If you’ve never used a Plug ‘n Play game before, you’re missing out. They were the one piece of simple video game fun I had growing up. Beyond that, it was various Flash-based games in a browser (and since that’s my only association with Flash, I’m quite bummed it’s being killed.) And although some of my friends had consoles, and I would play occasionally, it was never something that really grabbed my attention.
Freshman year of college, I discovered the game Portal. I don’t remember where I read about it, or if anyone recommended it to me, but I do remember immediately falling in love with the mechanics and the story. I’ve never been great at FPS games, so a point-and-click mechanic with a large margin for accuracy was perfect for me. It ran on my laptop using integrated graphics, which was good: I wasn’t aware that graphics cards existed at that time. Once I finished Portal, I moved on to Portal 2 of course. However, I must admit I still haven’t finished the story. During freshman year, I got stuck pretty far into the game and haven’t ever restarted it and gone through it.
Despite that relative failure, from that point onward I’ve played a few more video games. I bought a Nintendo Switch when I moved to San Diego, and I’ve also purchased a handful of games on Steam after making sure they will run on integrated graphics. The nature of my gaming experience is that I am somewhere between 2 and 10 years behind on what games are well-known, but not being involved in the gaming community has allowed an immense sense of discovery as I try to find new games to enjoy. Trying to find something that matched the enjoyment I get from the Portal series seemed like a difficult task. While of course it isn’t the same, on the recommendation of "Best played without any prior knowledge or description", I played The Stanley Parable.
To be concise, it’s an entirely narrative-driven game that plays like a 3D text adventure. There are a few things to interact with along the way, but otherwise it’s simple WASD movement. I sat down and played it for about 5 hours on a Saturday night, and it was like playing a movie that you’re involved in. I loved it. I highly recommend it to anyone who didn’t discover it 6 years ago when it was released. It’s available on all major operating systems through Steam, and it is being re-released sometime this year with expanded content and support for consoles.
The other game that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed is on the Switch, called Human: Fall Flat. It’s an introspective puzzle game with a strange physics engine. While not highly narrative driven, the few quips you get are reasonably amusing.
Between finishing The Stanley Parable and getting back into Human: Fall Flat, which I first played nearly a year ago when I got my Switch, I’ve finally been able to put a name to the games I enjoy: Narrative-driven puzzle games. I have no desire to play shooter games, and I don’t have the equipment to play sports games I might enjoy. But puzzle games tickle a certain part of my brain, particularly those with a twist or hook. In the case of Portal, that twist is, of course, the portals. In Human: Fall Flat, it’s that you’re more a piece of structurally-intact clay than a person. Yet, the puzzle itself, and the mechanics hook, is not normally enough to keep me engaged. There are many puzzles in the world, and many of them fail to grab my attention. A few do, like Unblock Me and similar "Rush Hour" type phone games. Yet those are idle, and not something that actually engage me.
The missing part that is hard to find, particularly because I started with Portal, is the narrative. I want a world to be immersed in, or a story to follow. In the Portal games, there is an incredibly engaging and darkly humorous through-line that just fits my brain perfectly. It is the perfect middle-ground on which I judge these games. The Stanley Parable has very little puzzle components, unless you’re looking for it; yet, the narrative is so strong that I don’t mind at all. Human: Fall Flat has little narration or much of a story, as it is an open-world exploration game; yet, it has just enough glue there to get me engaged with the very strange physics you encounter to solve impressive puzzles.
While I’ll never be someone who plays games seriously, or really with any consistency, I’m glad that I have a new medium to enjoy. The narrative-heavy games are like watching, and participating in, a very long movie with more twists and turns than most movies in a theater are likely to give you. It’s exciting to find new things that engage your mind in a positive way, and I’m happy I have something else to try out every once in a while.