Dr. StrangeForge or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wii

[Nick_Bergeron]

I get excited when I play games.  When I was younger I had a hard time training myself not to bounce up and down while leaping over Koopa Troopers.  I worked even harder to tone down the decibals of my laughter when critical failures popped up on my die rolls.  I went through quite a few Super Nintendo controllers based on my terrible Street Fighter II performance.  Like I said, I get excited.  Now, after all these years of working to surpress my arm-waving antics, I am presented with the Wii.

Nintendo's new remote control scheme (the Wii-mote) for the rebranded Revolution has me worried.  When I am crouched behind a crenelated wall atop Castle Hyrule, and that Moblin is slowly pacing toward me, how am I going to react?  Will I use simple and efficient motions of the wrist to casually cut him down?  Will I impress my friends and fellow gamers with an elegant twirl of the Wii-mote around my palm before sheathing my sword, and smiling quietly to myself?  Or will I give a great barbarian shout as I leap around the room slashing the thin air with great circles of my arms, tearing the nunchuck attachment apart in my excitement, and causing the neighbors to call the police?  It is entirely possible that after purchasing a Wii I will form a first-name based relationship with the local health employees as they set my multiple broken wrists.

This has me worried.  After all, I have trained myself over the years to accept the abstracted and flat control scheme of the standard video game controller.  How will I ever adapt to a scheme that immerses me in the action of the game, a scheme that transports me to the planet Zebes wholesale?  Can I handle it?  Do I WANT it?  Or will I instead choose to live the simple life of the X-Box 360 or Playstation 3?  I know that these 2 systems cost an arm and a leg more than the Wii, and that the games and play experience I get from them will be more of the same old same old.  But that's safe, right?  I mean, I expect to pay a lot for a game system that offers only slightly better graphics and no new spins on old game concepts.  After all, that's what I've been doing for years.

But the lure of the Wii is strong.  It's new.  It's different.  It's cheap.  And most of all, it's designed to be fun in a way that pushes the envelope.  The Wii doesn't accept that we have reached the pinnacle of the video game experience.  There are always infinite horizons to explore, new imaginary frontiers to conquer.  The Wii is a dream machine: the construct of people dreaming of a better mousetrap.  It may not succeed.  It may not catch a single mouse.  But it is the realization of the human desire to push forward, to strive for something better, and for that, it has captured my imagination.  When the Wii arrives at the end of the year, I'll be lining up to reward the dreams of innovators.

I'm very glad that I had that experience to look forward to at this year's GenCon.  Pacing the aisles of the vendor room, drifting by tables of games being run, looking through the catalogue of events, I found dreams to be in short supply.  "D00ds with Swords 3rd Edition! Promethean: The Tired Concept! Dungeons and Dragons: The Next Generic Supplement!"  The convention that I looked forward to every year as the time for me to experienc new wonders has been slipping away.  The halls are filled with people dreaming other's dreams, and beating them into a cheap plastic mold for easy distribution.  I had a wonderful time at the convention with my friends, but not because of the games and ideas being sold there.  I didn't play in a single game at GenCon this year, because there was nothing I could find that struck my interest.

Am I simply getting too old for games?  I struggled with that question for most of the weekend.  Have I simply outgrown my desire to explore, struggle, conquer, and be defeated?  Has my act of controlling my inner joy for games become, finally, more than an act?  No, I don't think so.  I don't think that I've grown too old to play games.  I think games are growing too old to be played.  How many wizards can I defeat with my 12 level paladin before I just get tired of it?  No matter how many new faces I see slapped on the same old games, they just fail to raise my interest.  I have grown weary of the safety of the games that I know.

I was in a sad opinion of the gaming industry as a whole when my feet carried me to the Forge booth in the vendor room.  My roommate had talked to several of the Forge people at last year's GenCon, and kindled a bit of interest in me, but I hadn't had to the time to talk to them.  This year that same friend and I were suckered in by the thick Scottish brogue of Malcolm.  There were no open spaces at the demo tables when Malcolm caught us up and started to talk, so in order to show us something of the Forge, he just kept talking.  And talking.  And still more talking.  He plucked games off of shelves and pushed them into our hands, showing us character creation, art, adventure, design.  He showed us games about hating high school girls, games about dark conspiracies, games about empires falling, and empires rising.  Games where there were no GMs, games where EVERYONE was a GM.  But most of all, he showed us games that were pushing the envelope of the industry, leaping light years ahead of everything else in the room.  Designers unafraid to take chances, who created games based not around making money, but around trying to capture that spark of dream floating in everyone's heart. 

Malcolm was the only person I talked to at a booth that got me excited about what he was saying, possibly because he was so excited.  As he spoke, he danced back and forth from one foot to the other, his eyes lighting up, and his hands waving.  Still listening to his talk of sitting down at a table with your mates to play games, I looked around the booth, and could almost see the players and designers in excited discussion while nursing the casts on their broken wrists.

[Malcolm Craig]

I was in a sad opinion of the gaming industry as a whole when my feet carried me to the Forge booth in the vendor room.  My roommate had talked to several of the Forge people at last year's GenCon, and kindled a bit of interest in me, but I hadn't had to the time to talk to them.  This year that same friend and I were suckered in by the thick Scottish brogue of Malcolm.  There were no open spaces at the demo tables when Malcolm caught us up and started to talk, so in order to show us something of the Forge, he just kept talking.  And talking.  And still more talking.  He plucked games off of shelves and pushed them into our hands, showing us character creation, art, adventure, design.  He showed us games about hating high school girls, games about dark conspiracies, games about empires falling, and empires rising.  Games where there were no GMs, games where EVERYONE was a GM.  But most of all, he showed us games that were pushing the envelope of the industry, leaping light years ahead of everything else in the room.  Designers unafraid to take chances, who created games based not around making money, but around trying to capture that spark of dream floating in everyone's heart. 

Malcolm was the only person I talked to at a booth that got me excited about what he was saying, possibly because he was so excited.  As he spoke, he danced back and forth from one foot to the other, his eyes lighting up, and his hands waving.  Still listening to his talk of sitting down at a table with your mates to play games, I looked around the booth, and could almost see the players and designers in excited discussion while nursing the casts on their broken wrists.

Thanks Nick, hope I didn't talk too much!

The Forge booth this year was tremendously exciting, hence my enthusiasm. There were so many games I wanted to tell people about when they came to the booth, so many games that can and do give people great gaming experiences. This year I played in far more demos run at the booth, which really gave me a feel for how they played and what they set out to achieve. My aim was always to communicate the excitement and enthusiasm that I felt about these games to the people I spoke to.

The very cool thing, as you say, is that these games are designed to capture the dreams that people have. If a person walked away from the booth with one game saying "This is awesome, I really want to play this!" then mission accomplished. Even if they didn't walk away with a game but walked away with the thought that right here, right now, people were designing games becaused they believed in them and loved gaming, then mission also accomplished.

The friendliness, enthusiasm and creativity of everyone on the booth was wonderful and great to be a part of .

Cheers
Malcolm