These smiles in the background defined big parts of my childhood. The mood, the design, the color palettes; all have become secondhand to me in my platforming history. Not the menacing, cryptic excerpts found in Jason Nelson’s “game, game, game and game again.” Disturbing music mixes, hand-drawn doodles and scribbles, aggressively written text scattered in the background; everything about this game has theming that transcends what the game has you doing. Which is jumping and moving. Collecting collectible doo-dads. Secret pathway and taunting vortexes of doom. What am I playing?

Well it seems like I’m playing a game that is more about the message than the gameplay. The gameplay supplies a means of progressing through a narrative, a non-cohesive one at that. This could be compared to flipping a page, clicking on next page, or other means of interacting with various parts of new media as we’ve explored this semester.  The appeal of the game is the level on interaction involved. Because of past histories with games, surpassing the video game era and reaching into every history of game development, internet designers have a huge catalog to study and develop games with.

What I found most engaging about the games is the methodology on directing the player. Starting level with extended titles to theme the stages and presenting an ambiguous player to control allow anyone accessing the game a unified degree of entry. The game does not care if you are a gamer or not; it wants you to be able to play.

What is most engaging is the theming and tasks. One level that stuck out to me was the level with block. Having the creature go up the stairs collecting things was reminiscent of the end of most Mario Brothers levels, which the ends of the stairs would lead to a leap for the flag of completion. Instead, we have an intended fall to the bottom and scrolling to the left. This part felt the most degrading, as my gaming desire for success involved failing in the most literal sense.