Or, okay, Zeigfreid, I will notice the medium
Kigo (ĺŁčŞž, “season word”) is a word or phrase associated with a particular season, used in traditional forms of Japanese poetry. Kigo are used in the collaborative linked-verse forms renga and renku, as well as in haiku, to indicate the season referred to in the stanza. They are valuable in providing economy of expression.
Kigo – Wikipedia
Dear Zeigfreid!
I have a bit of a problem. I don’t think that platformers are as beautiful as the seasons, or even latte art. There was a time when my world practically revolved around them, and at some point, I stopped thinking that way.
On one hand, I feel like I’ve found so much other beauty in the world that I can’t help but see jumping around in videogames as worthless by comparison. It seems like the logical conclusion. Videogames are an infamously worthless and harmful art form, according to many.
On the other hand, it’s interesting to think of myself as like Jermaine. I’ve made so many platformers that playing them has started to lose its meaning. Platformers don’t have shapes the way that landscapes do, but an experience is composed of moments — patterns — kigo. These elements broke apart to me. Maybe I can make them as I perceive them, even if I’m scared it won’t make any sense.
Abstract platformers.
So what are the shapes of platformers?
What are the individual elements of platformers that I like? Can I break them down? I’m going to try, but it’s not going to be pretty. Consider this next section an experimental first draft.
JUMPING, AND FALLING
HOW MUCH TIME DO I HAVE IN THE AIR? (RUSHED OR RELAXED?)
HOW MANY TILES CAN I JUMP VERTICALLY?
HOW WIDE OF A GAP CAN I JUMP OVER?
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GET TO TOP SPEED?
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO STOP?
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO TURN AROUND?
DOES BEING IN THE AIR MAKE THESE THINGS HARDER?
WAITING FOR A MOVING PLATFORM
JUMPING AT THE WRONG TIME AND MISSING A MOVING PLATFORM
FEELING LIKE YOU MIGHT JUST BE ABLE TO MAKE IT BUT NOT WANTING TO JUMP AT THE WRONG TIME AND INSTEAD DOING NOTHING AND WAITING FOR THE NEXT CYCLE (I have an unquenchable hatred of moving platforms)
JUMPING FIRST, AND THEN TAPPING THE DIRECTIONAL MOVEMENT INPUT IN ORDER TO PERFORM A JUMP THAT MOVES YOU A VERY SHORT DISTANCE WITHOUT BUILDING TOO MUCH MOMENTUM
DOUBLE JUMPING
USING A DOUBLE JUMP AT THE PEAK OF YOUR JUMP
USING A DOUBLE JUMP RIGHT AFTER JUMPING
JUMPING INTO A HOLE AND THEN USING THE DOUBLE JUMP TO POP BACK OUT OF IT WITHOUT HITTING THE BOTTOM
WALL JUMPS
TRIPLE JUMPS
THE OTHER KIND OF TRIPLE JUMPS (see: Super Mario 64)
WHEN THE FLOOR DISAPPEARS UNDERFOOT
WHEN THE FLOOR DISAPPEARS UNDERFOOT BUT YOU HAVE A DOUBLE JUMP
WHEN THE FLOOR DISAPPEARS UNDERFOOT BUT YOU HAVE COYOTE TIME
WHEN THE FLOOR DISAPPEARS UNDERFOOT BUT YOU HAVE A DOUBLE JUMP BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH
WHEN THE FLOOR DISAPPEARS UNDERFOOT BUT YOU HAVE A DOUBLE JUMP BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH BUT IT’S A SCRIPTED EVENT AND THERE’S SOMETHING INTERESTING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HOLE
WHEN THE FLOOR DISAPPEARS UNDERFOOT BUT YOU HAVE A DOUBLE JUMP BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH BUT IT’S A SCRIPTED EVENT AND THERE’S SOMETHING INTERESTING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HOLE BUT ACTUALLY WITH VERY GOOD TIMING YOU ACTUALLY CAN GET TO THE OTHER SIDE AND–
and– oh, let me get back on track, sorry about that.
So what are the kigo of platformers?
“They are valuable in providing economy of expression.”
I could keep going like this for a very, very long time. The shapes of platformers are countless, and each one is infinitely deep. I feel as though the structure of these platformer patterns is incompatible with kigo.
Seasons are not a malleable medium. Nature is not an art form. When I evoke autumn it comes with falling leaves, a crisp wind, memories of a fleeting summer already gone.
There is a similar relationship between elements of a platformer, but any consistent rule that I come up with can be subverted, often quite easily and to great effect.
- You can MOVE and JUMP. I’ve played games where you can’t do one or the other of these things, and some of them even still feel distinctly like platformers.
- MOVING and then JUMPING creates a JUMP WITH HORIZONTAL MOMENTUM, great for CROSSING GAPS… but we could surely experiment with a game where that’s not true. What if the way to make a long jump was to start from standing?
- JUMPING is always followed by FALLING… until someone invents the DOUBLE JUMP, a subversion whose deeply satisfying brilliance echoes across decades of platformers.
Where a haiku celebrates something static, we might say that a platformer celebrates how its own medium is constantly in motion. Breaking.
And I am the one who breaks them apart.
Comments!
Oil paintings are not as beautiful as the seasons. That’s why we end up with pointillism, impressionism, and abstract expressionism. A realist oil painting of a landscape is usually not going to convey the “awe” or “beauty” that the painter experienced at the landscape. If an oil painting ends up being “as or more beautiful” than the thing it is a painting of, it is probably going to be the beauty of oil painting. A specific beauty that oil paintings can have that can’t be had anywhere else.
object -> subject -> expression
There is a thing, some phenomena, a collection of photons travelling at a certain wavelength, in air that is vibrating just so, at just such a temperature. Then there are the human sense organs, which interpret these signals, and here we may find experiences called “beauty” or “awe”. Then the human leaves, and carries that information in their brain. When they want to “express” this, they find words fail to transmit the experience. A photograph also fails to transmit this experience. Even bringing a person to the exact place at the exact right moment may fail to transmit the experience.
So, I reject comparing videogames to a summer’s day! I reject it as meaningless. I do not understand the statement “I don’t think that platformers are as beautiful as the seasons”. What could this possibly mean?
I will attempt to though! Maybe it means, “living and walking around outside and breathing the cool air, or appreciating the colours of nature is more inspiring, more awesome, than playing platformers. Platformers don’t warm my skin, they don’t impress upon me the awesome machinery of nature, they don’t make my cheeks go all rosy. When I drive a car around the city or go for a walk in the park, it makes me want to make art! But when I play platformers it doesn’t make me want to make art. It seems bland in comparison.” OK but look:
“living and walking around outside and breathing the cool air, or appreciating the colours of nature is more inspiring, more awesome, than appreciating paintings. Paintings don’t warm my skin, they don’t impress upon me the awesome machinery of nature, they don’t make my cheeks go all rosy. When I drive a car around the city or go for a walk in the park, it makes me want to make art! But when I appreciate paintings it doesn’t make me want to make art. It seems bland in comparison.”
Admittedly, appreciating paintings or platformers does sometimes make me want to paint paintings or make platformers, but I think it’s not the same mode as when experiencing nature makes me want to paint paintings or make platformers. You experience nature, or love, or hate, but you often only appreciate films, or books, or videogames.
I like your conclusion though, I like the idea of droqen as the Jermaine of platformers. You’ve played enough of them that they’ve lost their meaning, they’ve come apart, playing them no longer makes you want to make them. That’s fine! But you cannot conclude from this that platformers as less beautiful than seasons because you can’t put them on a metric together at all.
I think!
If a platformer ends up being “as or more beautiful” than the thing it is representing, it is probably going to be the beauty of platformers.
A specific beauty that platformers can have that can’t be had anywhere else.
I keep coming back to this, thank you for it 🙂 They are incomparable. Thinking about the seasons might make a game about the seasons more interesting, more beautiful, but perhaps that can still only enhance the unique beauty of that platformer as a platformer. A wine pairing. It’s slippery, but I feel somewhat closer to the idea of “What can a game convey that nothing else can?” It’s not a cheap pithy statement like ‘games are interactive and other art isn’t!’ but a bottomless truth, made out of infinite patterns.