Hey, Dummy! Get Lost! (In a Video Game.)

Hey, Dummy! Get Lost! (In a Video Game.)

Sometimes it's nice to ignore the signposts and get in way over your head.

If your stomach turns sour when you hear the words “yellow paint,” congratulations: you were exposed to Toxic Game Difficulty Discourse at some point in your life. Your soul will subsequently crumble to ashes and blow away. You are not entitled to compensation.

As with everything else about the human experience—e.g. what we eat, how we raise our kids, how we dress our cats, etc.—we’re obsessed with how other people play games. It’s not really our business how people interact with Mario in the privacy of their home, but backseat gamers are everywhere... and they are loud.

They get especially touchy about matters of game difficulty. Some critics insist that quality of life options like difficulty adjustment and clear path-marking (as with the aforementioned "yellow paint" that infamously marks areas where players can interact with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's environment) subverts the developers' original artistic vision for their game.

The debate won't be settled anytime soon. Video games are humanity's most deeply interactive art form, and are therefore lightning magnets for circular arguments. It's not enough to suggest that maybe people should be free to enjoy their games however, whenever, and wherever they wish. The kibbitz must flow.

With that in mind, it's still worth pointing out that there's no feeling like getting lost in a video game. Most modern games take pains to keep players from getting completely turned around, but the 8-bit era was full of games that would plunge you into their depths, sometimes resulting in a soft lock if you were unlucky. Manuals existed, as did guide books and playground lore, but rented or borrowed games often didn’t come with manuals; guide books were expensive; and playground lore often dissolved through gnarly sessions of Broken Telephone. Sometimes we didn't play games so much as we discovered dead ends. When you're handed 1989's Wizards and Warriors II: Ironsword without a word of instruction, what's there to do other than stumble through its sprawling levels, feeling out friend from foe? (After taking a moment to let shirtless box art Fabio spark whatever awakening you're owed at that point in your life.) And whomst amongst us did not take the king's pittance in Dragon Warrior before running as far away as possible without a stitch of clothing or a club?

It can be fun, even frightening, to get as lost as possible in a game. There's an unmatched excitement to tripping over an encounter that's leagues above your current capabilities, and NES games were masters of those moments. Games like Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, released for the NES in 1988, seemingly counts on the player to get lost real good when they play for the first time. Getting ahead involves reconnaissance as much as fighting, all while Simon races against the clock before his Dracula-cursed bod expires. There's little time to rest, and while it's vital to push ahead, wimpy skeletons soon give way to black beasts and ghouls that could easily strangle Simon with his own crummy leather whip. You need to walk a delicate balance... but then there's that delicious jolt of fear that comes from seeing an enemy that's just a pitch-black silhouette (thank you for the nightmares, Dragon Warrior Demon Knight.)

You can still experience the terror of exploration in present-day video games despite some studios' preference for smoothing the hero's journey. FromSoft’s 2002 RPG Elden Ring has a real hum-dinger of a "Ha Ha Screw You, Weakling" quest. Early in the game you can trip a teleporter trap that dumps your dumb ass in the depths of Caelid, a land of blood, rot, terror birds, and dire bears as big as pick-up trucks. You have no hope of fighting your way back to the game's starting area, unless maybe you're one of those Soulsborne sickos that dodge-rolls through traffic to get some McDonalds. You must run, creep, and pray you make it to the checkpoint before something gruesome pecks you deep into Caelid's urine-colored grass.

It's a daunting task, but you will inevitably succeed if you push, learn from your mistakes, then push again. Your cortisol spikes, you shriek, and you vow to never touch Elden RIng ever again, GRRM or no GRRM. But oh, how sweet that victory is. Your trophy? An unforgettable experience unlike anything in any other game.

Other than Elden Ring's myriad predecessors, that is. The games that told our kid selves to get lost, and we gladly complied. As much as our adult selves appreciate quality of life adjustments in our games, we still carry that child who loves to hate getting hopelessly turned around in a digital honeycomb of tombs filled with bears and huge birds.