Video games are distinctive in that they use interactivity to connect with players on an emotional level. Ueda’s games are not based on any dialect and have very little dialogue and a few characters. They captivate your attention and tell heart-warming stories that are discussed by players today .
Consider Shadow of the Colossus. The game’s main narrative could be explained in a handful of sentences. The dialogue will not take up more than two pages. However, as you wander through the deserted remains of a once-great civilization searching for colossi, fear or loneliness, guilt or fear become your constant acquaintances. It’s not for lack of reason. The reason is that Hemingway warns:
Shadow of the Colossus is deliberately omitted. The sprawling, well-crafted and almost lifeless landscape suggests unimaginable depths. The deteriorated structures suggest the once-great civilization. The language that is unintelligible creates a sense of awe in the experience. Every colossus tells a story in and of itself.
Minimalism has been a common theme in video games that are artistic. It’s a compelling one in relation to video games, words aren’t always necessary. Eliminating them will leave you with an abstract of memorable experiences.
While these games are based on a complex and intricate puzzle and gameplay to engage players, a few games have taken it one step further by reducing the size of the iceberg.
Journeys is an online game that has two mechanisms. You can sing by pressing one button and then jump using the other.
They aren’t designed to solve any problems or problems. They just aid in your journey by allowing interaction with the surrounding. The “singing” sounds like an emitted sound that gets louder when you press the button for a longer period of time. It allows you to talk with any other travelers you encounter, and again, in a minimal manner.
This game has no words, virtually no difficulty, and the bare sketch of a story that is told by murals. The game allows you to explore what may be the very essence of storytelling hero’s journey. The feeling of belonging to your fellow travelers is more profound than the inability to be able to identify them or to speak to them in a normal way.
Even in more traditional games, characters who aren’t fully developed are more likely to be remembered -for instance, Joel of the film The of Us is of Uses a good illustration. A lot of information is missing about how he lived his time between his daughter’s death as well as meeting Ellie.
What transpired during those years will add nuance to his character, but doesn’t take out the mystery. The lessons learned are not remembered when you read In The Last of Us 2, which meticulously fleshes out the character’s backstories but leaves little to the reader’s imagination.
The mysterious NPCs and bosses in Soulsborne games show how concise storytelling and worldbuilding can evoke fascination and curiosity, even though numerous details may not be able to impress the player. One wonders how much more captivating Horizon Zero Dawn’shistory the story of might be, had the developers been more frank about sharing the story. In the end, at the time I finished the game, my feeling of wonder diminished as I was too familiar with the story. The iceberg was huge however, I could only see the majority of it and this deprived it its majestic beauty.
It is believed that the Iceberg theory is extremely relevant in video games. The majority of big-budget games bombard gamers with mini-games, collecting items, and side quests without considering whether they will improve the gameplay by adding to the experience by subtraction from the experience. They are afraid to do too little and end up doing excessively. They are afraid of being misunderstood, and they end up telling all kinds of things.
A refusal to remove the unnecessary in a video game can transform a well-focused, thought-provoking experience an uninteresting one. The most artistic video games make us realize that less is more.
