Liminal Mental Space Games
A liminal space refers to a physical location that exists as a necessary transition between places humans would recognize as destinations. The hallway connecting a waiting room and an office. The stairs between a terminal and a subway. They are places you have been to, but rarely remember more than the reason you entered and left.
Liminal spaces exist within games in abundance. Any game that lets you walk through a simulated city will be, by necessity, more liminal space than destination. However, that's not what this list is about. If it were, it would include games from Yakuza, Gravity Rush, LA Noire. I'm abstracting the concept of a liminal space a bit to describe a liminal mental space.
Because the interactive nature of games means there are liminal gameplay actions the player takes between 'destination' gameplay action verbs. Fiddling with equipment menus in an RPG before a challenging boss fight. Buying ingredients before performing alchemy. Surveying a map before traversing a mountain. What interests me is that these liminal actions require a different mental state, a different type of focus, to execute well, compared to the end-goal destination action.
So, following the logic, liminal actions create liminal mental states, which require liminal mental spaces.
The degree to which a game is made of liminal mental spaces varies with its liminal actions. That degree can be zero. Space Invaders has one screen, one action, one mental state - zero liminality. On the other side of the spectrum, the Animal Crossing series is filled with so many interlocking, player-directed systems that the designation of which actions are liminal actions and which are destination actions can be completely different between players.
I know that sometimes the desired engagement with a game is with those liminal actions, where the reason for playing is to enter those liminal mental spaces. Which brings me to the point of this list - can playing a game be, at its core, entirely a liminal mental space? By which I mean, the value of the game is the game's ability to help the player transition from one mental state to another without being a destination itself.
Depending on the player, I'm sure there are entire genres of game that would fit someone's definition of the concept I'm trying to scratch at. Rhythm games. Point-and-click adventures. Flight simulators. Picross. Or portions of games, like cooking in Breath of the Wild, or level-grinding in a JRPG. However people play games to cool off from work, or get ready for bed, or to recharge from social activities.
For this list, I picked games that have few action verbs, so the liminality of their own actions are low. At the same time, the titles on this list are not meant to be simple distractions. As games, the level of interactivity is consistently mild, while still being functional and enjoyable. They still want your attention enough to claim their own mental state. But the cost of entering that mental space is low.
I chose games that do not feel like 'destinations' in the way I am trying to describe. If you were seeking exploration, or adventure, or brain-bending puzzles, there are other games that have honed those concepts into true destinations. But the games on this list flow. They do not track scores. Their skill ceilings are low. There is no gamification to increase engagement, no external motivation systems. There is no language, narrative, messaging, or moralizing that could claim domination as "the point." All these games are and can do is bring you into the mental space needed to play them, and after a couple hours, they let you go.
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Games that came close to making this list include A Short Hike, Donut County, GRIS, Lumbear Jack, PAN PAN, and Sayonara Wild Hearts. Those games are just complex enough to contain their own liminality, but otherwise, are short enough that for many people they could have a similar effect.
Liminal spaces exist within games in abundance. Any game that lets you walk through a simulated city will be, by necessity, more liminal space than destination. However, that's not what this list is about. If it were, it would include games from Yakuza, Gravity Rush, LA Noire. I'm abstracting the concept of a liminal space a bit to describe a liminal mental space.
Because the interactive nature of games means there are liminal gameplay actions the player takes between 'destination' gameplay action verbs. Fiddling with equipment menus in an RPG before a challenging boss fight. Buying ingredients before performing alchemy. Surveying a map before traversing a mountain. What interests me is that these liminal actions require a different mental state, a different type of focus, to execute well, compared to the end-goal destination action.
So, following the logic, liminal actions create liminal mental states, which require liminal mental spaces.
The degree to which a game is made of liminal mental spaces varies with its liminal actions. That degree can be zero. Space Invaders has one screen, one action, one mental state - zero liminality. On the other side of the spectrum, the Animal Crossing series is filled with so many interlocking, player-directed systems that the designation of which actions are liminal actions and which are destination actions can be completely different between players.
I know that sometimes the desired engagement with a game is with those liminal actions, where the reason for playing is to enter those liminal mental spaces. Which brings me to the point of this list - can playing a game be, at its core, entirely a liminal mental space? By which I mean, the value of the game is the game's ability to help the player transition from one mental state to another without being a destination itself.
Depending on the player, I'm sure there are entire genres of game that would fit someone's definition of the concept I'm trying to scratch at. Rhythm games. Point-and-click adventures. Flight simulators. Picross. Or portions of games, like cooking in Breath of the Wild, or level-grinding in a JRPG. However people play games to cool off from work, or get ready for bed, or to recharge from social activities.
For this list, I picked games that have few action verbs, so the liminality of their own actions are low. At the same time, the titles on this list are not meant to be simple distractions. As games, the level of interactivity is consistently mild, while still being functional and enjoyable. They still want your attention enough to claim their own mental state. But the cost of entering that mental space is low.
I chose games that do not feel like 'destinations' in the way I am trying to describe. If you were seeking exploration, or adventure, or brain-bending puzzles, there are other games that have honed those concepts into true destinations. But the games on this list flow. They do not track scores. Their skill ceilings are low. There is no gamification to increase engagement, no external motivation systems. There is no language, narrative, messaging, or moralizing that could claim domination as "the point." All these games are and can do is bring you into the mental space needed to play them, and after a couple hours, they let you go.
---
Games that came close to making this list include A Short Hike, Donut County, GRIS, Lumbear Jack, PAN PAN, and Sayonara Wild Hearts. Those games are just complex enough to contain their own liminality, but otherwise, are short enough that for many people they could have a similar effect.
