leep is Death occupies a hazy space in gaming. Even calling it a game strains the boundaries of that term, and many writers are quick to call SiD something seemingly more accurate: a toolset, perhaps, or a collaborative storytelling something-or-other. The game’s appeal seems to lie in its endless possibilities, even if its freeform nature can be difficult to grasp for some. As Michael Abbott highlights:
Longtime gamers who know all about such things will feel right at home with SiD’s retro 8-bit aesthetic, but may soon find themselves disabled by the game’s lack of a clear directive. “What am I supposed to do?” is the common response among students and colleagues to whom I’ve shown the game.
SiD doesn’t tell you what to do.
The emphasis in the above line is mine, and you don’t have to look far to find other writers talking about the possibilities the game offers. A Boing Boing preview states, “In anyone else’s hands, my story of mid-life on-camera ennui could have just as easily been about … an orc’s quest.” Leigh Alexander asks, “What if I do it “wrong”?”, with the suggestion being that you can’t.
If you can do anything in the game, if you can just as easily tell a fantastic story of an orc as you can about mid-life crises, if the game really doesn’t tell you what to do, then why does every single preview of the game that I’ve read focus on the mundane, or the metaphorical, or the religious? Why doesn’t Jason Rohrer demo the game by telling a story about wizards and knights? Why does the game come packaged exclusively with sprites like John – a fat man in a wife-beater? Or policemen? Or vomit? And why can you only play music in a minor key? Even the introductory slideshow on the website focuses on a simple farmhouse.
SiD may not restrict your actions, but it’s more than a toolset, and I disagree strongly with what Michael Abbot says above: SiD does tell you what to do, and to say otherwise is to ignore the context that Jason Rohrer has clearly established. Rohrer doesn’t hide the fact that he’s trying to guide players down certain avenues, and I’m just going to say it: if you start Sleep is Death and immediately start constructing a story about a heroic knight who runs around slaying orcs and looting treasure chests, you’re playing it wrong. You’re playing it just as wrong as someone who starts Super Mario Bros. and slams left on the D-pad.
I’m not trying to confront anybody in particular with that statement, but I think the discussion surrounding SiD ignores much of what makes it an actual designed game and not just a toolset. SiD provides the same rules and goals as any game does, and I think it’s closer to conventional video games than we may want to admit. We can fuck around all we want in SiD, but we can do that in any game. SiD so strongly facilitates certain types of stories that our objective is to figure out what those stories are and tell them. We should strive for a “high score” just like we do in Centipede, and though our high scores aren’t measured quite so numerically, the process is the same. We tell the best story we can, and then see if we can tell a better one. We refine our strategies and try and tease out what works and what doesn’t, and the 30 second timer forces us to perfect our storytelling technique within physical constraints.
I’m open to the possibility that someone, some day, can tell a SiD story about an orc’s quest that’s just as meaningful as ones starring John, but it won’t be the same type of story we find in video games today. It will be a story that relies on crude sprites, that doesn’t rely on swelling orchestral scores or visceral button presses. And that, I think, is Sleep is Death’s value as an honest-to-god video game: it’s a game that encourages you to find those stories that game developers haven’t told yet, or can’t tell yet. If you’re telling the same stories I can find in World of Warcraft, then you’ve lost. It’s Game Over, even if the game doesn’t say so.
I think you’re missing the point of why he’s presenting the game this way. Yes you can create a high fantasy story and it doesn’t mean you’re playing it wrong. Imagine if he showed the game off like that. It would be called a DnD ripoff or the like. Rohrer is presenting the mundane, because we don’t see that in video games. If he did show only the fantasy stuff it would limit the users imagination. People are already going to fight orcs and see the elves with the game regardless. But if you show them that the game can do something different, and for him rather personal, then it can open the player’s imagination to any type of story. When I play the game, I don’t see myself going for the traditional fantasy story, because I would fins that boing, but I could do it.
Is it a tool set, yes. But many other games are tool sets with a structure in the guise of a game. See Unreal, Source, or Neverwinter Nights. Here, the player provides the structure.