Damn you Arvi! You stole the concepts for two Game Maker games I'm developing and merged them into one devious package. This man has got to have a time machine, I swear.** Like his recent forays with platformers, (G.E.N.E.R.I.C., FallOver, et al.) Addicsjon subverts the genre's tenets and drastically changes the way you travel within the XY plane. This time around he tackles drug addiction and player agency. Pity it lasts only five levels.
See, it's got you playing as a junkie. Like Insomnia, another platformer about addiction, the game starts you as a full-blown addict. Unlike Insomnia, however, your drugs aren't powerups. It's the opposite case here, actually; drug intake makes the screen convulse to the point that it hurts your eyes. I picture Yoshi scoring baaad shit in the "Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy" level. So as a game mechanic the addiction is basic, but that's alright. It's a fitting backdrop to the game's actual focus, which is the degree of control you exert.
Your character likes his drugs. A lot. As a result, he'll move and hop towards the nearest pill he can find. Most platformers test your mettle against the environment and enemies, i.e. outside forces. Having complete control over the protagonist is a given. Here, your needs conflict with your character's, and you have to struggle against him to reach your goal. Not only do the drugs alone hinder your progress, but they're usually placed near the always-fatal spikes. Navigating through the handful of levels is unique, and definitely worth a shot. There's a lot of untapped potential in playing games without total agency, and I'd like to see more tackle the subject.
The similarity between the round pills and the coinage typically collected in platformers is a funny, possibly unintended, sight gag btw.
**For those interested, my addiction game will cover the totality of the subject, starting with the distinction of whether or not you use. My agency game has you playing as a deplorable character, and your ultimate goal is to destroy your own character. The 'protagonist' becomes conscious of this, and rebels via moving of his own volition in an increasingly erratic manner.
Horrible
The loss of agency is interesting and you can genuinely feel the avatar's resistance against your own input, but the effect of getting pilled up is incredibly disorienting. The screen shake completely fucks with my head and makes the game unplayable. A shame, because I would like to replay it and attempt to reach the end, but because the pill counter doesn't reset properly when I hit esc I am forced to put up with the screen earthquake every retry unless I close and re-open the game. Can't be bothered.
Nice! Lots of potential here.
I think this experiment was pretty successful. And yeah, I think that there's a lot of potential in further exploring this kind of gameplay mechanic. It would be interesting, for example, if the character's demand for drugs (expressed as an inverse relationship to his responsiveness to controls) went down after he'd taken a few pills. Then there'd be a sort of feedback loop where the player would have to reach some sort of compromise with the character between the extremes of keeping him completely clean but constantly having to drag him away from the damn pills, or letting him feed his habit for the sake of an easier life, and enduring the resulting jitters and hallucinations. And then, the pills could start to wear off, and the cravings would start to increase again...
I'd love to see something like this implemented in a game where it wasn't the main focus, so you had a more standard-type quest, like rescuing the princess or whatever, but you had to do so at the same time as battling your cravings for drugs (you know, like in real life).
Uh, and fuzzy balls, they
Uh, and fuzzy balls, they can get you uh, really high, mmmkay? Fuzzy´s... fuzzy´s are bad. I uh, probably shouldn´t have said that, mmmkay.
clever commentary
This is a good example of a game that makes its commentary effective through mechanics rather than its decorations & writing. Playing this game could very well resemble the conflicted life of an actual drug addict. I expect most human beings with a chemical dependency may recognize that they should have goals other than indulging their dependency and ought to consider the interests of other people besides their own self interest, but the frustration of attempting to resist their dependency wears down their resolve. Playing this game inspires both empathy & contempt for real-life addicts. Of course, the imaginary behavior of the drug & the environment limits its relevance.