Bad Games Inspire Me

📰 FYI: For the next few weeks, Equip Story newsletters will be faster reads. There’s a good reason for me writing less, besides a mix of lethargy, discombobulation, and general panic that I know I’m not alone in feeling. But I want to keep my good reason a surprise for when I write about it in the weeks ahead.

When Amanda and I are together, we like to watch bad movies. When Amanda is away on a work trip, I switch to bad video games. She’s not much of a gamer, so if I spend my evening with Shaq Fu, I know Amanda won’t get Shaq FOMO. If I watch Kazaam without her, though? She’ll be sadder than the boy in Kazaam after… uh, does someone steal his magic boombox? I can’t remember what actually happens in Kazaam.

I shouldn’t say “bad.” I like cheesy games. Games that are entertainingly flawed, not just boring shovelware or games too broken to play entirely. Why do I like games with oddball mechanics, goofy visuals, and over-the-top acting? For one, they surprise me. When a game works flawlessly, I become immersed. The experience is predictably smooth. When I play the Poker deckbuilder Balatro, I go into a kind of trance, and it’s not just the dream-like visuals and loungy casino soundtrack. Everything works perfectly in Balatro. The game is so polished and well-designed. But when I play a cheesy game, the immersion will suddenly break. My character walks through a wall, or a line of dialogue is said with a weird inflection, and I’ll laugh at the screen. I’m taken out of the experience. There’s a joy in being genuinely surprised.

Another reason I love cheesy games is they inspire me. I think about the mysteries of how the game got made, why the developers made certain choices, and what I might’ve done differently. Lately, I’ve been picking up DVD games for cheap on eBay to get more use out of my Blu-Ray player. Rick Dyer, the creator of Dragon’s Lair, made a fantasy follow-up called Shadoan that was released on DVD and Philips CD-i, which famously abused their Nintendo license. Unlike Dragon’s Lair, which has fluid and impressive animation from the legendary Don Bluth, Shadoan is rendered in a sub-Saturday morning cartoon style. The adventure game puts a heavy emphasis on exploring a vast world, which is hilariously sabotaged when the game repeat a small handful of poorly animated clips over and over and over again. But the idea of using FMV for a Monkey Island type experience is fascinating. I might’ve suggested redubbing the clips with different voice lines, so the characters could reflect gameplay better without stretching the animation budget.

A recent dip into Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties got me wondering about how to make a game with still images feel innovative. (That’s essentially what Myst was.) I recently played all the way through a Chinese game called Love Is All Around, an FMV dating sim with some unique mechanics, and to my delight, wonderfully over-the-top acting. It got me thinking about FMV dating sims and the possibilities there. Though it’s cheesy on purpose, unlike most of the ones I play, I’ll never forget my time with Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective. I wish more games had that kind of bonkers sense of humor, and often I think about what a “sketch comedy game” would look like.

I encourage young game designers and writers to play great games to learn the craft. There are unimpeachable classics with incredible stories like BioShock, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Undertale. But honestly, those games don’t inspire me the way a bad CD-i game does. Apparently, I’m not alone. Hi, Arzette!

🎲 Your Turn: Do you enjoy watching cheesy movies (“the worst we can find, la la la”) or playing bad games? I’d love your recommendations. Reply to this email or comment with the orange button below to tell the whole world.

📨 Next Week: This week’s newsletter was supposed to be about two recent wins, but one of them hasn’t been publicly announced yet. I thought it would be by now! So, hopefully next week? If not… uh, we’ll see!