hello. my name is mason miller. and this is [game array] playdead’s inside recently released on pc,xbox one and playstation 4. it, like limbo before it, is a memorable gameif only for its stringent adherence to minimalist values. minimalism in video games has always beenan interesting subject to me, especially since i find it so difficult to express why minimalistgames work so well. it might come as a surprise, but my favoriteuse of minimalism doesn’t come from the
world of video games. it doesn’t from the world of film or tv. it doesn’t even come from the world of artor sculpture, where minimalist ideals got their start in the mid 1950s. it comes from the world of cooking. from an italian chef named chef massimo bottura. massimo did something that i find remarkablewith a simple dish of pasta. when every other italian chef in the countrywas serving bowls filled with tortellini he decided to serve a single plate with six piecessurrounded by broth on both sides.
his reasoning? that when you eat a bowl of pasta, “mostof the time, you lose yourself in the process of eating.†by only serving six pieces, you force theguest to acknowledge each one. to respect each piece. it sounds ridiculous, but i like the decisionbecause of the way it considers the process of eating, the physical interaction betweenthe guest. and the food. i don’t think that relationship is too differentfrom how we digest video games.
we might consume a spoonful of pasta the sameway we power through the latest game from ubisoft. minimalism isn’t anything new for videogames. back in 2001 fumito ueda famously used whathe called “design by subtraction†to create ico. ueda believed that in order for ico to maintainimmersion he needed to winnow its assets to a bare minimum so that each asset would receivethe attention it needed to support the game’s own reality. even peter molyneux learned, during the troubleddevelopment of fable iii and perhaps too late,
that “it’s not the number of featuresyou have, it’s how well executed those features are.†what ueda and molynuex are both getting atis that sometimes you need to minimize your project’s scope in order to refine it intosomething truly splendid. that’s certainly true, after all it’sinside’s mechanical minimalism and refinement that allowed the designers to create thesetense chase scenes where the enemy is always right on the boy’s heels. that precise timing would have been impossibleto achieve in a game with a more varied move set.
phil fish, in describing his development offez, pointed out that ico ended up being about “a boy, a girl and a castle.†there was no inventory. no shops. no villagers. ueda knew that whole of ico should be aboutthis thematic idea of boy meets girl, and if any piece of the game didn’t serve asa part of that whole, he removed it. fish did the same thing to his own game. and so did jenova chen when designing journey.
chen himself said that “a lot of games todayhave a list of quests, places to go, items to collect and rewards to receive... we just ignore each other. so in order to make players care about eachother, we have to remove their power, and remove their tasks." chen removed server lobbies, he removed leaderboardsand avatar customization so that journey could focus on one thing: the magic of two strangerscooperating in an unknown land. by removing what isn’t needed, designersreturn power to what’s left. this is the reason why inside’s animationsare so more compelling.
why it’s backgrounds resonate. why i’m still thinking about the mind controlpuzzles, and my own cold apathy towards those under my control, some two weeks after viewingthe credits. all that remains of inside after its six yeardevelopment serves as a part of its whole. it all ties into inside’s themes and setting. even its gameplay and puzzles echo the samebleak indifference this dystopian world has for its inhabitants. inside’s puzzles benefit from its designchoices more so than almost any other part of the game.
director arnt jensen, looked back at eachof limbo’s puzzles during its design and asked “what is really necessary? what can we throw out? what doesn’t have to be there?†i think it’s safe to assume he carried overthat mentality to inside. every action, every object has a purpose. if a player can interact with it, then theywill need to in order to progress. this allows inside to easily communicate whatthe rules and boundaries are for each puzzle. it’s also what allows inside to create complexpuzzles over large stretches of game without
overwhelming its players jensen isn’t afraid of reusing puzzle mechanismseither because why add something to a game when something that’s already there willdo just as good if not better? inside lets each of its mechanisms stick aroundso they can unfold in interesting and unexpected ways. these sequences could have been several obstacleslinked together only by location, but by creating a mechanical theme they give the player areal sense of progression. and by limiting the amount of objects andassets used in the game, inside can curate player experience and direct player focus.
take a look at this water puzzle about a thirdof the way through the game. we see this chain rope and we immediatelyknow it’s the goal because we’ve seen and interacted with that rope before. and then there’s inside’s control scheme. two buttons and an analogue stick. one button for interaction. another for jumping. and unlike other platformers, inside isn’ta test of your reflexes. anytime you jump or interact with something,you do it for a purpose and with an expected
outcome. it’s really no different than chef massimoand his tortellini. if other platformers are the bowls of pastathat you get lost in the process of playing, than inside is the plate with six tortellinithat forces you to consider and respect every button press. my favorite moments with inside came fromthe way it played with that relationship. when it took what i expected to happen andturned that expectation on its head. when jumping over a fence causes the fenceto give way. or when pulling this box does the oppositeof what you you’re trying to accomplish.
but it’s inside’s ending that stuck withme the most. it’s the reason why i like this game somuch more than limbo. it’s why inside might still be remembereda few years from now when other games are long forgotten. it works in part because the rest of the gameis so quiet in comparison. aside from a few key moments this is whatyou can expect from inside’s first hour. and here’s what you can expect from theending. but that isn’t the reason it resonated sowell with me. at least i don’t think so.
imagine you’re eating tortellini. one at a time. and the last piece of pasta has a differentfilling. maybe it’s pork loin and prosciutto insteadof cheese. that blast of flavor catches you off guardand changes the entire experience of that meal. i think inside does the same thing. you spend so much time being consciously awareof every action, that you feel at home inside the player character.
so when that player character suddenly changes,that transformation resonates. it stays with you. and it makes inside a truly memorable experience. go ahead and compare it to resident evil 6where-- spoilers-- one of the characters transforms into this thing during the climax of theirrespective campaign. i totally forgot this happened until i washalfway through this script. it doesn’t have any lasting impact becauseresident evil 6 is such a bloated mess of convoluted controls and action sequences thatthis small change doesn’t add much to the whole.
and at the end of the day, that’s all anyonewill remember. inside knew that. it knew that it would need to cut any sequenceor feature that didn’t serve its whole, so that the whole would be a more memorableexperience in the end. it saw the virtues of restraint. and like ico and journey before it, insidestands as a prime example of what can be accomplished with minimalism in video games. thanks so much for watching. i hope you enjoyed the video.
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