Read Write Play: Undertale

After reading “The Rhetoric of Video Games” by Ian Bogost, I began to think about the rhetoric of Undertale. One key theme that is emphasized throughout the game is that one does not always have to resort to violence. Unlike most traditional video games, Undertale gives players the ability to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. Players are presented with the option to engage in combat with enemies or spare them. Undertale also encourages players to have more empathy and understanding for their enemies. Many of the enemies have their own backstories and motivations that explain their actions, and many also show that they do not want to fight and ask the player for mercy. Lastly, Undertale has multiple possible endings, one of which being the “true pacifist” ending, which is only achievable if the player chooses not to kill any enemies throughout the game. This ending is arguably the happiest possible ending, and achieving this ending has almost become considered the only “correct” way to play the game amongst fans online. Through all of these design choices, Undertale presents the argument that violence is not the only means to overcome obstacles or defeat adversaries and that pacifism and finding alternative methods of conflict resolution can be more powerful than violence. s

Toward the end of his paper, Bogost writes about the importance of making sure that programming education for kids “supports sophisticated responses to the medium, rather than reinforcing the idea that play is equivalent to leisure, and that video games are intended to produce fun and distraction rather than critical response.” This makes me wonder, is it important for all media that kids (or adults) engage with to require sophisticated responses? Is a piece of media misguided if it was designed only for “fun and distraction rather than critical response?” My instinctive thought is that anything that gets kids excited about learning to code, even if it is making silly video games that do not evoke any kind of critical thinking, should be celebrated. If a kid wants to make a game like Flappy Bird, not for any sophisticated reason, but just because they think it would be fun and stupid, then I say go for it! I also think that kids are smarter and more perceptive than we give them credit for. Kids naturally enjoy storytelling through play, and I do not think that they need to read or learn about the complexities of video game rhetoric to understand that play is not equivalent to leisure. As a kid, I remember learning to code for the first time and wanting to make satirical games with my friends about our teachers in school. It was not just because we thought it would be funny to have real-life teachers we knew as characters in our games, but because we wanted to model our environment and present commentary about our teachers. I think children understand the value of play perfectly fine, but it is actually adults that forget this as they age and need to read papers like the one by Bogost to remember.