Games Aren't Numbers

In Part 1 I used two examples of gameplay descriptions, a boring one and an entertaining one. One of the points I tried to make was that simply analyzing a game's components and then listing them is boring and should be avoided, but an entertaining description is fun to read. There's another advantage though that creative descriptions offer. Good writing can tell you how good or bad a game is simply through its language. This may seem painfully apparent, but the frequency of dry reviews would seem to argue otherwise.

Every review will have a sentence along the lines of “this game is good” or “this game is bad” or somewhere in between, but the way a review is written can speak much more profoundly. My previous examples didn't directly critique the game, but their words can speak for themselves.

Here's a recap of the examples I used previously:

BIT.TRIP BEAT is like Pong set to music. You control a paddle moving vertically up and down the screen. You have to align yourself with the oncoming pixels in order to deflect them. The more you deflect the higher your score goes. Some of these pixels are very fast and move in strange patterns that are hard to hit, so that's the real challenge. The highlight though is the music which is very chiptune inspired and matches up with the gameplay. To top it all off there are some great visuals.

BIT.TRIP BEAT is Pong meets Rez. Thirty seven years later your job is to once again take control of a line shaped paddle and do anything to stop the onslaught of square balls. Only this time you're in a technicolor outer space, not a blank ping-pong table. Another difference, aside from setting, is that it's not another human you play against but rather some invisible, and presumably square, batting machine (paddling machine?) which has malfunctioned and can't stop shooting an endless stream of balls. BEAT follows the sci fi the tradition of allowing sound to travel through space, so catchy chiptunes can be heard everywhere. They're so catchy in fact, that even the colorful square balls can't help but dance to the beat. I'm sure there's some symbolism here, and it probably involves drugs.

My boring description is unlikely to make anyone really want to buy the game. I could end the paragraph with a recommendation, but that is less important than the actual paragraph itself. “Show, don't tell” is a common technique games use when instructing the player. Likewise in reviews, it's better to show the reader that the game is fun by using fun language, don't just tell him or her that it's fun.

It works for a negative description as well. Here's a foil for my positive one:

BIT.TRIP BEAT is could be described as less a game and more as porn for retro enthusiasts. Its pixel inspired artwork and chiptune inspired soundtrack are all it needs to sell, and the developers at Gaijin seem to have taken heed to this fact. Its gameplay is extremely simple and only serves as a context for its art and music. Moving a paddle up and down a screen to hit balls may have been amazing when Pong hit the market, but this is the year 2009. It's still fun in its own quirky way, but don't expect to get blown away. It's hard to fault a game for being simple when it only costs 600 Nintendo Points (6 USD) though. Pick this up if you can't get enough of the recent trend of cheap artsy games, or if you're looking for a real old school challenge, since this game is definitely designed for those with skill.

A description like this, which even recommends buying it, is very unlikely to convert any potential players. It implies the game is shallow, and indirectly insults anyone who likes it. Even a self described “retro enthusiast” would probably be less likely to want to play the game after reading this.

My light hearted description is more likely to make more people want to play the game just because it's fun to read. It never explicitly says “this game is good, buy it” but it leaves the reader with a positive emotional association with the game. If a game can inspire a writer to write entertaining reviews, then we subconsciously assume it must also be an entertaining game.

The importance of subtlety seems so obvious, but far too many writers seem to forget it.