Surrealism

Strawberry hills forever

I've said it before but the topic does bare repeating; one of the greatest things about the video game medium is the ability to shirk the coils of what's possible and reach into the unfathomable limits of what's imaginable. The consequence of this freedom can inflate a dream into majestic reality and allow us to share the abstract and insane with those around us. To transcend beyond what we acknowledge to be 'real' and reach a state of 'surreal.' Obviously, the same could be said about any and all forms of none physical media, but seeing as how this is gaming blog, that's were I'm going to focus my gaze for this article.

There is a significant degree of danger when it comes to exploring the surreal in the pursuit of storytelling, it can seem alienating to the audience in a way that can put them off and even be a bit too exposing for the author. However, when you reach an audience that really resonate with your message it can create a strong bond/ connection. Just look at the, now cult classic, 1993 movie 'The Thief and the Cobbler'. That was a wondrous and often abstract movie that is often erroneously labelled as an Aladdin-clone. (The movie was in development for well over a decade. Although one could argue that the success of Aladdin pushed the responsible studios to get it finished) At the time many found it to be boring or too obtuse to understand or enjoy, but in the years since a new audience of people have clung to it and given the project a new life in home media. (Just a pity that the original director never lived to see it.)

Surrealism need not go to the extremes of abstract imagery and an entire storyline paved in lunacy in order to justify it's existence, merely subvert the expectations of it's audience to a fundamental degree. That is really the type of game that I honed in on for this blog, for no other reason then the fact that the truly abstract games are often hard to talk about to any sensible degree. (That being said, there is one game I selected which certainly fits into that category; but you'll have to wait until the end for that one.)

I doubt anyone would look at 'Ruiner' and immediately label it as 'Surreal'. The game itself is a top-down skill based shoot-em-up based heavily on powerups and varnished with a neon Cyberpunk gleam. But for me, the surrealism comes with the game's peculiar stylisation that inflates much of the tropes of it's themes and genres in a bright, punky, surrealist way. For example, the game starts with the player being thrust into several gun fights with very little explanation for what you are doing apart from the occasionally block-font prompt accompanied by the droning command "Kill Boss". Soon you'll meet the character 'HER' who guides you through the narrative with her odd vocalizations and inconsistent dialogue cues.You'll notice the primary colour cues accompanying each individual area that seem to throb with the hum of neon.Ultimately, you'll be swept in an overbearing Cyberpunk onslaught of a world that scream 'kitsch' in all the weirdest (and best) ways.

It is easy to look at any game with monochromatic colours and a lack of guided narrative and call it 'Surreal', but when looking at Playdead's 'Inside' there really isn't a better way to describe the whole experience. (Aside from 'beautifully horrifying', I guess.) Borrowing the style of their other iconic title 'Limbo', 'Inside' is a story told entirely through visuals with enough vagueness to it's events that the majority of the story must be deciphered by it's confused players. With such a stark presentation to it all, themes start to stand out of 'Control' and 'Compliance' but the overall package can remain still very elusive even after you reach that final screen. I don't want to spoil anything for those that haven't given this wild ride a go, but I'll bet that the ending will leave you feeling some kind of disturbed by the time the credits roll around. (Even if I can't tell you what it ultimately symbolizes. If anything.)

It is hard talking about a game that you haven't personally played, especially in excessive detail, but a list like this is too ripe for a Death Stranding entry for me to ignore. Hideo Kojima's first game outside of the influence of Konami's money men turned out to be the perfect example of surrealist storytelling from it's almost impenetrable story to it's incredibly divisive content. I've heard people hail it as one of the worst and best games ever made, and many more conclude that they have no idea what any of it meant at all. For my part, I've followed enough about the game to know that it, in some fashion, depicts the unravelling of reality as space, time and even existence twists in upon itself. A more surreal setup I could not come up with, that's for sure.

Once again, Super Mario Bros. 2 isn't a game that screams 'surreal' in retrospect, but one must simply apply some context to see what a break from the norm that this game was. The original Super Mario Bros. was a very weird and confusing game to come to terms with anway. We may all know the story now of an Italian plumber on the warpath to save Princess Toadstool whilst stomping on sentient mushrooms and dropping dragons in lava, but at the time it was quite the pill to swallow conceptually. Of course, the game still ended up being a hit and spawning one of the longest running franchises in gaming history. Super Mario Bros. 2, however, probably marks the biggest mainline departure from the formula that the games have ever gone through. Everything changed, from the enemies you were facing, the way you attacked them, and even the worlds through which you were traversing. Things became unexpected as the player was dragged up against sentient cacti, three headed snakes and a royal toad who can only be defeated by forcing him to eat vegetables. Of course, the reason for this would be that Nintendo retooled another upcoming game (Doki Doki Panic) into a Mario game for the masses, leaving in a lot of the weirdness from that entirely separate game in the process. So it all turned out well in the end, but it was certainly unbearably weird for a time.

Speaking of Doki Doki, how about that game about the Literature club? Ostensibly a traditional anime dating Sim, Doki Doki Literature Club lures it's victims in under a false sense of security by having them sail through a VN chock full of charming stereotypes and work on writing poetry to woo their girl of choice. Simple and mundane enough, right? But things quickly spiral out of control when the player starts to become aware that this game was never supposed to be a dating Sim, but was actually retooled from something much darker. As I mentioned in my other blog, it isn't long before characters start breaking the fourth wall, with one in particular making it very clear that she knows that you are playing the game and she wants everything to play out to her benefit. Once again, I won't go into specifics regarding how twisted everything gets, but trust me when I say that calling it 'Surreal' is definitely an understatement.

Finally, as promised, comes the one game which is the culmination of everything you instinctively imagine when you hear the word 'Surreal'; LSD Dream Emulator. This game, if you can call it that, takes players through a tour of absolute visual nonsense as you traverse a twisted dreamscape wherein every surface that you touch sends you spiralling into another world. Funnily enough, this game wasn't the result of an LSD trip (allegedly) but rather the work of a Japanese 'multimedia artist' called Osamu Sato. As far as the Wikipedia page states (saved you a Google) Osamu, like many artist of his time, rejected the idea of Video games and wanted to use the Sony PlayStation as an outlet for his art. This game came about due to his dislike for playing racing games, as he found them difficult and boring. He dreamed of crashing his car through the walls of the tracks and travelling into different worlds, and so that was the premise of the game that he went to make. This, dear reader, is surreal experimentalism at it's most raw.

With the level of complexity that one can achieve with modern video gaming software tools, it's a shame that Surrealism isn't more prevalent in the industry as of yet. But looking at the various visceral responses to games like Death Stranding, I suppose it makes sense that the money men want to take much safer approaches when it comes to bringing their games to life. Perhaps once things start opening up to streaming and we shirk the 'big money financed' console cycles (not yet I fear, Google.) we'll start to see more weird and wild concepts start to rule the roost.