The Swapper: Redemptive Games

The Swapper is a game that makes me scratch my head, nearly throw up, and appreciate my evolving morality.  It's a puzzle-platformer on PS3, PS4, and Vita based around creating clones of yourself and swapping your consciousness with theirs.  Switch puzzles abound, and there's a great sci-fi story around it.  It's the kind of sci-fi I really like, where the fictional science is central to the plot, the questions, and the answer.  I miss this kind of science fiction, and I'd like to see gaming play with it more, because I believe it's doubly effective in this medium.

The basic question of The Swapper has to do with identity, and how closely you tie your self to your form.  Throughout the game your clones will die.  Mostly from gravity.  But at one point, one of those bodies was your original.  It's gone, and every time you swap you get further and further from it.

I'm going to talk about the final moments, so there will be some spoilers.   You are given the choice to abandon your life and any hope of returning to civilization, or swapping with someone who can, stranding them forever, but escaping yourself.  If it's not entirely clear, when a game gets me thinking, I definitely recommend you play it.

I remember the first time I played Bioshock, and I was give the chance to commit a horrible act in order to survive.  And I did.  And I kept doing it.  I'm not sure what my thought process was at the time, but it probably was something about it being a game and not really counting or being statistically better.  But when I got to the end of The Swapper, I took some time to make my decision.  Helpfully, the game paused to let me take that time.  I can remember a younger me who believed in survival at any cost, who spoke like a violent, objectivist and openly mocked people with religious faith.  I suspect if we met now, I would hate him, well and truly.

But this is something I can track with games.  It takes a special kind of game to be able to notice it, and to treat my decisions as a player with the respect they deserve.  Mass Effect is a series that respects me decisions in name, but places distinct value judgments on them, as did many games around that time.  And I'm glad we've gotten away from it, I'm glad that if games are going to let me have a decision like that, then they're going to understand the validity of what I choose.

I've been on something, and I'm going to ask it seriously.  Can action in a game be a substitute for action in life?  That may be too broad.  How about: Can you be forgiven for a slight by playing through your redemption?  When I play a game, I am doing what is happening on the screen.  Even if what I am doing is not happening outside the game, and may have little ramification on the world, I am doing it.  I am choosing to forgo my resources in order to help a sick man, I am firing a gun into a crowd of people at an airport.  These moments matter to me, sure, but I wonder if they should matter more.  It might be a silly question, but it's a thing I am genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on.  Can your actions in a game be translated into actions outside of it?

Next time:  The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Xevious: Space Souls

I can see why this game is remembered.  I can see why it and its kind were influential.  It's a good thing I wasn't playing it in an actual arcade, because I can imagine losing a large number of quarters to its clutches.  It speaks of a time when those tiny purchases, or micro-transactions, made up a massive amount of the revenue a game could bring.  It uses the small iteration time, and tries to perfect the feeling of "Aw, I nearly had it."  Difficulty is low and the play simple but spikes suddenly around unique sprites and scheduled set piece moments.

The spikes of this kind remind me of Dark Souls.  It's obviously not quite the same kind of complexity and challenge, but it's got something of the boss encounters.  In Dark Souls, the game has little in the way of ambient music, and enemies all have specific aggro ranges that can be exploited carefully and slowly if the player is wishes.

But when the player enters a boss area, the music comes in loud and strong, a unique, usually large and imposing creature thunders down upon you, with attacks and strategies you've never encountered.  There is a fog door before the boss to obscure any kind of planning.  It all comes together to create a powerful sensory overload that adds to the difficulty and frantic feeling of facing down a massive demon.

Xevious attempts much the same.  The first sprites encountered are generally small, and leave the screen quickly through the sides, as if they're running away.  They can only hurt you by running into you, and you can't move high enough on the screen to crash into them.  But when a set piece appears, it's a flurry of glowing bullets, giant, ziggurat-like tanks, and ships flying in and darting away.  It's very difficult to get through, and beating one gives you a few moments of relief to savour your victory.  It's a recipe for money.

I think this kind of attention to sensory input.  In so few games is the music more than a texture.  And it's not like Xevious is some amazing historical artifact, or that it is as addicting as a game like Bejeweled.  But it was, once.  And its tactics and psychology are representative of many, many games that have come after, and probably a few that came before.  I'm happy to have played it, and I want to play a bit more.  I want to see when this has all come from.  I want to know where it's all going.