga-style exploitation game, and his IMO misguided belief that he got everything there was to get from it in a few minutes of play. Some of the feeling I've gotten playing that game is damn near religious, as I try to focus deeper and deeper on something and hone a part of myself to perfection. It's a form of meditation, and by focusing so completely on one thing it frees up one's mind in other ways. As someone who's often afflicted by anxiety issues, I sometimes use it very intentionally as a tool to fully occupy certain frantic parts of my brain while the verbal deep problem solving portion remains free to brainstorm on some problem. I often start off writing a new piece with 15-30 minutes of Super Hexagon reflection.

 

I just... I find it really frustrating to hear it compared to games which are designed to occupy all parts of the brain very shallowly without actually challenging any of them. It feels to me like dismissing a particular game out of hand for the same reasons that others dismiss all games out of hand. I don't know, it feels like because the game is devoid of narrative context you dismiss the idea that it could contain any deep ideas, which I think is super misguided. I dunno. :confused:

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Relistening to this ep now, I take serious exception to Chris's categorization of Super Hexagon as being like a Zynga-style exploitation game,

What did I specifically say about this? It doesn't ring a bell.

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That you felt like you could play it forever (at the time, ep after this you mentioned having burnt out on it fairly quickly), but that you'd gotten everything of substance out of it in the first hour or so of play. On the one hand I feel kind of silly for taking exception to this, because there are a lot of games that you can have deep thoughts while playing -- Tetris, Audiosurf, whatever leaves the verbal part of your brain mostly free while occupying spacial and reactive parts. On the other hand, I think that, firstly, just because it's relatively commonplace doesn't mean that it's not important, and I think it's really interesting that this is something games can actually have in common with spiritual practices, such as prayer beads, and secondly that Super Hexagon is particularly well-suited to such reflections given the minimalistic theme suggesting falling inwards, deeper into oneself.

 

I tried to write about it once, but wasn't really satisfied with the results. Nevertheless.

 

I may be kind of oversensitive here, but I really do feel that SupHex is kind of an important game in terms of showing what games can express even while being purely abstract: A modern art ideal of emotion and aesthetic expressed with no narrative conceit whatsoever.

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When extolling the virtues of meditative, abstract gameplay, keep in mind that you're saying this to Chris "Meteos" Remo. 

 

I too really like Super Hexagon. When I finally caved and replaced my old flip-phone with a smartphone earlier this year, it was one of the first things I bought upon opening the store. It's great for little windows of idleness in an otherwise busy day.

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METEOS?!

 

Shit that game is rad. I played it so much. I don't remember it ever being mentioned on the 'cast. Then again, my memory is awful! Especially for things that probably happened years ago.

 

(Super Hexagon is also rad, but METEOS, MAN, MAN.)

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I don't know if it was a 'cast thing or not, but back in the pre-cast days, Chris' Meteos addiction was the stuff of legend. If memory serves, at one point Jake described the early run of good DS games as "Chris' Meteos years" but that may be it.

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Well, whatever the case, awesome. Meteos consumed me for a while, too. Annoyingly/fantastically, it's one of those games that makes you see the game elements everywhere. Traffic lights, car tail/headlights, especially, as I drove around. Man.

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That you felt like you could play it forever (at the time, ep after this you mentioned having burnt out on it fairly quickly), but that you'd gotten everything of substance out of it in the first hour or so of play. On the one hand I feel kind of silly for taking exception to this, because there are a lot of games that you can have deep thoughts while playing -- Tetris, Audiosurf, whatever leaves the verbal part of your brain mostly free while occupying spacial and reactive parts. On the other hand, I think that, firstly, just because it's relatively commonplace doesn't mean that it's not important, and I think it's really interesting that this is something games can actually have in common with spiritual practices, such as prayer beads, and secondly that Super Hexagon is particularly well-suited to such reflections given the minimalistic theme suggesting falling inwards, deeper into oneself.

 

I tried to write about it once, but wasn't really satisfied with the results. Nevertheless.

 

I may be kind of oversensitive here, but I really do feel that SupHex is kind of an important game in terms of showing what games can express even while being purely abstract: A modern art ideal of emotion and aesthetic expressed with no narrative conceit whatsoever.

 

Did I actually say that Zynga stuff though, in that phrasing? Because it doesn't sound like an opinion I actually hold. I probably said (or meant to say) that I had hit some kind of personal wall past which it didn't feel like I was getting any more out of it, rather than assigning some kind of negative judgment about the game unto itself. Maybe I'm just remembering wrong, but it doesn't sound like an opinion I would have had about that game, at least not in the way your post reads to me now.

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"...I could see myself just playing this game indefinitely additional hours and hours and hours and hours of my life, and like, that's kind of what most mobile games are designed to be and do, social games as well, and I just find it a little distressing and off-putting"

 

No specific mention of Zynga, but that seemed to me to be the kind of game you were referring to. To be fair, my awareness of the mobile and social games space is limited -- mostly by choice, for the reasons you mention here -- so I could be way off base here.

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Oh okay. Yeah, Zynga games in particular have all this OTHER stuff that Hexagon doesn't, like microtransaction sinkholes and the like, that is a gross thing that is totally its own. In the case of something like Hexagon, I mean, it IS intended to be absorbing to the point that it is just played for an ideally-as-long-as-possible-amount-of-time. That's not something specific to Hexagon or anything, it's just inherent to the entire genre of game based around an addictive endlessly repeating mechanic. I've already gone through that with multiple other games, like Tetris and Meteos, and I strongly feel I don't need that to happen anymore, even if I had extraordinarily enjoyable experiences with those games. Also, for me in particular, I felt like I hit a skill wall in Hexagon, not because of any inherent flaw in the game, but just because I did, for whatever combination of reasons.

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This actually reminds me of something I was writing recently, about how a dog I've been taking care of has a nearly endless capacity for and interest in fetching, and comparing that to how we interact with games. I was thinking that, while dogs are interested in certain primal tasks that are embedded deep within their genetic code in many cases, most games we devise for ourselves are a great deal more complex, and usually require us to exercise ourselves in several primal tasks in conjunction. I think Super Hexagon is an interesting exception to that trend, even more primally than a game like Tetris or Zuma which do engage some long-term problem solving skills.

 

I guess my point is, there's a style of game that is addictive because it provides a primally satisfying task to accomplish, and a style that is addictive because it exploits our wiring in terms of stockpiling and dealing with random events. I believe that the latter is somewhat unethical and the former isn't: This may just be an artificial differentiation on my part, it could be that both are just triggering our primal wiring in approximately the same way, but they feel different to me, if only in terms of, for me personally, I can look back on time spent on the former with satisfaction, and time spent with the latter with disgust, disdain, sorrow. I guess the real qualitative difference between those styles is that the Skinner box ropes you in by convincing you in a fundamental way that you'll lose something if you quit now, whereas Super Hexagon is just itself, as itself, and you can take it or leave it, but it is difficult to leave because that self is so appealing.

 

(Interestingly, rereading that essay now, I notice I did in fact sneak in a reference to Super Hexagon... as a joke, without seriously considering it in the terms mentioned above. Oh well, missed opportunity)

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I had a weird thing happen with Super Hexagon where I was super into it for about two weeks and hit the skill wall Chris is talking about hard - I beat the lowest difficulty (where "beat" just means surviving 60 seconds) but absolutely could not get a rhythm in the next one up. Topped out at maybe 20 or 25 seconds on most runs.

 

I walked away from it for about six months, and then just picked it up again for the hell of it and suddenly I was able to beat the next difficulty, and get 45 seconds into the one after that. And I didn't put in nearly as much time in the 2nd, far-more-successful obsession with it as I had the first time around.

 

There really is something to that whole "walk away from a thing and your subconscious will process how to do it better when you come back" idea.

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I briefly mentioned this in the cartoon thread, but I thought I'd mention here that Adventure Time had a recent episode where Super Hexagon messing with your brain is a central plot point.

 

 

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I briefly mentioned this in the cartoon thread, but I thought I'd mention here that Adventure Time had a recent episode where Super Hexagon messing with your brain is a central plot point.

 

I talked to Terry about this at @cb2indies yesterday. He had heard about it (a LOT) and said it was cool, but they'd got some visual details wrong. I guessed it was possibly to avoid any legal issues...

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