Only If

Every game has to figure out some way to deal with the memory problem. If the game is, in good ludological Mario tradition, expected to teach you its rules and story on the fly, there are only so many ways to account for the knowledge gap between the player and the playable character. The playable character, after all, was born in the world; his environment probably shouldn't have to explain to him how to walk or talk or swing a weapon, just like no voiceover follows you around and tells you which leg to move next or what you could vocalize to a friend you pass. The knowledge of where you are, who those friends might be, and what your mission is, then, become problems of indirect expression. Like a first semester creative writing major, a game designer is exhorted to show, not tell. And like that young writer, the game designer sometimes does better and sometimes does worse in conveying what needs must be conveyed.

The piece of fiction that has this problem can fall back on "telling" to some extent. Exposition is a part of most genres. And in some genres of game, similarly, a lot of written material is given to the player explaining the nature of a weapon, the mythology behind an encountered creature, the framing device that explains the princess' capture and the hero's quest. But because the game must also teach you *how* to play, there's often a near-continuous series of 4th wall breakages. It's one thing to find an in-universe scroll with a torn-off half-a-legend explaining the shadow of the deep (other half-of-scroll to be found in desk drawer in subsequent room). It's another to have a bubble pop up to explain how left trigger will open your inventory and right trigger will equip whatever weapon you choose there. Godamnit game, thanks for reminding me I am not Hero of Heroes after all, but simply a person in possession of buttons and fingers.

The two forms of exposition often go together, and are often handled pretty cringily. Inevitably, the character has lost their memory, or taken drugs, or just landed in a new place and doesn't know how or why, or the world has somehow been shifted in such a way as to cause their total loss of knowledge. Coupled with bad writing, it's a disappointment to find yourself in yet another action-adventure game where you wake up somewhere with a character groggily confused. Gees, game, just let ME be confused instead of the character! It's so utterly inorganic for them to be confused! It's their life! Let them go about it and YOU be a decent enough writer to divulge the important bits as we go, so I can immerse myself in the world and not spend all my time wondering why the character is such a doof.

Which is all to say, the protagonist in Only If is a real doof. He goes to a party in a preliminary cutscene, then wakes up on a bed in a mansion and finds himself trapped in a hellish, surreal set of challenges in his effort to escape. There is an abusive voice on a radio threatening to kill him (and sometimes actually doing it), there's a creeping black void that threatens from corners, there are a whole bunch of game exercises that remind you more of the sketch games from The Beginner's Guide than one cohesive whole. Which would be more than fine (I'm a huge proponent of the idea of short story games! 5-minute experiences downloadable for free, or an "album" of 10 or 12 short games that people could make and offer on some service resembling soundcloud. That sounds totally awesome), but they are all treated like scenes in a cohesive story.

And...it is not a cohesive story. Not a good one. The character sucks, so does the radio voice, there are lots of half-baked philosophical questions that emerge only to be ignored. The designers try to give it some structure and tension by making it into a horror-style thing (gees, that radio voice and all the ways he tries to kill you is kinda mean), but he's really no GLaDOS. And your character, with his teenage profanities and tough-guy act, are the cringiest of cringe.

#WalkingSim #horror #memory #narrative