[For folk literature,] you need folk allusions — if cowardly, say Vuu Dhahlang; if brave, say old Huang Dyung.
— Lao She, The Agony of Creating Popular Literature
I am the kind of person who emphasizes at the beginning of each smalltalk that I am a non-gamer. Unfortunately, this statement requires clarification. I open Tetris from time to time, and occasionally linger on neal.fun and Lichess, but Doom is beyond choice. I always make the claim abruptly, regardless of how others would interpret it, perhaps contrary to my intention. In fact, I envy gamers, just as clichéd advertising copy says one envies those who read. Their focus on games and the clear separation between games and work are beyond my imagination.
Since I have not had time to examine the concepts, I rephrase it as follows: I do not engage with things that are generally classified as games and have no prevalent way of being played without digital products.
Is it the pattern of dungeons and levels that shapes the skills of game characters, or vice versa? From a teleological perspective, it seems the former shapes the latter, given that game characters are designed to flow within the reward cycle. However, characters have deeper roots, dating back to Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Roman times, and extending to modern Marvel series which make a show of cobbling together superpowers, always sacrificing narrative coherence to create an all-star lineup. In contrast, maps are often products of rationalization, emerging after pedants interrogate minstrels — a phenomenon visible throughout the formation of classical novels (even in reality, royal courts or commander’s mansions with numerous conflicting reports are doing some fiction). Before narration, sunken warships become divine statues, the million soldiers’ footprints blurred, only clashes of brave generals emerging; after narration, awkwardly frequent roads are then questioned. Before narration, the monkey stood firm with his magic cudgel; after narration, people delineate from memory a reasonable journey, connecting the Flowing Sand River and the Little Western Heaven — just as game developers have done once again.
Therefore, I dare to say that games’ exploration of temporal and spatial attributes is still quite rudimentary. I suspect that a seasoned competitive gamer would often feel as cramped by Dota or LOL as by 3D Pinball: Space Cadet — the entire world is nothing more than a lavish table. Maybe one under a disturbed gravitational field and shrouded in fog. After all, even Miegakure has already far exceeded human imagination.
The brief appearance of Icarus, who owes no morph in Metamorphoses, makes it hard not to sigh after closing the book. This challenge, described by minstrels as changing the laws of nature, becomes the beginning of a hidden thread (perhaps buried under the sea like Icarus himself): transforming into an anonymous detective, the chasing Sakura Kinomoto, the wielding Wùkōng, the soaring Lynae. But this time, the singularity of extraordinary abilities after extraordinary beings is also co-opted by gameness. No matter how lifelike cosplayers are, these characters can no longer restore the glory of classical novels. The wings that challenged the gravitational field have become a new gravitational field; the innocent girl, in the name of a transportation character, has become a node of endless gravity, calculation, and optimal configuration. Thus, the teleological explanation still prevails.
Technically inseparable character illustrations provide a home for loyal magic. Since Diablo, heads-up displays have finally complemented these stately and elegant corpses, becoming a modern part of them, just like daggars under a dance costume.
In Wang Yi-Chia’s discussion of Investiture of the Gods, behind the miraculous magic lies a somber fate. The extraordinary beings endowed with prophetic power ever since the Iliad tacitly understand fate, even their own downfall. Gamers have existed for too long — in the magazines I obtained from my brother, the featured cool boy talking about StarCraft and Warcraft on a skateboard, making vomiting gestures at these boring adults taking cameras in hand who only knew Bubble Bobble, is now in his thirties — so that transient fate has been replaced by people’s own bleak fate (and that of generations of games serving them). Just as Julian wrote in his game-ending poem, the short dream of a game is followed by the long dream of life. Flitting here and there, like the Babylonian lottery or rotating card art, euphoria and rage fade into the suddenly extinguished surroundings, unable to safeguard what we love in the endless river of time: our zeitgeist.
O soaring Lynae, who lives as someone else, my heart is by your side.