Joie de virve

Flour Tortilla
Jul 25, 2017 · 6 min read

Spreading Love in Chibi-Robo!

Our titular, titanium hero

The sixth generation of consoles solidified the foundation of 3D games. After the natural rooting-out of studios not able to keep up with the times and the struggle of forging new standards like the dual analog sticks, the industry’s growing pains gave way to vast amounts of experimentation in art style and gameplay systems now that the graphics, hardware, and controllers weren’t really new compared to the last generation, just better. Classic developer Treasure put out the colorful, clunky Stretch Panic, Sega’s Super Monkey Ball abstracted old puzzles into the new 3D environment, and quirky games like Pikmin, Psychonauts, and Timesplitters thrived. They all brought figurative and literal color to the polygons and integers, demonstrating that points and levels weren’t the only thing to get out of a game anymore. One flamboyant title stood out from the rest. It has the player exploring a detailed, storybook house, a web of relationships, and the possibilities of love in shared consumer experiences. The player discovers how connections define interaction in both a game’s story and systems. Chibi-Robo! conveys the joy in everyday life.

Chibi-Robo! is an adventure game starring an eponymous ten-centimeter hero. The player’s task is to repair a broken set of individuals in a small, suburban setting owned by the Sandersons and populated by a colorful secondary cast. While fixing the family is the primary goal, the game’s focus is on details as tiny as its hero. Every side quest is as important as the primary narrative, every room is packed with imaginative opportunities, and even every step the player takes is music to their ears. The smaller-scaled, idiosyncratic connections the player makes with elements of the environment and its characters strike memorable, more basic chords. As one of the game designers, Sayoko Yokote, put it:

“I think the basic story and character’s actions are not so unusual, but rather something that everybody can share, feeling and think, ‘Yes, I know that feeling’, regardless of language or culture, so please become Chibi-Robo and enjoy the drama.” (1)

That drama is the focus of the game’s core gameplay of exploration. The player circumnavigates webs of side characters and main objectives the same as they do the architecture of the house they play in. Chibi-Robo! is ultimately an adventure game — it was even a pseudo-point-point-and-click game early in development (cite). But it is a different spin on that genre, taking the nominal puzzles and character interactions and promoting the player to more than an observer. The player is a doer in the drama of the Sanderson’s home. Similar to how the adventure game Myst used its first-person perspective, Chibi-Robo! enables a sense of identification with its protagonist with its analog control stick being the key to solving the environmental challenges; a near-new idea in the sixth generation. In putting the player in the shoes (shoes?) of Chibi-Robo, the player themselves is put in the middle of the house’s drama. Exploring the interconnected soap operas and their theatrical setting as they unfold together is even more fruitful.

Did I mention that this domestic drama stars toys? Most tales the player stumbles across are recognizable parables, ranging from a spurned, irresponsible husband to a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The characters’ stories’ use of common tropes and stereotypes contributes to their effectiveness in exploring equally common morals by letting the player resonate easily and fully. Yet, each still feels original, as the piecemeal, episodic representation of an adventure game appends both quality length and player investment to the tales as they intercut. Much like daily life, the experiences of the player and the characters play out messily and are interwoven with others. Helping Plankbeard handle abandonment and Sophie pine for Drake Redcrest are ultimately more relatable this way, from the player most likely having experienced these feelings themselves to how the challenges crop up throughout the core gameplay of cleaning the house — a daily chore. When Papa Sanderson finally stops being such a loser, the player applies their own agency along with his to defeat the boss of the game; overcoming challenges along with others like this breeds the shared affection of living life that is at the core of the game.

Check out Drake Redcrest’s moves!

The game’s added tint of consumerism takes its sense of universal commonality even further. In life, one of the strongest ways to break down barriers with other people to form connections can be through shared past experiences. Be it coming from the same culture, having the same hair color, or knowing all the words to the same song, we bond easily with others who pick up what we throw down, knowingly or not. Chibi-Robo! plays with its developer’s expectations of a player’s childhood. The game tells its tales with common, generalized symbols of childhood to let the player relate as much as possible. Be it by appealing to memories of playing soldier with green army men or having tea in a toy castle with a princess, the focus on presumed shared childhood experiences with consumer products is at the forefront. The universalizability of the characters’ standing as genuine toys gives them greater use in Chibi-Robo!’s narratives than if the characters were human; however, the toys are still alive. They think, feel, and need to be fixed, as per the game’s entire drive. In making its normally static toys characters in and of themselves, the game draws player attention to the connections made with and through them, rather than tossing them aside as familiar toys to be nostalgic about. This lets the toys-as-characters rise above the impersonal status of a consumer good to fulfill a dual role of broad, immediate influence and lasting, personal significance in the player’s story.

The parallel lives of players and their respective heartstrings are what Chibi-Robo! aims to explore. Chibi-Robo’s task of cleaning up, both the house and the family’s lives, and the journey to that are what define the game’s adventure. Every action being a sonic treat, from brushing with a toothbrush to scaling a rope, or the wonderfully varied gameplay segments are parts of the polish that charms the player into remembering all the connections made with characters. This effect is even furthered by how the game puts the player in the middle of the drama by letting them act as Chibi-Robo rather than simply controlling it. The mere actions of helping, chasing, or playing with friends and family are what power the circuits of both Chibi-Robo and the player, in-game and presumably out. By showing this through imbuing its mechanical protagonist with charming animations, sound cues, and abilities that accent every input during these micro-stories with vibrant, electric feedback, the game is bringing its themes full circle. By deriving its entertainment from the journey of spreading loves to others, Chibi-Robo! is illustrating the joy in everyday life. Throughout the player’s adventures up towering staircases or through portals to the past, it’s the microscopic oddities, movements, and the characters and mementos they belong to that are remembered. Chibi-Robo! shows that the best fun can be found on the smallest of scales.


Notes

1 . . . . Adam Riley, “Skip, Ltd Talks Nintendo, Chibi-Robo DS, GiFTPiA & More!” Cubed3

Bibliography

Riley, Adam. “Skip, Ltd Talks Nintendo, Chibi-Robo DS, GiFTPiA & More!” Cubed3. July 22, 2006. Accessed July 24, 2017. http://www.cubed3.com/news/5575/1/c3-exclusive-interview-skip-ltd-talks-nintendo-chibi-robo-ds-giftpia-and-more.html.

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