My perspective on video games has changed a bit. I used to care primarily about interesting game mechanics, fascinating challenges, and compelling stories. I still care about those things, but nowadays I tend to think of them as means to an end rather than as ends in and of themselves. Nowadays, I care most about the feelings, moods, and emotions that video games evoke, with a particular emphasis on wonder, awe, and mystery. I’ve invented a name for this perspective: I’m calling it evocativism.
I’ve appropriated the word “evocative” in the same way that expressionism appropriates the word “expressive”. All painting is expressive, so it seems presumptuous to label one particular style expressionist. Similarly, all video games—even Tetris—evoke emotions. However, games like Myst, Another World, Silent Hill, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Knytt, Cloud, flOw, Flower, Portal, Braid, and Osmos seem to put a primary emphasis on evoking certain kinds of feelings, moods, and emotions, and that distinctive focus is what I’m referring to as “evocativist”.
One of these days, before I starve to death, I’d like to try my hand at designing and implementing one of these evocativist games. My approach would exhibit:
- An emphasis on exploration and discovery.
- An emphasis on evoking a sense of wonder, awe, and mystery.
- An emphasis on natural environments and natural ambient sound effects.
- An emphasis on minimalism and non-verbalism.
- An emphasis on “artificial life” over “artificial intelligence”.
- A de-emphasis on pre-designed narrative.
- A de-emphasis on violence.
- A de-emphasis on frustration.
- An emphasis on procedurally generated content.
None of these characteristics is essential to my definition of “evocativist”. These just happen to be the characteristics I’m interested in focusing on. Each deserves multiple blog-posts, but here are a few introductory thoughts, just to get the ball rolling.