For my Critical Play this week, I chose to play Places, a game created by Finnish developer JLV. Places is a minimalist walking simulator playable on a variety of platforms, however I stuck to the ones that were playable directly in the browser. It is unique in that is has no text, dialogue, world building, or anything to really indicate that it has a narrative or any sort of gameplay otherwise. It instead distills gameplay down to its simplest form: walking around in a pretty place. That is in fact its singular mechanic. You could say then that it is designed for a wide audience, including players new to gaming, fans of narrative and experimental games, and those looking for meditative or relaxing experiences. Unlike traditional games where combat or puzzles drive progression, Places removes any sense of threat, conflict, or achievement. The environments themselves, some of which pictured below, are expressive enough to evoke moods like isolation, nostalgia, and quiet awe that in a way become the story. The game doesn’t tell you what to feel, but instead invites you to find meaning in the act of movement and exploration. As you continue walking, it creates an emergent narrative in which you begin to assign significance to things that really have not been given explicit meaning in the game, such as empty buildings or flowers or color shifts in the sky. Even if it isn’t traditional storytelling, it still conveys meaning by designing the atmosphere in such a way that the user cannot help but create their own story.
As far as the ethics question goes, I honestly do not personally play a lot of violent games, but even so the difference is vast. The game that immediately springs to mind for me that still contains a great deal of narrative is The Last of Us. However the narrative in The Last of Us is very deeply explicit, often delivered in cutscenes or through scripted dialogue, while the player’s core activity, violence, is disconnected from the emotional or story driven portions of the game. I feel as though some would argue this causes a sort of disconnect, and perhaps it does, but I don’t think it’s terribly separate. The world is still integrated, the violence made necessary and the dialogue contributing to your understanding of the world and why you commit the acts of violence that you do. However, there is still of course a clear distinction, whereas in Places, the lack of violence, or well, the lack of literally anything, simplifies that relationship and the game playing experience tenfold. There is no contradiction between what you do and what the game wants you to feel, and I think that in general makes it a much more peaceful, reflective narrative experience that something with violence and an integrated storyline which you follow.
What I did notice most however, was that in the absence of violence, a goal, a purpose, it really made me rethink what we expect from games. Many mainstream titles rely on conflict, either physical or moral, to engage players. But Places offers something much more simple by refusing to include even the possibility of violence. It suggests instead that games can be meditative rather than reactive, expressive rather than competitive. This really challenged my own idea of what a game is, as I honestly came into this thinking I was not going to find any value in playing this game at all. Instead, Places truly exemplified to me that challenge in a game is very subjective after all. It can be enemies and tasks and puzzles, but it can also be holding attention, provoking emotion, or simply creating space to reflect. In that way, the game reshaped my understanding of what makes a game, well, a game. And moreover a meaningful one.
