Abandon Hope, Ye Who Click This .exe -- Pony Island

This post contains spoilers for Pony Island. If avoiding spoilers is your bag, go play the game first; it's worth your time.

Pony Island is a metafictional puzzle game in which you, the player, are playing a game called "Pony Island". (For convenience sake, I will from here on in be referring to the game itself as Pony Island and the game-within-a-game as "Pony Island".) As the game goes on, it starts to seem as if "Pony Island" has been designed and developed by Satan for the purpose of harvesting souls from unsuspecting players. "Pony Island" is a very simple and inoffensive endless runner involving a pony which jumps over gates, but it has been deliberately broken and made unplayable to encourage users to 'insert soul to continue' with the game. Between sessions of play, you must find portals into the game's source code in order to escape various traps the developer has set for you; the "code" of "Pony Island" is pretty nonsensical, although the puzzles involve real programming concepts like loops and branching trees.

When you give up on "Pony Island", you are booted to a GUI desktop, but of course you're not done playing Pony Island yet -- or "Pony Island", for that matter. It's pretty clear that the overarching system is still part of Pony Island, although there are occasional fake-outs in the game intended to briefly make you think things are happening on your real computer; at one point, a character even asks you to uninstall Pony Island from your hard drive. As you try to find a way to escape the "Pony Island", you are contacted by an entity who claims to have the ability to help you get out of the game developer's trap. But this seems not to be the whole story. I have only played as far as the basic ending; I believe there is also a secret ending which may call into question the assumptions which the player is encouraged to form during gameplay.

One thing I find interesting about Pony Island is the questions it raises about the relationship between game player and game developer or designer. In at least the design of solo games, the developer has to strike a delicate balance. Games are supposed to be "fun", and the fun in games comes from challenge -- from finding a way to beat the game by solving problems within a bounded set of rules. Too little challenge makes the game trivial, a waste of time; too much makes the game unfair and frustrating. Thus, the relationship between developer and player is necessarily antagonistic. The developer is deliberately trying to make the player fail if they don't play well enough, but the player also needs to be able to succeed, to overcome the challenge, in order to have fun. And that balance between challenge and success will be different for every player. Some want their games "Nintendo hard", requiring diligent practice and skill building to overcome, while others want to be able to pick up a game, play, and win a level or two without much effort. With every choice about the difficulty of their game, the developer deliberately alienates part of their potential audience. Difficulty settings and play-style options can mitigate this to some extent, as can cheat codes and hacks, but even that is seen by many players as pandering to those who don't want to put in the honest work required to "git gud".

This tightrope act is further complicated by the relationship between game design and game monetization models under capitalism. Most games, after all, need to be able to make a profit for their publishers and sellers if they are to even see the light of day. In the days of the arcade, games were coin-operated amusements, and the player was required to insert more money every time they failed; and so games were designed in such a way that they were very difficult to beat in order to keep the money coming. With the rise of consoles and personal computers, the model changed to a lump-sum payment, but many games -- those that gave rise to the epithet "Nintendo hard" in the first place -- maintained that ethos of difficulty for difficulty's sake, both because it was just baked in to design philosophy and because it made the game's play lifetime longer and thus convinced consumers that they were getting more game for their money. But too many unfairly difficult titles threatened market demand as players felt their money was being wasted on unbeatable games. Railing at the perceived unfairness of such games in creatively foul language is the stock-in-trade of the immensely popular Angry Video Game Nerd. Combined with the expansion of computer memory and evolving concepts in game design, more games became an experience rather than a pure challenge, one that could be completed by more casual players who weren't willing to put in the time and practice necessary to beat difficult titles. But the pendulum continues to swing. Nowadays, older gamers nostalgic for the gaming experience of their youth are demanding difficulty again. Gaming has become part of a social identity, and thus many self-identified "hardcore gamers" feel that their very identity is under threat from games that cater to the "filthy casuals". Furthermore, the rise of digital distribution of games -- and seamless digital online payment options -- has led to further evolution in monetization models. Game publishers can now charge microtransactions in exchange for real-time gameplay advantages, and this has created pressure to make games harder and more of a grind in order that people be tempted to get a leg up and remove some of the frustration by paying a little bit of money, over and over.

At first, the developer of "Pony Island" (who, I will remind the reader, is apparently Satan) doesn't seem to want you to play their game at all. Until you find a way to "fix" the game, you won't even be able to get past the options screen. Once you have made a few minor repairs, the core gameplay loop of "Pony Island" is fun but casual. The game, however, is ugly as sin, deliberately hard to look at, and it becomes clear over time that it's not even finished. The developer has literally become the antagonist. You are not just trying to beat the game, but beat the developer themself at the game of forcing you to play the game, a game in which losing -- or rather, giving in and taking the easy way out -- will see you dragged to hell. But the Devil is not an unsympathetic fellow. At one point, you are informed that the soul he wishes you to pay him is just a token of appreciation for the joy you have received from the opportunity to play his fun game. He asks for nothing else. "Pony Island" is thus less like the AAA abominations of Activision or Electronic Arts, and more like a kind of demonic shareware.

This story, then, has not only sociological and game-theoretical, but even theological implications. What kind of God would condemn you to play "Pony Island"? For what sin have you been trapped in this maze of illusions, this dark wood of error? Is the act of gaming itself unwholesome, taking the gamer away from contemplation of God's grace? Merely by playing "Pony Island" -- or for that matter, by playing Pony Island -- are we damning ourselves to hell? Or is Satan's attempt to unfairly trap us an unmitigated evil, and the decision to play "Pony Island" simply a coincidence, a snare that we have fallen into purely by chance? Are games a harmless diversion, even a positive good in providing us with fun entertainment, or do games have a negative impact on society -- not just violent games or gambling games or shovelware and shitty microtransaction-laden games, but all games? By creating difficult games, even near- or completely unplayable games, are developers harming gamers? By trying to win, and to make our opponents lose, are we harming each other? By gaming, are gamers harming themselves? Is the desire to be challenged, to fail again and again in pursuit of the high of winning, somehow unhealthy, masochistic, psychologically damaging? In playing games, are we condemning ourselves to a hell of our own creation?

Educating your Child by Hucking them at Birds -- Dad Quest

We're in an era in our society when gender roles are changing rapidly, particularly the idea of what it means to be a man. The traditional gender roles of women have been very successfully challenged, and women have gained a lot in terms of human rights and societal acceptance of different lifestyles in the past 100 years, but masculine gender roles have been slower to change. However, these changes have led to what some are calling a "crisis of masculinity". As the traditional role of the man as breadwinner and 'head of the household' has waned, many men are wondering what makes them relevant in today's world and what their role is in society. Then there is the rise of the concept of 'toxic masculinity', a sort of cultural shorthand for all that is considered harmful in traditional masculine gender roles, both outwardly to persons and society and inwardly to the man's own psyche -- emotional cauterization, ritualization of misogyny and homophobia, violence as a means of policing the boundaries. I can attest from personal experience that, even if you don't end up as a violent misogynist, many of the rituals and practices of the formation of a masculine identity seem to necessarily involve violence both physical and emotional -- part of why I rejected the masculine identity in favour of something more holistic and balanced which I am still even in middle age struggling to define. On the other hand, many worry about a creeping effeminization, or at least androgynization, of men and the loss of what is perceived as uniquely valuable about masculine identities as roles in society. This has resulted in a vigorous backlash both informal and organized against efforts to redefine manhood and the rise of the Men's Rights Activist movement, which claims to address the legitimate concerns of men that their rights are being eroded by a form of dominating matriarchy which is being entrenched in the state and society by the feminist movement, but which has also been accused of being a thinly veiled cover for misogyny and an attempt to roll back women's rights and re-establish patriarchal dominance.

Enter the idea of "ironic masculinity". You may have encountered this, for instance in the famous viral Old Spice ad, or in memes like this one:

On the face of it, it's a satirical mockery of the whole concept of masculinity, the presentation of an overblown image of swagger and machismo so extreme as to be ridiculous. But I feel like there's something more subtle going on here. After all, this kind of humour has become immensely popular; the Old Spice ad linked above has over 50 million views at time of writing and has been endlessly shared and parodied. This doesn't quite seem like the behaviour of a population that is sensitive about their masculinity, who feel like masculinity is in crisis and are pushing back on traditional gender roles. But there is something of a paradox in the idea of satire, in the fact that it makes mockery of an extreme while also giving cover to those who quietly believe in the thing the extreme is mocking. In a way, the sheer ridiculousness of the picture of masculinity being portrayed, the line being drawn as to where masculinity becomes obviously ludicrous, makes 'less extreme' but more traditional ideas of what is masculine seem more reasonable. After all, we obviously don't really believe that this is what a healthy, valuable, non-toxic masculinity is like. All of that worry about how men relate to women, society, and themselves may start to look itself a little ridiculous in the face of the reflexive rejection of such an extreme version of what it means to be a man.

Dad Quest is a kind of light metroidvania adventure platformer. I got it as a mystery game from a bundle of blind, random picks, and it was one of the more serendipitous finds I have acquired over the years; I had a ton of fun with it. It's a pretty calm ride, the kind of game you can easily play with a beer close to hand, and is not too long, although there is at least one unfair section of invisible walls that is intensely frustrating. At the beginning of the game, you are ushered into a scientific testing facility in which you are informed you are to be examined to see if you are fit for the extremely important, difficult, and dangerous role of becoming a dad and raising the next generation. (Feminists need not be angry; in preference to the default magnificently-mustachioed protagonist, you can instead be a female dad if you so choose.) You are soon given a kid of your own, which you carry under your arm in manly fashion as you run, jump, and climb around the various levels and obstacles. The primary game mechanic involves aiming with the right stick and yeeting your child at various enemies; you then summon the kid back Kratos-axe style to continue adventuring, although they eventually learn to walk and can return to you on their own. You will also be able to wield your child as a melee weapon, and they can gain access to various upgrades if you throw them through the windows of level-up stations. This is all quite hilarious, of course, as over-the-top violence often is, but contains a shadow of something more problematic, the way the process of father-son bonding often occurs in a context of violence, trauma, and emotional distance and castigation. (I hasten to add that this was not at all my experience of the father-son bond; my father is an absolutely lovely man, and the violence that I have spoken of in terms of a masculine upbringing came at the hands more of my peers and the media rather than family.)

In Dad Quest, the social role of 'dad' is fraught with almost mystical overtones. Dads are rare, and only those in peak condition can prove themselves worthy of raising a child. There are shrines to dads, and the system of government is based on challenging them to single combat (using children as the weapons, of course). Dads have abilities that normal people simply do not; as one NPC makes clear, you can't even defend yourself from the vicious pigeons, pigs, and weird floating eggs without a child to hurl at them. What is missing entirely from this game is mothers. There are women and girls aplenty, but if they have children, they are dads. The origin of children is obfuscated; if they come from anywhere, it seems to be the science lab. (Science, it might be noted, is traditionally seen as a masculine domain.) Are children born from wombs? If so, where are the mothers? Is it an oversight, an afterthought, or a conscious decision that the traditionally caring and nurturing role of the mother has been systematically excluded from the world of the game to give centre stage to the active, physical, exploratory, adventurous role of the dad who teaches their offspring the secrets of success by throwing them through plate glass windows?

On the one hand, this is all in good fun. It's just another silly example of ironic masculinity, a good-natured poking fun at the weird ways in which men seem to define themselves and their relationships to family and education. There need not be anything sinister read into the intentions of the developers. But gender roles, toxic masculinity, and the unsettling and turbulent changes taking place in our society are fraught topics that cast a long shadow on anything they touch.