now playing: "Waker" and "Woosh"

Ever since I started playing games with an eye to critically dissecting them either mentally or for the purposes of this blog, I've come to better appreciate the subtle science and exact art of game design. Game design is a way of solving a problem, at its core. Making games solves programming problems, design problems, entertainment problems, and most importantly, boredom problems. Waker and Woosh (Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, 2009) demonstrate two ways of solving an educational problem. Their mutual goal? Teach concepts of velocity and displacement. How they get there, and how well they communicate their ideas, is the tale of how two paths diverged in the wood. Both routes, however, are fairly well-traveled: one relies on storytelling, the other on abstraction.

First, let's examine the mechanics set-up. Each level in Waker and Woosh correspond exactly to each other in spatial layout and puzzle design, leveling as much as possible the comparison grounds. To complete a level, your player-character icon must be transported from point A to B across a series of platforms, at times creating your own platforms to span the larger spaces with the aid of a remote-control magic marker thingy. I assume this is to teach the concept of displacement. I suppose the velocity concept is illustrated by the sensitive, variable speeds available to your player-character icon's motion. It's not how I would teach physics, but maybe this works for some. In any case, I'm not quite sure how this mechanic is "physics"-related, but then again, I was more of a chemistry nerd in high school anyway.

And now for a look at Waker.

First off, the title is always making me think of Zelda, so that's really throwing me off. I'm expecting something rather mystical and fantasy-oriented, and what do I get but that. There's definitely a storyline here, with actual characters. The opening cinematic spews something at you that sounds like it got ripped from Avatar: The Last Airbender--it has to do with everybody's soul and their union with their body I think. I don't remember it and I played it just a few hours ago. Your player-character is a cat. The music is something airy and string-y, ethereal sounding. It's certainly interesting--the whole bridge-making sequence kinda reminds of that other spiritual-displacement game The End, but I don't really feel like I'm learning anything about physics. This is either because it is just that good that I don't consciously realize my mental growth taking place, or maybe because I just took physics 101.

Contrast this mystical voodoo mentor stuff with Woosh, which I preferred so much more for many obvious reasons. This preference may or may not have anything to do with the fact that it was actually playing smoothly compared to Waker. And that may or may not have anything to do with the fact that maybe Chrome can't handle two GAMBIT game tabs open simultaneously and at the same time. The cool spring colors of Waker are replaced with a vibrant, almost jazzy and warmer scheme, and the soundtrack is similarly groovier, so to speak. Furthermore, if instruction in the comprehension of velocity is the desired goal, I can better relate to it via a spherical marble, a popular item in my physics labs, than a scrawny cat-thing.

So what have we learned today from the Waker and the Woosh, other than that particular phrasing sounds like a good preteen fantasy adventure novel? That teaching physics concepts via hipsterly abstract art may not actually result in anything getting learned, but it sure is pretty to watch and play. That's the thing about these newfangled educational games: whereas they used to be too obvious, like American cheese slices thrown over broccoli, now they're a whole vat of creamified canned cheese with only the slightest traces of broccoli heads in them, if that even. Okay, so that's not the best metaphor to use. You get my point. Waker and Woosh are neither right nor wrong answers to the problem of "how can we demonstrate physics concepts in an entertaining manner to youngsters?" They're open-ended explorations, intended as starting points of discussion about art design, narrative, and the fine balance between the two. That's what I love most about game design: there's a place for (almost) anything.