Why I love quiet and short indie games
Today I took an Enneagram test. I am familiar with other personality tests like the Myer-Briggs, and to be honest I like to be reminded of things for no reason so I did yet another personality test.
I came expecting to get the same introverted, introspecting, perfectionist whatever thing each one has and I always get.
And guess what? Enneagram was no exception (I ranked 5w4, that’s “Investigator” with “Individualist” tendencies, pretty much hit on the nail).
What I wasn’t expecting was the site’s description of the “Investigator” type:
“People of this personality type essentially fear that they don’t have enough inner strength to face life, so they tend to withdraw, to retreat into the safety and security of the mind where they can mentally prepare for their emergence into the world. Fives feel comfortable and at home in the realm of thought…”
It goes on, but the gist of it hit home: distancing yourself from the world and into the security of your own mind. For all of these test I’ve seen through the years, this one was quite straightforward with describing the “why” of things instead of the usual “how”.
(Another plus was not marrying the curious and reserved type with science or a logical mind. The idea behind many of these tests that art or human-oriented people are intrinsically more liberal and outgoing is bizarre to me.)
The idea of taking many steps back before looking outwards reminded me of videogames, where we go through crafted worlds and experiences that represent some aspect of the real world.
That goes for all art forms, but videogames just resonate with me the most in that regard: it can have the fidelity of film, but just like animation, every element that is and isn’t there was deliberately put or omitted by its author.
And unlike other mediums, games make us the actors… or make us spectators as close to the action as one can be without becoming an actor.
It’s in this second category that I’ve found many small gems like Passage, Depression Quest, Every Day the Same Dream or Dys4ia (a lot of them like to call themselves interactive art, I think that’s fine).
These are games with one thing to say that I don’t hear around often — acceptance of death, the gives and takes of marriage, living with depression, gender dysphoria, the insanity doses that come with office routine, being ashamed of oneself, and so on.
They are very short, which means no compromise, and that makes them comfortable.
They aren’t well known, which means they are rare, and that makes them precious.
They are very personal, which means they are fragile, and that makes them beautiful.
And they feel like a short, intimate conversation with the only person I’m interested in for those minutes: the one that very likely did all art assets and learned a software or programming language just so she could give us a piece of her mind to explore at our leisure.
Much like an intimate conversation, they don’t demand skills or long-term investment, just hearing and hearing carefully.
If they were underground caverns, I don’t see them as tunnels built by architects with lighting and safety in mind, but as tunnels carved by hand while seeking gold or trying to escape for something.
I like silent, quiet and short indie games because they remind me of myself: uncompromising, fragile, nasal, and saying something not because they feel it’s unique and important for others, but because not saying it would have felt terrible, if only for a night.
They also understand me, and don’t ask for too much before saying their thing.
If you spend your time making games like this, I’d like to say thank you. Even if we have never met and I’ve never touched anything you’ve created, the fact you did something like what I described already makes you awesome on my book.
