"To feel" is also a verb
why Mixtape is an epitome of play
If you’ve missed the latest game discourse, these days it’s been about Mixtape — a game by Beethoven and Dinosaur, published by Annapurna Interactive. The tags call it a “walking simulator”, but I’d rather say “skateboarding to your favourite track simulator”, or maybe “riding a shopping cart through a small town simulator”, or “flying over the summer hills”… Whatever emotions your favourite mixtape has ever brought you, that’s what Mixtape is about.
The game’s opponents’ main argument is “it has no gameplay!”. If by gameplay we mean action verbs, then sure, there aren’t many of them. Yet it’s no passive entertainment like a film where you just have to sit back and let the author’s vision pour out onto you from the screen.
Mixtape shows us how playing can be much more than pushing buttons. To play can also mean sitting in your treehouse and imagining yourself a proud tribal chief, a daring castaway on an island, or Pippi Longstocking in her Villa Villekulla. You’re feeling it. Are you actively doing anything at this moment? No. Are you playing? Yes oh yes.
But wait, you’d tell me, Nata, haven’t you been advocating for “let do, don’t show or tell” in games, same as you do for “show, don’t tell” in film?
Yeah, still doing that. There’s acting (“doing”) and there’s being acted upon — that is also a valid part of gameplay. I use Dooley Murphy’s term “patiency” for that, and we’re exploring in depth how it works in our upcoming book, Narrative Design Across Media. When you’re jumping on a trampoline, there comes a moment when you don’t have to put any effort into it. The trampoline throws you in the air by itself. And you’re flying.
One of my principles in game development is that at the end of the day, everyone plays games to discover something about themselves. And our job as game and narrative designers is to create the circumstances, the living environment that will allow players to experience that. To feel it.
This is what Mixtape designers created.