Video Game Theory

Lately I've caught up on a few videogame-based TV shows. Mostly not worth mentioning, but a couple of them did ... a thing that struck me in a particular way:

They showed characters solving environmental puzzles, lifted directly from their respective games.

Watching scripted characters read cryptic hints, listening to their conjecture on how to proceed, and seeing them tediously fiddle with objects until something happens -- it's weird. I can only speculate that the showrunners thought these sequences would be endearing to fans of the games. Or maybe they thought they'd attract Twitch viewers who already watch someone else play.

Regardless, I was bored. And in my boredom, I thought about the difference - and the similarity - between the "conflicts" which drive tension, creating excitement, in movies/TV versus in games.

'Cause conflict is a common basis for dramatic tension and for gameplay challenges: a gap between what the viewer or player sees and what they expect. Scripted media and interactive gameplay can even create conflict in the same ways, with mystery, with power struggles, with puzzles. Movies and TV can make locked rooms exciting, right?

But games have different tools for conveying that conflict, and use different techniques to engage your attention with it. By asking you to find a pattern in some clues, or to make choices about what to investigate, or just to press some buttons at the right time -- by requesting your direct involvement, an interactive experience can use your reactivity and your imagination to excite you.

Even when quick time events are un-failable, and when puzzles are solved by illogical bullshit, being personally involved in the process creates a meaningful attachment.

And that's why watching a cartoon Lara Croft rotate statues of Chinese zodiac animals, while Jonah recited their order in The Great Race, felt pretty stupid to me. As was watching Resident Evil's kids wander around a house looking for cipher clues. I may as well have been watching an accountant fill out paperwork.

Those scenes could have been entertaining to watch if their action flowed more quickly, or if they included some dialog relevant to character or story development. Those are tools that movies and TV can use to effectively convey conflict. Like when the 2022 live-action Halo series - which had its own share of problems - showed extended firefights, or switched into Chief's first-person camera view: these scenes actually worked pretty well, due to their use of quick camera movement and visual spectacle.

Point being that an exciting videogame, and an exciting TV show, can definitely be built on the same premise. A TV show just can't, uh, ask me to imagine the exciting part.

(For the record, that non-interactive puzzle wasn't Resident Evil's biggest problem. Its back-and-forth between stories in 2022 and 2036 was a narrative disaster.)