Do you need a hint?
I’ll be the first to admit that I get stuck in video games a lot, be it a shooter, simulator or open world adventure. I’m very cool with the idea of using wikis (you paid for the game – enjoy it as you please), but lately I’ve been trying to challenge myself more and not get so frustrated if I don’t find out right away what must we do.
You see, there is more than one way to get stuck in a video game.
The first is when you come across a challenge you can’t beat. You know exactly what to do, you just can’t handle the challenge the game offers. Usually this comes in the form of a boss fight or a difficult platforming section – any gameplay section that requires precise input and timing will do.
Sometimes it’s just hard
As someone who got into games for their narrative content, this has always been a problem for me. It has literally taken years of practice to get to the point where I am somewhat proficient in shooting and traversal. My somewhat recent Duty obsession has been a big help, but what it really did for me was to get into Hades at the start of the pandemic.
That game completely changed the way I approach games now. Supergiant’s ingenious modular difficulty settings allowed me to wade into difficult gameplay instead of jumping in at the deep end. I loved the gameplay, characters and aesthetics of Hades enough that I went on for hundreds of hours, as I made my way to the coveted 32 heat run. If you haven’t played yet Hadesthat means I completed a run with very, very difficult settings.
Anyway, even with all that practice, I’m still constantly stuck on the difficulty of the game. While I’m getting better at keeping my cool, my biggest problem is that I panic when things get intense and resort to knots, which is a surefire way to make sure you end up dead. At least now I’m forcing myself to try again, instead of always handing the controller to a friend as soon as I get overwhelmed.
The idea that caused this whole feature in the first place was play Check and getting stuck in a workout I had to complete to get a power up. I know, I know, it’s just a workout, but I’ll pin it on the controller because it’s super hard to quickly target… stationary targets. Anyway, I told myself I wouldn’t do anything else until I beat it, and after about an hour and a half and two fits of anger, I finally beat it.
Am I better off? Yes. Is it much easier to do if you use a mouse and keyboard? My roommate says yes, so I’ll take that as proof. Not my fault.
Where am I going again?
The second way to get stuck in a game is the classic “I have no idea what to do now” situation.
This riddle can arise when, for example, you’re stuck in a particularly mind-bending puzzle – or trying to find the dialogue options you need to say in the right order to progress. Then there’s my least favorite scenario: the “what should I do?”
This manifests as I go around in circles trying to figure out my purpose. Some of the worst cases of this happen in linear narrative games where I can’t figure out which way to go – like the time I was playing The last of us and spent a good twenty minutes wandering, only to find the way forward was a medium-high hole in the wall marked with yellow warning tape. I get pretty annoyed at how finger-tight objective markers can be, but every now and then I find myself wishing I had a little more direction.
Much of what makes games fun is their ability to make us feel that our interactions with a virtual world/story/interface matter, whether they really matter or not. Things start to get a little shaky when we don’t engage with the game the way the designers wanted us to, whether we do it on purpose or not.
The interesting thing about being stuck is that, for the most part, games are not designed to remain static. With a few exceptions, the whole point of an interactive medium is that we’re supposed to take a game and move it forward – be it the mechanics, the story, the environments, etc.
Games are about change
Games thrive on the idea of change. Think about leveling up, or getting closer to that landmark in the distance, or the character changes that happen as you progress through a story. Getting stuck in a video game isn’t (usually) part of the plan. They are not designed for us to just sit there and do nothing. (Although some games have used the subversion of this idea to great effect). Even games where you spend a lot of time in one place, such as a simulator, depend on constant change around your home base whether you’re there or not.
So if we don’t progress in a game the way the developers intended, the game turns into a kind of liminal space – whether you do it on purpose or not. Often characters start idling, scratching their heads, or shuffling their feet to emphasize their unnatural lack of movement. Sometimes they start talking outright about what to do next, giving a not-so-subtle hint to help confused players. In rare cases, they will talk to you directly.
I love including details like this because the developers not only had to think about how to push stuck players forward, but also because they inadvertently recognize the idea that “you shouldn’t be here that long”. It’s a feature of the medium that we discuss a lot in theory, but not so much in practice: the game can’t exist without the player, because it can’t physically go on without active input, whatever that may look like. . How cool is that?
Getting stuck in a video game can be voluntary (and fun)
With the growing popularity of practices like speedrunning (which I happen to love), in-game timers, and self-imposed challenges, I feel like we’re constantly rushed through games. This is especially true when there are so many of them that it is to your advantage to get through them as quickly as possible to move on to the next one.
Personally, I love taking my time in a game. When I play a game for its immersive, interactive world, I’m going to fucking slow down and enjoy it. I’m known among friends as not the most efficient player, but I find a lot of fun in games by sometimes just standing in an environment and wondering what it’s like for the NPCs to inhabit that space. That is the last type of incarceration: the self-imposed one.
There’s something nice about cutting back on what a game expects of you and just taking it in for a while. If you’re not inclined to stop and smell the roses, I recommend going to a beautiful area in your favorite game and chilling out there for a while. Sometimes being stuck isn’t so bad.
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