Metaphors in Games (2016)
medium.comFor a while, I've been meaning to write about how Catherine is an absolutely amazing game. The raw mechanics of it give me a sense of intellectual delight comparable to Go (the game, not the language) and the core ideas of Lisp or Scheme. All of them share a relatively small ruleset that results in surprising power or complexity. But what sets Catherine apart is that is has a metaphor (a human traversing and manipulating large blocks) that totally works! (There's also a storyline that is pretty good but irrelevant to the primary metaphor.)
If we ever meet intelligent aliens, I won't be surprised if they have their own Lisp-like language or Go-like game, but they probably won't have Catherine. But to me, Catherine feels just as fundamental as Lisp or Go. And I call that very impressive game design.
This is next in my backlog, intentionally kept smaller because I think games are among the most insidious mediums of entertainment. It's crazy to think how much time can be spent on an RPG or a few campaigns of a multi-player game; I almost get uneasy thinking about how much time I spent on games as a teen, sharpening skills that don't generalize beyond twiddling my thumbs. Among my favorites are the Bioshocks and Zelda, self-contained stories that express ideas and aesthetics and don't rely on cheap dopamine shots to stuck more money out of your pocket.
Thank you for the recommendation. I didn’t really understand why I should care about the game from videos/screenshots/marketing text, but after reading this description it was an instant purchase.