on speaking the language of the game
five puzzle games that teach you to think in a new tongue.
- Baba is You
- The Witness
- The Talos Principle
- Antichamber
- Perspective
I really like games a lot and I really enjoy languages. i'm gonna tell you all about 5 of my favorite games.
these 5 games all do a thing where you think you're playing some puzzle game, but the whole game is actually about learning a language.
if you're not paying attention, it's kinda hard to tell what's happening because language learning is sooo natural to us. the slightest nudge and you're speaking full sentences in no time and giggling about it.
it's just a natural part of the brain. have you seen babies? they just listen to people all day and then learn to talk, it's wild dude.
so let's talk about games as language, specifically in these puzzle games (I love puzzle games thinking is very fun)
these are games where the primary loop is acquiring fluency in a novel system
you can describe them, at some level, as an eternal matryoshka of "oh shit so that's how you do that!" moments.
when you play these games, the typical experience is a barrage of piercing of the veil after piercing of the veil. you constantly feel your brain expand and you can see the realm of possibility unfold before your very eyes in a beautiful weaving of possibilities once thought impossible.
you learn the language's building blocks and you start to mentally see how they can be arranged to form meaning.
fluency in these languages feels super fun to just play around with, like some form of bizarre Mental Ice Skating for your brain.
language defines how you think. existing in the language of the game for a bit is thinking in alien patterns, it lets you hear parts of the brain that are quieter in more familiar, human-language-pilled patterns.
our brains derive natural pleasure from creating. reciting beautiful poetry in a language you didn't even know you were able to speak 5 minutes ago is a very unique experience. it feels out of this world and manages to be both super familiar and irreconcilably alien. the fluency of riding a bike perfectly juxtaposed with the mindblowing experience of being shown a completely new and totally different way of using the same old brain.
these games don't really have a tutorial, they show you the simple rule and then challenge you to tell it back.
the spirit of the game offers itself to you with a beautiful song and dance and then immediately turns around and demands.
"did you get it?" the spirit expectantly asks you. when the answer finally becomes "yes" - there are hardly words that can describe how fun the dance then becomes.
and the games have layers upon layers of this magic! they ramp up really fast! the building blocks get more and more complex, and the stuff you learn to do builds on itself. if you didn't 'get it' at first, progress stalls quickly.
playing these games points at something fundamental about human nature. "In the beginning was the Word". we are languagebrained beings, we have the capacity to learn any language from the sparsest context clues, and we enjoy the process a lot.
going from "I have no clue" to "oh fuck I get it now!" is a chemical reaction - it releases pure dopamine. some of these games have a TON of these moments. each of them is a super fun journey to go through!
each game has its own handcrafted recipe. in particular:
Baba is You has LAYERS on LAYERS on LAYERS of complexity. it's the hardest game on the list by far. you think you know, but you realize you didn't know shit, 100 times all through the game. it's the only game in my life I still haven't finished because it's simply too hard for me (i've been working on it on and off for YEARS)
The Witness is the best teacher in the list. it has a beautiful language itself and it's a testament to how complex you can get when you start from simple rules. but mostly it's a perfect pacing game. for each of its "levels", the puzzles start out painfully simple but build up FAST. the game gets really quickly to a point where you can't advance if you haven't understood what it's trying to tell you, but it does a GREAT job of laying out a trail for you to follow along.
it also has the singular best "what? you can do THAT??" moment in the history of gaming IMO. no other moment in the history of gaming comes close to the level of reframing that The Moment does in The Witness.
The Talos Principle is a beautiful and story-filled metanarrative. it's a game that demands you THINK on very different planes "how do I solve this level" and "what is the meaning of being human" at the same time. it's a beautiful intertwining of mental exploration.
it has very hard puzzles, it builds on its simple rules very very well. the side content is super challenging. the language it teaches is very fun to speak, and the "ohhhhh!!!!" moments are great even if they're a bit less numerous than in Baba or a bit less impactful than The Witness'.
Antichamber is fucking insane, there are no other words that can do it justice. it fucks with your expectations with regards to physical reality a lot. it's a very trippy and unforgettable experience, very unique. not many games dare apply this level of "sike! expectations fully subverted" directly to something as core to the brain as "these are the rules of physical reality".
very unique game, hard to compare. it engages on a metaphilosophical level as well, with plenty of motivational quips and short thoughtful phrases to leave you pondering life.
Perspective is a lesser-known game, more of an "arcadey" feel to it. i'd say what's salient about it is that the language it speaks is very very unique. it's a game about going from 2D to 3D at will. the premise of the game is very basic, you'll understand it in 10 seconds, but getting through requires a high level of "thinking in Perspective" fluency. very physical game as well. we usually live in 3D or play games in 2D. going back and forth makes for a very unique formula.