The first time, it was an accident. I was testing out the controls and inadvertently managed to shove my buddy off the edge of a cliff to face his untimely demise. Playing the game alongside a very close friend of mine, David, made for some priceless reactions, but also set up endless cycles of death and sabotage. Nicky Case’s The Evolution of Trust taught me to expect that repeated interactions between friends or typically collaborative people provide the grounds for cooperation. Our session of Bokura proved otherwise. Through a combination of diminished stakes, especially from one party, as well as isolated, subjective realities, much like in Thomas Nagel’s ‘bat’ thought experiment, the game stripped away the real world trust, translating a minor misunderstanding into a cataclysmic endeavor of endless ‘Copycat’ loops.
Our setup sowed the seeds of mistrust which were fertilized and exacerbated by the premise and format of the game. We started off on opposite sides of a table, unable to see each other’s screen but fully able to view each other’s reactions. The game format, where you are given specific secrets, alluding to the fact that the other player has their own secrets, further divided the room. It made it impossible for me to put myself in his shoes, realizing Nagel’s assertion that, “The reason is that every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view.” Because “an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view” (What is it like to be a bat?, Nagel), no amount of glancing across the table could help me solve the puzzle. I could only get the occasional half-smirk or giggle, I never knew whether his actions were helpful or hostile in intent. In Bokura, my friend was the bat.
The Evolution of Trust argues that trust relies on set strategies, like copying, and certain approaches can dominate others. However, Case’s game assumes that both players are looking at the same objective and face the same rewards. In our game, however, I had much higher rewards than David. I am enrolled in the class and wanted to finish, or come as close as possible to the end of the game, so that I’d be able to write a fantastic blog post and be able to provide thorough analysis. David, on the other hand, had no ulterior motives besides having a good time – which often means making me miserable. But Bokura’s brilliance is that its blindness from its format makes intent indiscernible. When I was shoved off a flying platform for the nth time, I couldn’t look at his screen to verify if it was a genuine mistake, a specific puzzle mechanic gone wrong, or intentional sabotage. Because I was unable to inhibit his reality, every mistake was perceived as deliberately ‘defecting’ which triggered a vicious Copycat revenge loop.
Now, one might argue that we could have communicated to build trust. After enough killing, this worked temporarily. We then, however, realized that the communication enabled another depth of sabotage – tricking the other person into forcing their own demise. A simple “Okay, the laser is off” would be followed by a bang of the table and a “Why’d you step off the damn button!”. Furthermore, even in peaceful times, the communication was not as clear and effective as possible. Nagel argues that trying to objectively describe subjective experiences always ends up leaving something out. This is similar to Polanyi’s Paradox, which was just covered in another class of mine, CS323. Effectively, our knowledge of how to perform tasks exceeds our ability to verbalize the rules or instructions. Communication such as “Stand there! No, to your left! More to your right… goddamn it David” further undermined our collaboration and our desire to help each other out. When we do not share precisely the same reality, words will fail.
Ultimately, descending into endless, retaliatory murder wasn’t a failure of our friendship, but a victory for the game’s philosophical design. Bokura brilliantly weaponizes the phenomenological gap, proving that no amount of camaraderie in the real world can survive a severed objective reality. As Case shows in The Evolution of Trust, trust requires a shared board and symmetric stakes. When you introduce Nagel’s subjectivity into the mix, the mechanics of trust break down. The game reveals that when you cannot verify what the other person is seeing, hearing, or being instructed to do, even your closest friend becomes a hostile bat in the dark. Stripped of a shared reality and armed with only our own verbalized frustrations, the only rational response to a push is a shove back.
