Not an original thought, but one that bears repeating. In the same way that every novel is really a mystery novel, every game is really a puzzle, the central puzzle being, how is the game played? What are the rules? Yes. Sure. But also outwards, what is the pace of play, the rhythms and rituals? How do the thoughts and actions of the game spiral outwards in loops and bows and what is their intervals?
I’m thinking about this stuff today because I know – and slightly dread – that this afternoon I have a piece to write about Zelda, Breath of the Wild, obv, and to me it’s a game that makes me feel that I have yet to find the true way of playing it. I muddle around in that world and endlessly come up against the world itself. No approach lasts for very long, and I find the threads of the game hard to follow and even harder to link together. All of which, I guess, is another way of saying that I love it.
But I’m also thinking about it because of our Game of the Week, which, for once, is a game that we actually reviewed this week, and which came out this week. That much is straightforward about Road 96: Mile 0. That much makes sense. Everything else? Trickier.