An interesting interactive essay that I think is a "genre" I'd love to see more works in due to the medium's conductiveness to delivering its point across, but that in this particular case feels somewhat basic and shallow.
The big point of contention lies, in my opinion, in how the developer defines explicit and implicit interaction systems in absolute terms rather than as levels of interaction that change from game to game and interact with the other elements of gaming. Let's take a look at two of the examples the developer presents: Persona 5 and The Last of Us (2, in the case of my review).
The dev argues that P5 is a game replete with explicit systems that all together work in perfect synergy with the other elements of the game to deliver a strong experience. I agree with the synergy part, but not so much with calling these systems inherently explicit; at what point does the pressing of a button go from implicit to explicit? If I, in combat, press a button that makes my character stab an enemy, is that implicit due to the directness of the action, or explicit due to the way my Joker moves towards the enemy and attacks on his own? Conversely, does my choosing of having Joker spend his time eating a burger implicit or explicit? I don't press anything to have him eat a burger, but I have total control on whether or not he does that. Let's add another layer, a narrative one: If I choose to play with Joker as a personal self-insert, do this actions lean more towards the implicit? On the other hand, if I choose to portray Joker in a purely role-playing sense, giving him a different name, do these actions lean more towards the explicit, since there is a higher level of disconnect between me and the player character? Discussion around game interactivity would benefit inmensely from a literary Barthesian optic, interrogating not only the game itself and the "intention" behind game mechanics but their case-by-case interaction with different kinds of players.
Now let's take a look at The Last of Us II, a game that features a bajillion implicit interactive moments developed with an equally high amount of labor law violations. I distinctly remember a moment in the game where I, as the player, can pick up a snow globe and shake it around, observing the beautiful realistically simulated digital moving snowflakes. This is a moment of extreme interactivity; the movement of the character towards the item, the picking up of it, and the movement of the snow globe are all performed by my own controls. But is it really implicit? This little pocket of interaction is completely divorced from any other game mechanic, existing in its own world of interactivity. Adding a narrative layer, the character I'm controlling is Elie, a fully realized individual in this game world with no room for role-playing. This leads to a new set of questions: Is this interactive possibility something Elie would do? Is my connection to the character severed if I do perform this interactive task, as opposed to if I don't? The developer mentions Red Dead Redemption 2 as a game where the game world allows for good inclusion of explicit systems, but fails to mention how the implicit interaction can sever the connection between player and character: Arthur is, by all means, a conflicted but kind man who, as a character, would never brutally mow down a town of civilians. But the implicit systems of the game allow ME, the player, to do it, at that instant shattering any connection between me and mister Morgan.
With all this in mind, can we truly declare immediate interaction as something inherently good? First, we would need to clearly define what truly is implicit interaction, and as we have already seen, this task is impossible due to the way different game systems and different players will interpret interaction differently. The developer ultimately concludes that Shadow of the Colossus is the apex of implicit interactive systems. But do SotC's systems truly allow the player a higher degree of interactivity with the game world, when the game is a hidden puzzle game? You can climb, but only the fluffy parts of the colossi. You can stab, but only the shining weak points of the colossi, any other action is moot. This is all perfectly fine in the context of the game, but it makes it a bad example of high interactivity. Better examples would be, for instance, Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, or more sandbox oriented games like Minecraft. Still can we truly declare Minecraft inherently better than, say, a top-down strategy game for it's extremely high degree of implicit systems in comparison to the necessary explicitness of a strategy game?
Ultimately it's all a case by case basis, and we can't simply declare some systems as inherently better than others, when there are so many more factors that come into equation when it comes to games. Ours is a syncretic medium of extremely high audience-work connection, and as such it would be a disservice to it to talk about any of these factors in absolute terms.
Also the parody robo-Clive von FF16's dialogue tells me the dev completely misunderstood the character, which isn't a good look considering how on-the-face the game is about its themes.
The big point of contention lies, in my opinion, in how the developer defines explicit and implicit interaction systems in absolute terms rather than as levels of interaction that change from game to game and interact with the other elements of gaming. Let's take a look at two of the examples the developer presents: Persona 5 and The Last of Us (2, in the case of my review).
The dev argues that P5 is a game replete with explicit systems that all together work in perfect synergy with the other elements of the game to deliver a strong experience. I agree with the synergy part, but not so much with calling these systems inherently explicit; at what point does the pressing of a button go from implicit to explicit? If I, in combat, press a button that makes my character stab an enemy, is that implicit due to the directness of the action, or explicit due to the way my Joker moves towards the enemy and attacks on his own? Conversely, does my choosing of having Joker spend his time eating a burger implicit or explicit? I don't press anything to have him eat a burger, but I have total control on whether or not he does that. Let's add another layer, a narrative one: If I choose to play with Joker as a personal self-insert, do this actions lean more towards the implicit? On the other hand, if I choose to portray Joker in a purely role-playing sense, giving him a different name, do these actions lean more towards the explicit, since there is a higher level of disconnect between me and the player character? Discussion around game interactivity would benefit inmensely from a literary Barthesian optic, interrogating not only the game itself and the "intention" behind game mechanics but their case-by-case interaction with different kinds of players.
Now let's take a look at The Last of Us II, a game that features a bajillion implicit interactive moments developed with an equally high amount of labor law violations. I distinctly remember a moment in the game where I, as the player, can pick up a snow globe and shake it around, observing the beautiful realistically simulated digital moving snowflakes. This is a moment of extreme interactivity; the movement of the character towards the item, the picking up of it, and the movement of the snow globe are all performed by my own controls. But is it really implicit? This little pocket of interaction is completely divorced from any other game mechanic, existing in its own world of interactivity. Adding a narrative layer, the character I'm controlling is Elie, a fully realized individual in this game world with no room for role-playing. This leads to a new set of questions: Is this interactive possibility something Elie would do? Is my connection to the character severed if I do perform this interactive task, as opposed to if I don't? The developer mentions Red Dead Redemption 2 as a game where the game world allows for good inclusion of explicit systems, but fails to mention how the implicit interaction can sever the connection between player and character: Arthur is, by all means, a conflicted but kind man who, as a character, would never brutally mow down a town of civilians. But the implicit systems of the game allow ME, the player, to do it, at that instant shattering any connection between me and mister Morgan.
With all this in mind, can we truly declare immediate interaction as something inherently good? First, we would need to clearly define what truly is implicit interaction, and as we have already seen, this task is impossible due to the way different game systems and different players will interpret interaction differently. The developer ultimately concludes that Shadow of the Colossus is the apex of implicit interactive systems. But do SotC's systems truly allow the player a higher degree of interactivity with the game world, when the game is a hidden puzzle game? You can climb, but only the fluffy parts of the colossi. You can stab, but only the shining weak points of the colossi, any other action is moot. This is all perfectly fine in the context of the game, but it makes it a bad example of high interactivity. Better examples would be, for instance, Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, or more sandbox oriented games like Minecraft. Still can we truly declare Minecraft inherently better than, say, a top-down strategy game for it's extremely high degree of implicit systems in comparison to the necessary explicitness of a strategy game?
Ultimately it's all a case by case basis, and we can't simply declare some systems as inherently better than others, when there are so many more factors that come into equation when it comes to games. Ours is a syncretic medium of extremely high audience-work connection, and as such it would be a disservice to it to talk about any of these factors in absolute terms.
Also the parody robo-Clive von FF16's dialogue tells me the dev completely misunderstood the character, which isn't a good look considering how on-the-face the game is about its themes.