The example that most spoke to me when reading the first two chapters of Isbister’s How Games Move Us was that of Cart Life. When developer Richard Hofmeier describes the development process, he said he wanted to make his game as realistic as possible. “I wanted a game like this when I was a kid- I wanted to learn how to live.”
The most mundane parts about video games are the most interesting to me. I enjoy big, grandstanding fantasy as much as the next person, but games that can manage to make big deals out of small, everyday situations are my favorite. As a child I enjoyed them for much of the same reasons Hofmeier enjoyed them. I, too, wanted to learn how to live. A child’s viewpoint of the world is limited, and any game that allows a player agency outside of ‘go to school and come home and walk the dog and get ready for dance practice’ was a welcome addition to my experiences back then. That’s why even in fantasy games, I loved the levels where you had to get a job, or perform some really simple task. My favorite part in the original Paper Mario was always following the recipe to bake a strawberry cake, which forced me to pop the object in the oven for precisely sixty seconds. I was too young to use an oven back then, so that was really all I had.
Now I think I enjoy these games for a different reason. I’ve had jobs. I’ve baked cakes (I’m real bad at it). I’ve driven cars and decorated my own home and created budgets and held management positions. But still I find myself drawn to games with these more “realistic” tasks. And I think the reason for it is not just that these characters are more relatable to me. I think I also really enjoy the implications of these more realistic scenarios being included in games.
Cart Life has the player managing their own food stand. They have a limited amount of money and a limited amount of time, just like in 80 Days. You control a character who has some sort of situation which inhibits their growth- an addiction, a daughter, etc. These feel like real people. The day to day experiences feel worn-out, but they add up to something larger. Games that can show us to find the meaning in the mundane don’t just elicit an important emotional response. They can help us with our own lives.