Chicagoan by way of PA. Host of The Geek Show, VStheUNIVERSE Producer. Writer/Gamer/Gryffindor. Writes about gaming, comics, and pizza. So much pizza.

Apr 28, 2016

Communal Gaming, or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Play Single-Player Games In Groups

In the last year, I have experienced some of the most incredibly fulfilling multiplayer gaming experiences in my lifetime of playing games. The most interesting part is that many of these experiences involved single-player games.

Let’s discuss that, OK?

The Cabin In The Woods

I adore bad horror movies. Everyone has a special place in their heart for at least one scary movie. It BINDS us, and that is what makes Until Dawn such a successful game in my eyes. The game’s premise is simple: you control myriad of older teenagers as they venture to a cabin in the woods to get closure over the death of two friends from the year before.

It’s tropey. I love tropey stuff when it knows how to implement it well.

Until Dawn is described as a single-player interactive drama/survival horror game, but to label it that would be reductive. I’ve never played Until Dawn alone, and that is a conscious choice. I bought this game wanting to play it in the same environment that I assemble for a bad movie night: with beer, pizza, and plenty of peanut-gallery input on what characters should do.

This is Ashley. She is afraid of rocking horses.

In the lead up to Until Dawn’s release, the marketing never showcased this game to be a multiplayer experience. In fact, the designers did tests where the game was played in front of a singular person to experiment how scary certain situations in the game were, multiplayer environments were (seemingly) never given a second thought. It begs the question: Did the developers NEVER have a scary movie night? Did they never experience the thrill of watching Freddy Krueger inhabit someone’s dreams and hide behind a friend’s shoulder? Did they never argue over what pizza toppings to get while they watched Jason go all machete-crazy on the kids from Camp Crystal Lake? These experiences are a part of me, and I’ll be damned if I was going to treat Until Dawn any different.

On release day, I invited a few friends over to play Until Dawn. It was a simple plan: we’d pass the controller every time a new person became the player-character. While one person controlled the game and ultimately had the final say in what happened on-screen, the others would watch on (with pizza and drinks) and give advice. We laughed at the jump scares, argued about who “the killer” would be, and spent a good 4–5 hours together.

I’ve tried playing Until Dawn solo. It doesn’t compare.

Back In Senior Year

Earlier this year, my girlfriend and I were both interested in Life Is Strange by Dontnod Entertainment. Rather than buy two copies of the game, we decided to play the game in our own flavor of couch co-op. The game is divided into 5 Chapters, with each chapter containing a handful of checkpoints so it is very easy to pick-up-and-play if you don’t have a large swath of time to devote to it.

Life Is Strange is akin to a cool modern-day Stand By Me, with a cooler cast and infinitely more time travel.

My girlfriend and I are alike in many ways: we both have good taste in music, we both love science-fiction, and we both enjoy music from the 90’s (the best era of music, if we’re being honest.) Playing a game that required the player to solve a bunch of ethical dilemmas really showed me how we were different, and not in a negative way at all! Each chapter took anywhere from 3–5 hours to complete, but the discussions we had about each decision have where we spent the bulk of our time with the game.

We touched upon stuff like:

What we’d do in a time-traveling situation
How we’d handle knowing a friend was in an abusive relationship
How we’d break into a school’s pool
Does it make you a bad person to laugh at skateboarders who bail out of tricks and cause harm to their genitals?
And finally, do we kiss that dude who is obviously crushing on you even though your best friend has been in love with you ever since you were both in girl scouts?

Life Is Strange was designed to be played solo. Bucking the convention was one of the best ideas we ever had. Not only did we have a whirlwind experience reaching the finish line, but we grew closer by having conversations about the game. By bringing one more person into the experience, you suddenly have twice as much to think about with every decision. You need to agree on the decisions you make and not shut them out. Small things in the game like deciding whether or not to hold the door open for a classmate can spark a conversation. Different viewpoints can inspire change and help you grow as a person.

And for the record, every couple should talk about what they’d do in a time-traveling situation. It’s important. For science.

A Dance Of Dragons

I have a problem and its name is Dragon Age.

My time with Bioware’s RPG began when I was in college and I’ve been mainlining their games, books, and comics ever since. (We don’t talk about the anime. It was dreadful, boring, and nearly killed my love of Cassandra Pentaghast.) These games exist to be played (mainly) as single-player experiences, and until recently that is exactly how I had enjoyed them.

That all changed when Dragon Age: Inquisition was released in November of 2014.

Got this image from Google and I’m astounded that Cassandra isn’t in the party.

Some people have book clubs. Some people have movie clubs. I joined a game club. Thanks to Twitter, I was able to find a group of folks that were playing Dragon Age: Inquisition and we would meet up every week to discuss our experiences. We never played the game together in a communal sense, but we made time every week to meet at a coffee shop, bar, or restaurant and talk about OUR game. (I’ll be serious, it was almost always a bar.)

Something interesting happens when people play a game, and then leave it to go discuss it in chunks with friends. A game like Dragon Age doesn’t have a through-line, it has an open-world that can be explored however the player sees fit. Everyone will play it differently. The way one player sees a situation could be entirely differently than another player. Hearing everyone’s different experiences in the world of Ferelden was eye-opening! I never would’ve imagined that some people would take the paths they took or romanced characters I found revolting!

Taking the time to actively listen and talk about our experiences made every week like a symposium. Learning about the game was one thing, but I learned about the other folks I shared my experiences with. I became educated in how their cultures shaped how they made their characters. I took a crash course in how one’s sexuality may impact how they felt about certain characters and actions. I never imagined that Dragon Age would give way to a master class of sorts, but I’m happier for it.

You could do the same thing with a movie or TV show, but having a study group for a video game is going to yield much more varied results than something where the narrative is static and cannot change. Video games, and I’m talking about the deep RPGs here, give us the ability to shape a narrative in a way we see fit. Discussing the how’s and the why’s of our action when the credits roll has the ability to expand our minds and perspectives.

— — —

Communal gaming is something I’m trying to practice more. I have been participating in more group gaming nights, and coordinate gaming purchases with my friends much more often. As a kid whose first memory includes playing Super Mario Bros, I’ve spent the majority of my gaming career in a single-player gear. Platforms like Twitch and Youtube Gaming have shown us the playing a game can be a communal experience, and we can all learn more from the group activity. If you haven’t given it a shot yet, I highly suggest it. At least if you play Until Dawn you’ll get some pizza and beer out of it.