I’m trying something a bit different this month: I’m gonna try to cover a few small games I’ve been meaning to talk about but just haven’t fit into my schedule yet. First up is Glitchhikers! Here’s the YouTube link. The script’s under the cut.
So there’s been a main and short episode of Errant Signal every month for the past half-year or so. And while that’s been super productive, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of smaller games that don’t get covered because I can’t fill a large episode with them and I already have plans for that month’s short episode and by the time the next short episode rolls around it’s been a month and a half since I’ve played it and it just goes unmentioned. So this month I thought I’d try something a little different and release a few shorts about various games I’ve played that I wanted to talk about but never got the chance. Games that are cool or interesting or have neat ideas or just made me want to talk for two to five minutes. Consider it a catchup month.
First up is Glitchhikers, a game about those bleary-eyed late night drives that most people over a certain age have taken at one time or another. And I don’t just mean that driving down the road at night is its premise; it’s designed to capture the emotional space of that experience. And it does a great job it, invoking that 2 A.M trip down a nearly empty highway where seeing other cars is itself almost an event, where your radio is often the only thing keeping you company. Those trips where, if you do have a passenger, it feels like the whole world is just the two of you and borders of reality fall away outside of the glow of your headlights. When everything you say feels a bit more profound than it might in the harsh light of day, and you’re not sure if you’re exploring deep truths or mumbling platitudes just to pass the time.
In a certain way it reminds me of Dinner Date. They have very different goals, but both are games designed to put you in the headspace of a specific and very relatable scenario - one a late night drive, the other an anxious wait for a date to show up as it slowly becomes clear you’ve been stood up. And I think games need more of these attempts to capture an almost universal moment through visuals, narrative, and mechanics. When we systemize things we tend to take a holistic view of the systems in question - whether it’s driving or romance. But these tiny slices can be far more resonant with people because you’re not interested in the boundaries of the system but in how the system is used to sell that moment.
But it’s not just a late night drive simulator, though it does capture that sensation quite well. There’s a subtle narrative and a smidge of role playing at play here, too. You’re not “you” taking a nightly drive. You’re a character who is tired, who is driving around seemingly aimlessly in search of something - or perhaps that something is nothing in particular - who picks up multiple hitchhikers and engages them in conversation. Those conversations tend to be about life - it’s trials, it’s values, and whether it has any purpose. Again, there’s this sense that you’re either talking about something profound or you’re not talking about much at all, and all of the interactions seem to underscore a universal quest for understanding and meaning.
This little role playing story culminates with the game’s final choice. As Glitchhikers closes you find yourself driving past a cityscape, faced with an option of taking the exit or continuing to drive. And I sort of love that choice as a metaphor for the soul-searching done during the game. Did the player character arrive at their ‘destination’ or are they not there yet?? Did they find what they were looking for on this drive or are they to keep searching? It’s a decision the player makes, but it’s also a decision that says much more about the player character. It’s one last bit of roleplaying; one final choice about who you think your character is. And it’s a choice rich with thematic meaning but it’s also delightfully ambiguous. It doesn’t make any effort to explain what getting off or staying on the road are necessarily symbols for, just that the player character has or has not found a reason to finally pull over and end their journey.
Glitchhikers also exists in a sort of surrealist dreamspace. David Lynch gets named dropped at the game’s opening, so the surrealist influence isn’t exactly unexpected, but it gives the whole game a haze where objective reality is suspended and you’re not sure whether you’re looking something literal, allegorical, or just plain imagined by the driver on their otherwise lonely voyage. The hitchhikers you pick up are randomized, and their stories range from people just looking for a ride to aliens whose home planet has been destroyed. But they’re all played totally straight, and it puts you in an uncomfortable position of accepting the odd things the hitchhikers say at face value no matter how odd or disturbing. Combined with the sleepy, lonely player character, one starts questioning if they aren’t just products of the player character’s own mind; a manifestation of their search for meaning on the open road. Do we literally pick these characters up offscreen in some unseen event, or do we imagine them sitting there with us? And if these characters are just our inner psyche, what does that say about our player character? That, while driving alone on a freeway at night, thoughts of childhood, suicide, love, and loss enter their mind?
And while there’s a dreamlike quality to everything, there’s a bit of an edge, too. From the way that the moon goes blood red as you pass through a tunnel, to the way the radio announcer insists the stars are watching you to creepy non-sequiturs from the hitchikers like how they were never kids after telling you a story about their childhood to simple musical cues… there are clear undertones of something not being right, and the game never really explains what that ominous tone stems from. It becomes, in effect, yet another way of giving context to this player character we never meet or see but are playing by ear.
So, yeah, I love this game. Despite its short length - it only takes about twenty minutes to play through - I find it rich with subtext. It explores the idea of a character’s state of mind without giving them a name, face, or gender. And it does so by capturing the fear, the wistfulness, the exhaustion, and the lonely isolation of late night driving and using that experience as an allegory for a character’s state of mind.
Campster
10 Comments
Ryan Grant
Sep 9, 2014
I don’t have any constructive criticism to give, just here to let you know you should’ve called this SWT - Glitchhikers.
Daniel Weddell
Sep 9, 2014
Campster, I know how you feel about YouTube comments, but I really think it dampens your image to disable them outright. Part of the reason why you gained the respect of me and many other viewers was the open-ness of the comments section on YouTube. Granted, not all of the discussions contributed to meaningful discussion, but that’s a small price to pay for respectability.
Warwick Stubbs
Sep 9, 2014
This is the sort of game that gives me hope about the next/new-generation of consoles in that a developer is building an idea from the ground up, rather than “lets make an open world game…” and have it populated by uninteresting gameplay. I want more developers to begin with one idea and build that idea until you need to create a bigger world to accomodate it, or keep a smaller world to make that idea the best it can be. The conversation aspect of gaming is something that I would love to see continue to be developed - combat is done and done!
Sleepside
Sep 9, 2014
Good work on this episode. I think you’ve talked about Mattie Brice before, and I wonder if her call for less focus on mechanics producing meaning and more on all game elements producing (or recreating) an experience had an influence on your reading here.
Eric
Sep 9, 2014
Great video, as always. Saw this game mentioned on RPS, but wasn’t really interested until now.
Molly
Sep 9, 2014
Just wanted to let you know that I miss comments on YouTube. No one in my real life religiously watches your videos (despite my best efforts to create fans) and even the illusion of conversation about them is very rewarding. I understand if recent events have lead you to stay away from unpleasantness, but please don’t throw your babies out with the bathwater.
Caspar
Sep 9, 2014
This new format is great. I am always searching for these “smaller” titles, never finding them. I wonder if it is a lot of work building these episodes on short, less tripple A titles. If possible I would like to see more of these. Caspar
Vellan
Sep 9, 2014
I had passed on Glitchhikers, but it really sounds interesting. I’ll give it a try.
A note on the YouTube comments - I think that those people telling you to suck it up because they want YouTube comments back don’t understand how draining (and sometimes damaging) it can be to have to deal with that shit. I know that you had good reasons for disabling comments and respect your decision. I’m sorry that some people try to pressure you into subjecting yourself to that again.
Oswald
Sep 9, 2014
I don't think anyone's used that abrasive of language. If in the end he chooses not to have comments back its fine, I just believe that the good constructive comments on his YouTube were far more number iis than the " you are an SJW shill comments". The bad comments didn't interfer with the good ones like they would if Anita allowed comments.
Oswald
Sep 9, 2014
I’m really on the side that you should reinstate YouTube comments. The discussions were very interesting and I don’t remember seeing that many negative comments. I guess maybe it would be better to bring them back after the whole gamer gate thing does down.
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