The Sensation of Alienation

All works and no play makes Pash a dull boy.


I can’t help but feel Marx warned us about this

Super Paper Mario for the Wii did indeed have you briefly engage in menial work in order to progress the story at one point, which was a phenomenal surrealism to me at the time in terms of gaming getting real with it. Maybe not so much in the way that it falls in line with a regular bemusement of mine “it always starts out as a joke”, but that Nintendo was actually ready to run with said joke and make it a real thing you did in a real video game. This isn’t a post about that, but the thought did pop into my mind as I decided how much time I had to write about anything before more or less needing to get ready for work while I was indeed having fun.


Fun might be a strong word

Which is fair, in a sense, as depending on what one is doing in the world of gaming, “playing” can indeed take on different kinds of tenuous forms of relevancy, and these new or less traditional forms of play evolve or devolve, depending on how you look at things, into a more tedious form of labor, I suppose. A labor of love could be a sentiment used to pad the blow of some of the monotony involved with grinding, for example, whether it be just for levels or for a rare gear drop, but the idea stands firm, I would conclude. In my case, playing in the form of work is very literal in a sense, as while I may not care about monetizing Active Time Event, I do try to treat it as a labor of love, and respectfully tackle the subject material with as much gusto as I can feasibly muster given the circumstances.


What I look like after a night of work totally sleep deprived
dying to the same boss in Elden Ring for the 50th time thinking
of a way to transmute tears into punchlines for my next article

Which is why today’s post feels so meandering, I gather. Time is of the essence, this much is always true, when one is fighting against a self-imposed deadline, it would be quite easy to just wipe clean the slate of responsibility with the dry erase marker with the word “Exception” emblazoned upon the side, but then where would the challenge in that be? That does remind me of another great example of non-traditional play in the form of practicing hard games, which can completely deviate from any idea of traditional fun and go full on straight up ludicrous in terms of just how painstakingly difficult the entire session becomes.


Don’t look at the time playing games like Super Meat as insane
bloodletting, view it through the lens of having spilled gallons
of dedication into the experience

I think I did kind of derail my own point there, but I am obviously feeling ranty. Writing about games in essence has a certain burden of proof attached to it within the regards of authenticity or legitimacy I suppose one could say. There is the idea of that extreme efficiency is needed in a number of facets, as one has to get through games, pouring many hours into them, maybe experimenting with multiplayer, testing the title even of sorts, just to finally know what to really hone in on when writing about the game in it’s finalized conceptual form within one’s own brain. That same idea is part of the reason I find writing about either really high quality video games or “safe bets” as it were, almost difficult in a mundane sort of way, as the difficulty lies in the inherent lack of challenge in discussing the title, cause everything just works, is top notch, tons of fans, everyone is looking forward to it, nearly flawless etc. The whole process nearly strains the imagination to even come up with some legitimate feedback that doesn’t come off as apple polishing or at the very least, intellectually worthy on some basic level.


Some games struggling with that worthy merit more than others

To wit: I recently beat Cadence of Hyrule the other day, which is kind of what I wanted to talk about, but between a lack of energy and time, didn’t really feel like I was going to do the title justice in my writings. However, it does relate to the topic at hand here, as while I find myself delighted by the game in it’s entirety, I find that it’s almost inherently less interesting to talk about than the game it was based off of, Necrodancer, as the title is just more polished and ultimately more enjoyable to play, leaving a lot less room for interesting critique involved with the imaginary world I have contended with. I know I might be a bit of a weirdo in that regard, but I can’t help but feel in order for one to feel truly engaged in whatever their doing, gaming or not, they must be fundamentally discontented while doing so, in order to achieve some new form of thought, act of becoming, state of being etc, as traveling outside of one’s comfort zone, even if not literally speaking, pushing one towards a new level of understanding or perspective.


Think this, but less strange

So in the idea of not having more time to do fuller write ups involving Castlevania or Zelda related material, and wanting to issue myself a mini challenge by doing something more creatively endeavoring than just a small report on a headline, I leave you with just a few of these brief thoughts to ponder in your moments to come. Cheers.

~Pashford