Nellie Brière is passionate about video games. But you will never see her sweating profusely, the controller between her teeth, her eyes jumping frantically from one corner of the screen to the other. In her opinion, the ideal video game session is more like “quietly reading a book or drinking a little tea”.
Mashing the buttons on the controller to blast monsters or win frantic competitions, not for her. Too much stress. “I really don’t like that aspect of video games. I’ve teamed up with friends who like to manipulate the controller, while I stayed next to them to solve puzzles,” recalls the young woman, also known for her expertise in social networks.
A profile quite far from the image that one could have of the gamer usual. However, a growing offer of games appears on the market to meet these aspirations for interactive digital zen. Thus, it is first the game Machinarium which seduced Nellie Brière: we control a robot that has to solve a series of puzzles, in sublime settings and a captivating sound ambiance. Above all, the tempo is very calm, without timer or pressure.
The player started looking for similar titles with a contemplative tendency and thus blissfully launched into Journey, in which we lead a traveler crossing breathtaking lands, sometimes meeting other players for mutual assistance. “I found it exciting, during the pandemic, to meet real people in the game, especially since it’s collaborative, it’s not to kill each other like in Fortnite ! », appreciates the one who also loved exploring the buried memories of the manor of What Remains of Edith Finchor Strayfeaturing a cat lost in a dark and strange world populated by automatons.
We see everything through the eyes of a cat, we jump calmly on platforms, we sharpen our claws on carpets, it’s relaxing.
Nellie Brière, video game enthusiast
Little by little, we slow down
Relying on calm game mechanics and a slow pace, wrapped in often elaborate visual and sound atmospheres, these contemplative games have multiplied in recent years, responding to different player aspirations. This other path was not unexplored, according to Maxime Deslongchamps, lecturer at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) in video game creation. He notes the impact on the general public caused by Myst since 1993. We navigate freely in surrealist settings, a bit like slides, with a narrative framework punctuated by problems that solicit the brain. “There is an artistic aspect where we are less in a relationship of sensorimotor challenge, even if there are strategic objectives and challenges. There is something more than simply becoming a good player,” explains the academic.
IMAGE FROM MYST
The mainstream game Myst, released in 1993, marked a turning point in contemplative gaming.
Another milestone: the marked rise of independent games at the dawn of the 2010s, multiplying experiments, on the sidelines of very big budget studios. This is how ride simulators were born (walking simulators). “These are the contemplation games par excellence, because we simply walk to listen to the narrator, often embodying a single character discovering an uninhabited world, but with traces of the passage of others, evocative or suggestive narrative fragments. We give the player time to think about all that, to interpret what happened, to engage in artistic contemplation,” explains Mr. Deslongchamps.
The pace of releases is not slowing down, and since 2017 we have noticed a new surge in proposals at a slower tempo, in contrast to the over-the-top action games that are proliferating on the market: Rhyme, Stray, Dreamfall Chapters…
Slowness on a large scale
Inject zenitude into video games? Since the idea appeals to certain players, the big studios have adapted their productions. ” I think about Death Rending. We play a kind of Amazon deliveryman in a postapocalyptic world, who has to carry heavy packages everywhere. The game mechanics are around balancing the packages on our backs, while calmly crossing these environments,” summarizes Maxime Deslongchamps.
The academic also mentions Red Dead Redemption 2. “It has attracted a lot of attention for its very slow pace, with many creative choices,” he continues. It takes place at the tipping point of the wild American West, with the marginalization of cowboys in the face of the industrial age. What emerges is a sort of romantic point of view on another time, where everything went more slowly. It’s not just bang bang between cowboys, we are immersed in a historical cultural universe, with the rhythm of a 1960s western.”
Slowness also tends to creep into the pacing of major games. In Ghost of Tsushimawhere samurai battles rage, the main character occasionally stops to compose haikus while observing his surroundings. We find the same oxygen bubbles in Horizonwhere the heroine faces strange mechanical animals, but also takes the time to explore a mysterious world and solve puzzles quietly, to learn more about the past and the origin of machine animals.
In short, instead of constantly strafing the buttons, the player is cyclically invited to switch to contemplative mode. “I think there is a greater sensitivity to the emotional beat, a bit like a roller coaster, with moments full of adrenaline or fear, but also quieter sequences where we rest, we contemplate, safe. Ubisoft likes to insert scenes where we reflect or collect ourselves, for example after the disappearance of a key character. It’s a structure that should return to video games,” underlines Maxime Deslongchamps.