The summer before college I was working my first full-time-ish job, and after getting home, tired, for many weeks, I’d go down to the basement and play Outer Wilds. From that context, you would think I was seeking a game that would fall into the 8th game dynamic category – Abnegation/Pastime. But instead, I grew incredibly attached to this complex open-world puzzle game, with particularly difficult almost platformer-style mechanics, and it certainly did not primarily have “turn your brain off” style mechanics. But still, I found it so, so fun. Why was that?
Outer Wilds leans heavily into the Discovery category of mechanics, and it is this discovery (mixed with elements of sci-fi Fantasy and Challenge) that drew me to it. In the game, the player character discovers they exist in a time loop – the physics engine of the game simulates the cycle of the world’s entire solar system on a 22 minute real-time cycle, making puzzles time-based as well as speed-based. But on the game’s initial surface, none of this is clear. The planets seem to be unchanging, large, perhaps procedurally generated rather than specific and pointed. Over the course of trying and failing and dying over and over again, getting sent back to the start, the player is left to entirely figure out the mechanics of the game on their own – from how to fly the spaceship, to piecing together puzzles of the environment, to bringing objects from one planet to the next, to realizing how the world dynamically changes to open certain areas or not, to talking to characters and realizing both. Ultimately, the player develops their own drive to discover: what is happening, and what can even be done to change this sytem?
The mechanics of the game are particularly what build emotional investment in the player. It is a valid option for the player to, when the game time loop begins, make absolutely no inputs and stay still. In other words, simply because of the mechanics of the game – no inputs and outputs necessary – the player receives more information about the world. Other mechanics – the consistent time loop, the lack of direct handholding quest-type guidance, the emphasis on reading and parsing written text, and on remembering and discovering new facts, are what create the element of fun for me. They do not tell you what to do, what to find, or how you can achieve it. You must figure it out from context clues, and the payoff is therefore so satisfying. It is these game mechanics – in discovering new parts of a single-player world and expanding both how to problem solve and the rich history of the game’s universe itself (initially seeming so simple) – that appeal to me.
Interestingly, though this game has a full 5/5 stars on steam with 49,000 reviews, I anecdotally have not talked to many friends who have enjoyed it to the same level that I have. To me, this demonstrates how these game mechanics (extremely slow reveal of information based on discovery, strong challenge with controls, emphasis on reading) might not appeal the same to other players, used to quicker payoffs with less mental and physical challenge. The game mechanics also may not appeal those who are not looking for the Fantasy genre – of filling in the gaps themselves to piece together a story from written text. However, as a lover of strong game narratives and how they are bolstered through specific video game mechanics, this game absolutely changed my life.
Outer Wilds is a game that people say can never be replayed – once the puzzle solutions are found, they cannot be discovered again. But, for those hours I spent exploring a new world, it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had.
