The Walking Dead might not just be Game of the Year, it might be one of the most remembered games of the decade.

A lot gets lost in the discussion of video games as entertainment, and whether or not video games are art, etc.  I consider the medium to be in its infancy, much like film was in the 1920’s.  Video games are still awaiting their “Wizard of Oz” and “Gone With The Wind” and “Casablanca” and “Citizen Kane.”

When we think about games today we often confuse them as being “competition” to each other.  Battlefield competes with Call of Duty, Halo could be said to compete with both of them.  Cityville competes with Simcity, or even Sony competes with Microsoft and both compete with Nintendo.

The reality is with the ubiquity of electronic entertainment today, these titles and platforms are competing for people’s time.  We have reached a level of saturation that there is simply way more incredibly entertaining content than there actually are hours to consume it, even if one had all the hours in the day to do so.  When I decide to do something not specifically designed to earn me money to pay my bills, etc, I have more choices than I could possibly know what to do with.  Play scribblenauts on my iPad? Civilization 5 on my PC? X-com on Xbox?  Watch a blu-ray on my PS3?  Play my bass? Read a book on Kindle?  Watch a show on netflix?

This is somewhat of a longwinded way for me to describe my criteria for calling something “Game of the Year.”  For me, game of the year simply means that dollar for dollar, minute for minute, I got more pure enjoyment out of something than any other entertainment experience that year.  At the end of the year I would say “I would gladly give up all the other experiences I had with other titles this year, for the enjoyment this title gave me.” One might think that definition would lend itself to a bias to multiplayer games since those tend to be ongoing and don’t have a set “start” or “end”. Except I include one extra vector  in the equation: Did the experience also have an emotional impact, beyond simple fun?

This year, even though the year is not over, my Game of the Year is hands down The Walking Dead by Telltale games. In fact, it might very well prove to be one of the most important games of the decade. That it achieves such an accolade in my mind is somewhat amazing given that:

Its graphics are simple, stylized, and designed to scale across a variety of devices.  This means it’s certainly not the best looking game out there by far in terms of graphics quality.

Its play mechanics are alienating.  A combination of industry lightning-rod-for-controversy tropes like Quick Time Events and Point and Click exploration, just trying to describe how to play the game makes a hardcore gamer turn their nose up.

It’s based off of an admittedly popular comic book which has spawned a TV show of uneven quality. Few games based off of another medium have proven to be good, let alone great.

It’s produced by a small studio, without any big name publisher or marquis AAA game designers affiliated with it.

It’s only just now available as a whole, for the past several months chunks of the game have been released sporadically, leaving players easily distracted by the plethora of options out there free to drop it in favor of other things to play especially in the holiday cycle of Black Ops 2, Halo 4, and Assassin’s Creed 3.

The odds against this title even being entertaining were already stacked against it. 

And yet again, clearly and without reservation I call it the Game of the Year, and perhaps will have more impact beyond.  Why?

It’s a combination of several factors.  The first two are quite simple to state but the hardest to get right: The actors and the writing.  The Walking Dead game is an adventure story in which your choices impact both the story and the way the non-player characters interact with or treat you.  This is not new, many games do this, such as Mass Effect.  But by focusing the cast on just a few members, then throwing them into the “Zombie Apocalypse”, small choices have deep weight.  The choice to not give a character some food might mean they are not strong enough to escape the zombie horde. In another game you might not care, because the game wants to make sure *you* survive.

But take some stellar writing and *outstanding* emotional voice performances and roll them into a plotline that quickly reveals the game doesn’t really care if you as the player are happy or feel successful or not, and put you in charge of a little girl under all the same survival pressures that you are, and you apparently can achieve a story arc that left me sitting in my chair emotionally devastated as the last scene played out.

I can’t tell you how many times I shouted “NO!” at the screen, not out of frustration but out of denial and disbelief as it is revealed a choice I made several play hours ago had a tragic and horrific impact to the plot.  I can’t tell you how many times I paused the game and set my controller down so I could spend a few minutes processing what had just happened.

 

***WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS***

The game is definitely a Role Playing Game couched in an Adventure Game structure.  I chose to make each choice as if I was the one making the choice, as if it were me in the game.

This led me down paths where I found out I might make some choices in certain end of the world scenarios that make me not-a-very-nice person. And when you have to make a choice, the game only gives you 5 or 6 seconds to choose (not choosing anything has it’s own implications). During a heated argument that I thought I was handling well, someone got shot in the head.  In a choice whether to rescue someone or let them sacrifice themselves I chose to let them go, almost as much because they had repeatedly put the group at risk through their bumbling actions as much as their death would buy us time.

I made the call to have my arm cut off after I was bitten by a zombie, to try and slow the spread of the zombie infection.  When it came down to deciding if I was really the best person to take care of Clementine (your ward the entire game) I very nearly handed her over to a deranged lunatic who talks to his dead wife’s head in a carpet bag, solely because the accumulated guilt of the severity of all my choices to date left me feeling that she would be better off with anyone other than me.

At the end of the game you’ve saved her, but you’re bitten.  You’re about to turn right in front of her eyes into a zombie walker and you have to decide whether or not you want to have this eight year old girl go through the trauma of shooting you in the head.  I chose to advise her to save the ammunition since I was safely handcuffed to a radiator, but the real reason was I didn’t want to have to force this child I had worked to save all this time to have to kill me, even though in a previous moment she had already taken a human life when it was required for survival.

Before she left, I made the dialog choice to tell her to always remember to keep her hair short, so the zombies couldn’t grab at it.  It was a callback to an early episode of the game. I was pretty emotionally involved when I decided to make that choice, because that felt like the right way to say goodbye.  Lee, the person you play, is a murderer sentenced to jail at the beginning, and takes up Clementine as his salvation.

It seemed only right since I was bitten and I told her to leave me, and keep her hair short, that I was still trying to do everything I could for her survival, but also to not make her experience more horrible by having to kill me.

 

***SPOILERS DONE***

To say this game is an emotional rollercoaster is to do disservice to the game, emotions, and rollercoasters all in one.

I’ve never been so invested in my choices as a gamer.  I’ve never thought more about how simple and trite the “You’re either Jesus or Hitler” binary morality choices in most games are compared to this one.  In this game you can make all the right choices, and everyone suffers horribly.  Or you can play it bad boy, and find that those choices end up having a positive impact.  Or you can play like I did, right down the middle doing everything I thought was the important choice at the time be it harsh or gentle, and end up really wrestling with what you have done as a person to these people in this world.

The Walking Dead isn’t our Citizen Kane we’ve been waiting for in the Video Game world. But it may very well be The Kid, or Birth of a Nation.

It’s not without its flaws.  In the second and third episodes some dialog choices seem out of whack in how the NPC’s react compared to previous events.  In places the game mechanics commit the old video game sin of “teaching the player what to do by killing them until they get the one thing right”, and as mentioned before the stylized graphics tend to low resolution textures and some world geometry can be wonky.

And yet I think it’s the game people will look back on in 2020 like they look back on Half Life 1 (or even Half Life 2 for that matter) as being a memorable emotional experience that made them laugh, or cry, or look in awe at a moment and wonder how some pixels on a screen have put you into an emotional state.

But the best thing about this game?  It’s big enough, and different enough depending on your choices, that you can play it again immediately and get a totally different experience. They even keep statistics on everyone who has played the game so you can see where your moral or survival choices map to the larger playing population.

I view this game as my Game of the Year 2012.  Congratulations TellTale Games on making something so important to the genre. The Walking Dead game is an accomplishment those of us in the industry aspire to, and you guys nailed it.

[EDIT: It’s been pointed out I might be somewhat biased as I know the overall story consultant and author of episode 4 of the game, Gary Whitta.  So I’m calling out that yes I know him, and he’s an extremely nice person.  However he and I never once discussed the game, plot, or anything about The Walking Dead other than the fact I was playing it episode by episode and he was working on it.]

[SECOND EDIT: Stay through the end credits of the finale, there’s a brief Epilogue.]

EVERYTHING MUST GO

So I have a box with 25 softcover editions of my first book, A Microsoft Life, and 11 Hardback copies. I asked twitter if people would like signed personalized copies from this stock so here’s the deal!The softcover is $16 plus shipping generated by Paypal. I originally said $15 but I could not find on Paypal where I could include “handling” in order to input the 99 cents the envelope costs so I just added that to the base price. (Seriously the Paypal options are daunting to me.  It’s sometimes hard to figure out just how you want to sell on your site.  Anyways.) There are 25 of the softcovers.There are 11 Hardback copies at $26 a copy plus shipping.VERY IMPORTANT: When you make your order tell me your favorite thing in the “message to seller” box. I will make this part of your personalized inscription.

So! Here you go, a button for the softcover:

 

HARDCOVER IS SOLD OUT

Glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens.

Working in the consumer electronics hardware business has been a massive education.  I now know what it takes to drive a manufacturing line in China from creating the steel tooling to combining molded plastic within test tolerances to internal components like printed circuit boards, to packaging, to international electronics testing compliance to putting everything on a boat and getting it here on time.

If you ever get the chance to be a product manager for a consumer electronics device take it.  It’s a massive education and fun to boot.

But you have to work China hours, which can be tough.  As I write this, I’m nearing considering going to bed, but their day is reaching the early afternoon of *tomorrow*.

I’m saving up for a Tesla S. So for now we’re down to one car.  As I do writing and consulting and working on awesome stuff for GAEMS, Rochelle is pursuing her dream job of seeing clients. We’re down to one car, which makes juggling those schedules tough.

I know, #firstworldproblems.

We live out in Duvall, a farming community roughly 14 miles from Redmond and 24 or so miles from Seattle proper.  As I have stated many times, I love it here.  I can see the milky way at night.  It’s quiet. My dog’s think it’s heaven.

Just down the street from our house is a Seattle Metro bus stop. I always made fun of it.

“How inefficient a public transport system does this place have that it can’t do light rail anywhere where traffic causes 45 minute delays within 2 mile stretches but it has a metro bus stop way out here in Smallville?” I used to joke.

I’ve never taken a bus more than a mile in my entire life.  Dallas, where I grew up, has a terrible public transit system.  So my use of busses and subways has been in heavily urban downtown areas like Boston or New York, where if you are visiting you typically don’t have to go too far.

Rochelle was going to be with a client today for far longer than I was willing to wait for her to pick me up. I remembered that right outside our office is a bus stop.  I queried the Seattle metro site and discovered I could, with one simple transfer, get from work to the bus stop near my house for $2.50 and about a hour’s worth of my time.  Oh and the bus has Wi-Fi.

I had my iPad, mainly so I could read Jeffrey Toobin’s outstanding new book on the Supreme Court, The Oath. But as I rode to the transit center I found myself simply staring out the window at the things I never get to really look at on my commute. Near the horse pasture off Novelty Hill there was a deer. The house that sat off the tiny lake that so spectacularly frozen during winter ice storms had finally sold. The work on the roundabout at a critical traffic choke point was nearly complete.

The bus rolled down Redmond Ridge into the Snoqualmie river valley. I looked out the window over the private dog park we take the dogs to in the lower end by the river. I could see someone playing with their dogs near the beach on the close side.

It was late afternoon/early evening.  The Seattle Golden hour in October starts around 5:30 and I was getting all the benefit of it. The treetops were lit with orange yellow sunlight and I just sat there in my bus seat alone, drinking in views I have to enjoy in passing as I concentrate on being a pilot not a passenger.

The bus stop near my home three quarters of the way up steep part of the ridge we live atop.  It’s about two thirds of a mile from my house. Coming up the ridge I was momentarily terrified.  I didn’t know how to stop the bus!  Most bus systems I had been on in downtown areas had “Stop” buttons everywhere.  This bus only had those cables over the windows.  I envisioned the entire bus slamming to a halt if I pulled one, like a subway in a TV show or movie.  I quickly confirmed via Google it was fine to pull them, that’s how you let the driver know your stop.

It was crisp and sunny and clear as I stepped out of the bus. The golden hour was still in effect, and the trees were glorious. I stopped to snap them just by the bus stop.

I walked up the ridge at a leisurely pace, stopping every once and a while to pick fresh ripe blackberries from the bushes that cover the landscape where I live. The air was cool and clear, so the climb up the rest of the ridge was incredibly pleasant.

I reached home, said hello to the dogs and let them out.  I stood out in the back yard that borders a native growth area and watched them sniff and play and go about their bathroom business.

All felt very much right with the world.  I felt deeply there was a lot of experiential opportunities around me that I was missing in the shorthand of my life. It was there, I could see it, perhaps my imagination could fill a lot of it in.  But there was no substitute for actually seeing the Red Wheel Barrow in person, if you could.

So much does depend upon that. I resolve to take the bus more often.

*Thump*

I knew today was going to be a tough day for me.  12 months ago I held Remington in my arms on the kitchen floor while he had the seizure that would cause his death later that night.  He’d been afflicted for a month with a vicious blood disorder. Thankfully as long as we kept him on his medicine and transfused him he felt pretty normal, so he wasn’t suffering.  But the risk of a seizure was always there, and with no platelets, that would cause a cascading internal bleed which is what happened. His little heart was beating so fast during the seizure, like nothing I had ever felt before and I told him it was ok that if this was his time to go it was ok and I loved him.  He was only 18 months old.

I woke up this morning at roughly the same time he’d awakened me a year ago to find myself looking into his sister Eowyn’s eyes.  A little while after Remington’s death our breeder called* to say that Eowyn, Remington’s half sister by blood, had been rejected by her family she had been placed with. Jane was heartbroken over Remington’s death even though his breeding and line almost certainly had nothing to do with the disorder according to the doctors. We were concerned about replacing him so fast, but when we met her we were shocked at how just like him she looked, but had her own personality. So we gave her our home.

She slept with me most of last night, an unusual occurrence because she often prefers to sleep on the floor because its cooler. I looked into those big brown eyes she shares with her brother and I felt pretty ok.  She was lying on her side to my right towards the edge of the bed, her legs facing me.  She stretched and did one of those adorable long yawns she does and leaned her head back as if to say “I am so cute.  None more cuter.”

In mid cute-showoff she promptly fell off the bed.

*Thump*

Well, her back end anyway, which was even more funny.  She managed to spin her front half forward as she began falling so that only her butt hit the floor leaving her perched somewhat precariously over the side with her front paws splayed out and a “What…the FUCK just happened” look on her face. That look quickly transformed into her “Aw man I embarrassed myself” look as Rochelle and I laughed at her.

So one Oct 2nd morning was pretty awful.  And another one was pretty ok. I miss ya Remy, but your sister is pretty awesome.

* Every time I mention we use a breeder for some of our Goldens on twitter or my blog I get The Lecture about rescues.  Fear not!  Our oldest Golden Buddy is a rescue, and in between Remington’s death and our giving Eowyn a home, there’s the awesome story of “Rufus” (it’s in roughly the middle of the blog post)

The Big Bang Controversy

Let me begin by noting I know a few people peripherally (writers, producers, actors) involved with the creation of the show “Big Bang Theory” (BBT). I also know many nerds who are the subject of, impacted by, or otherwise in the orbit of the show itself.

BBT, as has been typical in the past, was nominated for some Emmy awards. The show is a prime time big market television show about nerds (geeks) and geek (nerd) culture.

Let us stipulate for the moment that all of the above are facts.

I’ve heard a lot of criticism of the show itself over various topics.  In fairness and out of a sense of nerd completionism, I will list the prominent ones here. Please click and read the arguments to understand my points later.

It’s not funny, comedically lazy, and laughs at nerds not with them.

It’s misogynistic and potentially homophobic.

And a host of other complaints.

As a side note and personal pet peeve, many people have characterized the show as “geeksploitation” or “nerd blackface”, which are actually pretty terrible descriptions from a hyperbole standpoint. Society didn’t spend centuries lynching, enslaving and demeaning nerds so to use the “blackface” term is a disservice to how hurtful and horrible blackface is from a racial perspective. It also speaks to a level of defensiveness I’ll talk about in a second.

Big Bang Theory is now in its 6th year.  And while there’s always been a small undercurrent of nerd criticism it strikes me that its amped way, way up in the past year (as the show has reached a critical level of popularity) from “it’s not a funny show” to “it offends me and exploits my culture.”

The latter sort of mystifies me.

To be clear, I’m not asking anyone to find the show funny, nor am I saying you’re wrong for not liking what I like. However the sense amongst some people that the show is insulting and exploitive strikes me as a bit defensive. I feel somewhat like an ER technician watching a doctor rant about how exploitive Scrubs is.

No one that I know involved with the creation of the show would want to make a single new episode of it if they thought they were creating it A) for money and fame to the detriment of the subject matter and/or B) if the show itself caused material harm to the subject matter. The sheer amount of effort alone they put into the math, science, comic continuity, etc are not throwaway references and I think really speaks to the dedication of getting things in the culture right. They might stumble, but it’s not for lack of effort.

Likewise I take issue with the shorthand criticism that the show is laughing “at” geek culture rather than “with” geek culture.  Comedy is not a zero sum game.  Prime time comedy has to do a lot of both laughing at and with the things it is examining.  A show that did nothing but laugh “with” geek culture would actually not be all that good.

Even moreso I wonder if the defensiveness of insisting geek culture shouldn’t be mocked or poked fun of (the "BBT laughs ‘at’ geek culture and that’s wrong!”) comes from the fact a lot of geek culture has routinely been mocked and made fun of since we were kids.  Maybe it’s hard to believe that in the end Big Bang Theory isn’t some sneaky plot by the jocks to make us all feel bad.  We’re all geek versions of Carrie at the prom, just waiting for the pig’s blood.

Here’s the reason I don’t think the show is exploitive:  The people I know who watch it (who aren’t what I would call geeks) tune in to see if Leonard will get back with Penny, or what is going to happen to Walowitz in space. They don’t tune in to “see what those stupid nerds are up to this week.”

They watch it for the characters, because they like them.

Over the course of the six seasons the characters have meshed and grown, pulled together and pulled away. Like most long lived sitcoms, the setting could really be anywhere.  The nerd culture aspect gives me something to enjoy on top of the melodrama. Granted the arcs are shallow. We’re not talking deep level social commentary here.  It’s a sitcom.  But I really struggle to find the harmful exploitation. You want to see exploitation of a genre, watch some episodes of Archer. They spin exploitation into comedy gold over there.

If you don’t think the show is funny that’s one thing.  Certainly the humor variant over the six seasons goes up and down like any other comedy. If you think it’s sending the wrong message in character development about gender or orientation roles that’s fair criticism. Penny bothered me for a long time until I really got it that she’s a caricature of counterbalance to the caricature of nerds. The hamhanded “in the closet” references between Rajesh and Wolowitz are so telegraphed sometimes they can’t be forgiven as commentary. And don’t get me started on the laugh track.

But offense over perceived exploitation just strikes me as a bridge too far. People point to shows that “do it better” like Community.  I argue I don’t think a show like Community would have been greenlit if Big Bang Theory hadn’t had three seasons of success before Community aired. Keep in mind how prime time works.  If broadcaster A has a hit formula it’s not long before B and C come out with their own flavor. Furthermore Community does its own share of laughing “at” things, it’s a formula all shows have to use at some point.

In the end I suppose I’m not going to sway any opinions here. And again I’m certainly not saying anyone should like something they don’t like.  If it’s not funny to you it’s not funny to you. I remain puzzled by the reaction that a highly rated popular prime time comedy lasting six seasons that centers around geek culture should be dismissed or is offensive because it is exploitive at its core.

Isn’t this the cultural victory we kind of dreamed of when the rest of the world dismissed us? Millions of people nerds and not laughing about Lord of the Rings and science jokes!

Tell me what you think in the comments.

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