An especially cynical critic could posit that learning to
play games really amounts to little more than learning to identify
patterns. A player "learns" to
play a game when they zero in on the pattern of the game itself, the rhythm
behind its play. It's akin to reading
poetry, or tapping out a beat: at first it might be clumsy, or haphazard, but
over time players develop a fluency with the systems that govern that pattern,
and eventually internalize the structures of said pattern. Consider Street
Fighter: players learn attacks, counters, and specials, and then combine
them together in a sort of dance that, as both players acquire fluency in those
patterns, becomes increasingly elegant.
Novice Street Fighter players
might clumsily punch and block and stagger out an abortive hadouken or three,
and the game, as such, can be almost painful for spectators to watch, ut
professional Street Fighter players
engage in a sort of play that takes on a highly performative quality, as
players engage in a kind of theater reserved for one another that can translate
delightfully for an audience. The
pattern of Street Fighter becomes a
sort of dance performance, and spectators, even without a working knowledge of
the game and its systems, can be utterly enchanted by that pattern.
Starcraft exists
on the other side of the spectrum. An
ugly game, difficult to spectate at any level, Starcraft is a game that relies entirely on players building,
breaking, and rebuilding patterns: the opening moves of each Starcraft game are more or less the
same, and the divisions from that point onward are little more than
realizations of different approaches, different pattern-shapes actualized by
players to the best of their ability. Starcraft 2 build orders remain
enshrined, and player execution of those build orders can often be predicted
down to a few minutes. At the highest
levels of play, there are disruptive constructions of these patterns that rely
on an understanding of their inner workings, but at the core of everything, the
patterns, the build order and the performative element of micro-managing units
in combat, remain key, so much so that Starcraft
announcers spend a great deal of time explaining not only the patterns that
players are engaging in, but the patterns they're eschewing or modifying as
well.
I could harp on a bunch of other examples of patterns, but
most players probably recognize, by now, that their play style builds on some
sort of patterned behavior that they internalize as effective or
functional. Even single player games,
and their storylines, rely on patterns to work.
I've been replaying X-Com, and
I find its familiar patterns to be almost comforting, and as I fall into them,
I remember why that game ate almost a year of my life. I start a new game, I set up my tech, get my
units deployed, and begin iterating towards success as best I can. The most unusual thing in gaming, the most
unthinkable thing, really, is to create a game that eschews patterns, or that
asks players to learn patterns and then breaks them up without warning or care
for how that disruption might impact the lessons that game has been teaching
its players. Sunless Sea, which has long stood as a sort of non-proverbial white
whale at the edge of my perception, is all about this kind of interruption.
Sunless Sea is a
rogue-a-like that puts players in command of a small ship in an undersea ocean
filled with terror. Players sail around
trying to get money, recruit crew, and buy a bigger boat, all so they can avoid
dying terribly to the sea creatures, pirates, hell beasts, and general dickheads
who inhabit the undersea realm of Fallen London. At first, the game asks players to do
something pretty simple: explore. Get
out there and find as much stuff as you can as fast as you can. Patterns begin
to unfold as exploration takes place. Players
will find quests that seem to repeat.
They'll begin hauling cargo from one place to another, taking
mostly-dead tourists around the horror-scape of Fallen London. These patterned actions will give you money,
and you'll want to keep trying your hand at them to keep paying your
bills. But then, a problem will arise. You'll be unable to do so anymore.
It won't be that your locations will be gone. It will merely be that the pattern will no
longer deliver any kind of positive return on investment. I had my first pattern-interrupt when the
young women I visited to stock up on supplies before going on long journeys
burned their manor house to the ground.
If not for the intervention of an insane scholar in a completely
different location, I'd have probably starved in the long run, or had to put
off improving my lot in life, at the very least. My second pattern interrupt came after I'd
spent some time transporting stone from ancient ruins sacred to an undersea god
to the London bazaar, where I could then sell them for good coin. I'd been making good money when, suddenly, I
was told that my contacts in the London government would no longer be accepting
my shipments. Instead, I'd have to
explore uncharted locations with a hold half-full of stone, and find a way to
gain access to a foreign port for a day so that I can convince them to accept
my various shipments. With that done,
the pattern was officially closed, and I went off to find my next money making
scheme.
That is, in a sense, the brilliance of Sunless Sea, and what makes its capacity for pattern interruption
so special: that by asking players to learn patterns, and then removing those
patterns from play, it encourages a distinct kind of exploration that prevents
players from ever getting comfortable.
In a horror themed game about exploration, the threat, always, is that
players will become powerful enough to resolve any kind of trouble they
encounter without issue. But by forcing
players to adapt to new circumstances, by forcing them to constantly expand
their explorations or stagnate, and in stagnating slowly starve, lose fuel, and
die, Sunless Sea manages to make
their game an exercise in forcing players to consistently learn new skills and
internalize new patterns.
It goes beyond exploration, even infiltrating the
combat. In my first small ship, I'd be
forced to hug up next to enemy frigates and corvettes and sit in their blind
spot, plinking away, if I wanted to beat them in a fight. Undersea creatures were an outright nightmare
that I had no chance against in a fight.
My only option was to run away. As the game progressed and I bought bigger
engines, I realized I could actually turn at the last minute and force sea
monsters to overshoot my ship and sit quietly for a few minutes, which, with my
improved speed and maneuverability, could help me take down large targets that
I'd previously had to flee from. The
addition of a forward facing weapon added a new consideration: should I face an
enemy head on and try to do double or triple damage, or fight them mostly by
strafing them, and maximize my own safety?
The calculus of battle shifted with each new feature, and the patterns
that I had fallen into shifted accordingly.
Ordinarily, this might seem infuriating, but Sunless Sea encourages players to die
and play again, which means the patterns that they're learning, these strange
patterns that beg players to explore their world and then adapt to changing
circumstance, are patterns that players should be engaging with consistently
before moving past them and learning about a new pattern. That's where Sunless Sea really shines: it's a game that recognizes the value of
patterns in gaming, the importance of pattern recognition and mastery in play,
and the stagnating potential of those patterns when they're sustained in
play. As elements that players can
tackle and move through, they can be helpful, useful, even necessary grounding
elements that allow each game to open up.
But the meat of the play, the thing that makes the game fun, and keeps
the game fun, is the interruption that follows, the randomness that comes with
each patterned interaction. There are always
patterns, but their shifting nature, their inconsistency, means the pattern
you're engaging with will change ere long.
That's what makes Sunless Sea
great, what makes it unpredictable, and what makes it, sometimes, wonderfully infuriating.
Well, that and the writing.
The writing is also quite good as well, I suppose.
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