Miyamoto Flow
Shigeru Miyamoto – legend of videogaming, 30-year veteran of the industry, the legendary creator of Donkey Kong, Zelda, Mario, Pikmin and Wii Fit/Music. He probably doesn’t have much to do with the daily nuts and bolts of game creation these days, but operates as a company-wide guru guiding Nintendo’s hand and the tone of Nintendo’s games. He’s the first name most people think of in connection with videogaming.
But where Miyamoto is most conspicuously absent is in the discussion of games as an art form. Barely a mention of gaming’s most famous creator in Tom Bissell’s recent book. When asked about ‘art’ games enthusiasts go to a ready flow of familiar titles – Shadow of the Colossus, Braid, Flower etc. Why doesn’t the discussion start with the greatest creator of them all?
But where does he belong in the discussion? I’ve been pondering what to write about him and Super Mario Galaxy 2 for a couple of weeks now – it’s a daunting prospect. Easy to bow in awe at the obvious mastery of the man, or at the legacy of worldwide hits that he has produced that nobody can match. But when it gets down to the nuts and bolts of what it is that he really represents, it’s much tougher to pinpoint.
For me Miyamoto is the master of flow. The experience of playing a game from moment to moment, the way that one moment leads on to the next moment, how they relate, and how what you do is controlled both in terms of content but in the way your control relates to the action onscreen. Call it pacing, call it flow, call it mise-en-scene, call it craft or art, it’s the thing that dominates all of ‘his’ games.
Miyamoto is perhaps becoming infamous for his apparent eschewing of story in favour of interface design and level design. Kind of like gaming’s greatest craftsman – the go-to guy for theatre sets rather than the playwright bowing to the gala audience. It’s a misconception, as at least a misclassification. If Miyamoto isn’t at the very heart of the discussion of gaming’s legacy, it’s purity and beauty, and where it is going as a thing, then the debate needs to be reshaped to let him in.
It’s e difference between narrative and story. It’s not that story is absent from his games, it’s that story is kept as a provider for action, rather than an end in itself. One is reminded of the approach of theatre purists like Pinter or Mamet, interested in the relation of one moment to the next rather than the grand classical story lines that one might associate with theatre. Super Mario galaxy 2 begins with bowser stealing the princess, and the trip through the galaxy to find her. It is made clear that stars that you collect enable the space travel that facilitates the rescue. Although it is a simple story sparely told, there are approaching 100 lines of written dialogue as the premise is set up – it’s so skilfully done that most players don’t notice the information being communicated.
It’s the same in each level – players might notice little more than a smooth gameplay experience, but the hidden hand is expertly controlling that action with subtle narrative nudges. A star luma might shout ‘over here’ and the moment is barely noticed, but quickly acknowledged, and these tiny moments dominate your motivation for the next section of the experience. One of the first moments of SMG2 takes place outside yoshi’s house on a small planet. A simple pathway guides one around the round house in 360 degree motion, all the meanwhile introducing players to the concepts of 3D space and movement. No moment is wasted – there is simply no irrelevance in a Miyamoto game. Each space is justified, each moment is judged, each jerk of the controller is anticipated. Not a story then, but the storytelling of a master.
SMG2 has it’s masterful pacing device built into the premise – each galaxy is a collection of planets, and Mario is propelled minute-by-minute from one to the next. This is pacing in situe – an all-action planet followed by an empty breather, followed by a chase planet, followed by a spaceship for narrative break and perhaps a luma shop, followed by a boss fight. One gets the sense that these little planets have been created, and shifted about the order, and altered to give flow to the story. Each planet lasts about a minute, and then the moment shifts on anew – it’s the perfect way to craft an experience. No moment outstays its welcome.
What to compare this feeling to? The way the eye is guided around a painting. The pacing of a Hitchcock suspense scene. The poetry of a Shakespeare soliloquy? Are these comparisons relevant or desperately pretentious? I think maybe both, and we (I) need to get over the embarrassment of comparing something beloved (a Mario platformer) with other cultural things that perhaps aren’t quite so beloved. Not be me anyway.
Miyamoto’s games also sell by the bucketload, and they are fun to play. But just saying that doesn’t really get anyone anywhere, yet that is all you usually read when his name comes up. Then again, if we could pin down what is so special about his games, perhaps they would lose their mystery and joy. Better just to bask in the brilliance? I don’t know.
