The only thing I require from a video game is that personal stories emerge from the gameplay. A video game is a state machine that emits situations that players find relevant. Situations form a personal story through the gameplay. Stories are not in the dialogues, cutscenes, or whatever explicit forms. The stories emerge in the game's situations into which I'm thrown or in the situations I manage to earn by my actions in the game. In short, a good video game is an interface through which you can experience a miniature of your life. The situations in good video games feel so random and uncontrollable, yet there is some space you can act on. Life might be hard and unbeatable, but yet you at least want to realise that there are some things you can have control of. Life is strange, and you are lost in it. Still, you act and see what happens because your life has such a personal feel to it, and you can't just let it go randomly. Good video games share the same motivation and satisfaction as your own life. It's the interface that satisfies the exact desire we have for your life. This interface, called videogame, has three components: Randomness, decision, and progress. In combination, they form situations where you find your personal stories. First, it needs to "feel" random, so you feel the need for your actions to adjust the situation. What's the point in trying hard when everything's already determined? You don't know what's happening next, so you must adapt your act based on the random situation. Second, you need to be able to make decisions to cope with randomness. Even though you can't have control of everything, there must be a space where you can. And it should give you feedback on your actions. Third, there must be a sense of progress that rewards or judges your decisions. Be it good or bad, there is always something new, which can be random, when you act. This loop of input and output is what makes you keep playing. A good game has this structure. It has a proper interface, which contains randomness, decision, and progress, that makes you grow the motivation to play. A story is a function that takes motivations as its arguments. When you follow a story in a novel, it's ultimately the motivations of the characters that you are following. In the form of a book, it gives you the interface through which you learn about the random situations characters are thrown into, which makes characters act in a certain way. As you go through the pages, the conditions change, and so do the character's motivations. Dostoevsky is probably the one who introduced this structure of this kind of gameplay. It's only that the controller has a limited number of commands. So, what if you are following your own motivation instead of the character's motivations? It would form a very personal story. It'd be a more personal story than any other. When you are obsessed with a video game, you are obsessed with the personal story you find in the gameplay, for the same reason you care about your own life. It can sound stupid, like, "I wanna get that Pokemon and attach this move to her". It may not feel fancy, but it is indeed relevant to you. Your life can sound stupid to others, but your life's shit is so important to you anyway. It's okay even if others don't understand your life. No one shares the same situations where your own motivations arise. A good game drives your personal experience. It shouldn't try to convey a static story. It should be a well-designed interface through which you grow your motivations. Whatever the game is, a good game has its unique design that sets up the motivations in the structure of randomness, decision, and progress. A bad video game doesn't make you motivated because it lacks randomness, decisions, or a sense of progress. Anyway. I've written all this because I've been obsessed with one game for the last couple of weeks. It's called Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer. It has all the aspects of my definition of a good videogame. The first title of this franchise from 1995 is my all-time favourite. I found out Spike Chunsoft released the 6th title in two decades, so I gave it a play. I found it like a sincerely polished modern version of the classic from the 90s. The core game experience is all about dealing with random situations in the dungeons, which lets you grow various motivations in each play. I was into it just like when I first played the original. I thought of why. I realised this game succeeds in being the exact interface I want video games to be. I don't know if this game is successful outside Japan, which I doubt from an aesthetic point of view, so I wanted to say the fact that it is a good game. You should try it if you want the personal experience I described. シレン6をやった。良かった。ランダム性、意思決定、そして進行の回路が完璧に調整されているゲームバランス。状況の豊かさが各回のプレイで立ち上がってくる感じが素晴らしい。そのテンポが凄まじく速い。10時間くらいぶっ続けでやって99Fダンジョンをクリアした。アクシデントもあった。だがそれが個人的な物語になるんだと思った。正解はないし、自分で答えを探し、状況を打開する快感。積もっていく階層とともに募る事故死の不安。そうしたランダムな状況で立ち上がるドラマがあるゲームというのは、やはり面白い。ビデオゲームとは究極的には状態機械であり、プレイヤーのインプットに対するアウトプットとしての状況を通じて物語がプレイヤーの中で生まれることを助ける装置、インターフェイスなのだと思った。 前にも言ったような気がするけど物語とは動機の関数であり、キャラクターの動機を追うことによって、不安定な状況の海から掬い上げられる一筋の流れとしてとらえることができる。そこには選択があり、後戻りはできない。否応なく前へ前へと進んでいくことの非可逆性によってその瞬間に対するノスタルジーが生じる。その時に我々はまた自分自身の動機をも追っているのであり、そうした二重の物語が織りなす経験こそがビデオゲームに限らず優れたインターフェイスがなせる技だと思っていて、私は、この時代において数は少ないけれども、そうしたものを評価したい。