The Joy of Motion: Coming to grips with pacing in video games

Playing Lone Survivor: Director’s Cut for the PS VITA was about coming to grips with pacing in video games. It’s a game which I personally have felt nothing but ambivalence towards since starting it up last week.

The titular lone survivor, referred to only as “You”, are tasked with exploring an apartment complex. As a player, you become tasked additionally with managing this character’s levels of hunger, fatigue and sanity in real-time, which is accomplished through several different means: hunger is satisfied by eating scavenged foods, sleep is achieved by returning to an apartment room which “You” have occupied (which importantly is also the only way for the player to save his/her progress), and sanity is maintained by eating healthily and sleeping consistently.

More to the point however, the apartment room “You” stay in can be returned to regularly, which is accomplished primarily through two-way mirrors which litter the apartment complex. Sadly, these nifty warp points contributed to the game’s undoing. Too often, I found myself playing far too conservatively, and felt that my enjoyment of the game itself suffered for it.

Typically, I would spend five minutes at most away from my base, make some degree of progress (find key, use key, defeat enemies, experience hallucinations which serve largely to obscure “Your” understanding of what little plot has been presented to “You”) and then return safely to “Your” room to rest. I did this until I’d sunk about two hours into the game, and found the established rhythm to be stilted and unrewarding.

Disappointingly, the tone (which I was told aspired to emulate Twin Peaks and Silent Hill) never surfaced; and whatever level of ensuing anxiety which is often coupled with successful survival/horror titles felt largely non-existent because I’d never spend more than five minutes lost and away from the safety of a two-way mirror.

Meat Locker

Midway through the game however, “You” descend into the basement of the aforementioned apartment complex. Contrary to the rest of the game, this sequence would force the player to be away from two-way mirrors for long stretches of time. This sequence highlighted yet further pacing issues, and was exacerbated by two main design decisions. First, the game is presented in a 2D perspective, but the apartment complex is itself modeled in 3D space. Therefore, instead of simply being given the option to move left/right, “You” can move forward/backward as well. Upon doing so, the previous forward/backward becomes the new left/right. Second, the player never has access to “Your” map except during specific dictated moments. When you hit the button associated to this feature, “You” exclaim proudly that “You” know where “You” are.

These issues are compounded by the fact that this basement’s layout is labyrinthine, populated unjustly by monsters, and housing two keys (in the form of batteries) which are required to open a door, allowing “You” to eventually leave the apartment complex..

All told, playing Lone Survivor revealed my inabilities to see past pacing in video games. While its setting, graphics and opaque game mechanics are charming, I simply could not enjoy myself enough to continue playing through this title.

Perhaps fittingly, I’ve since begun playing Guacamelee!, which contrasts my complaints about Lone Survivor nicely. And on that note, stay tuned for next week, when I explore the joy of motion in Drinkbox Studios’ newest gem.