( Full Title: “When Alex the Kidd Was a Very Young Lad, in Enchanted Castle He Went to the Bad.” )
Cover art by @bananpam.
Here we go again with our monthly feature for @PIZZAPRANKS‘ Indiepocalypse, with a travel guide for the scenic Enchanted Castle! Broadly, it gives us an excuse to talk about the history of the Alex Kidd franchise, while also giving us the opportunity to go into depth about the game’s most infamous mechanic: Mandatory “rock, paper, scissors” minigames gating much of the game’s content. Of course, since I’m a champion of unpopular stances, I take the position that forcing players to bet their virtual lives on dumb luck is actually an interesting mechanic, rather than an outright tedious one. There’s a writing sample to follow, but to see the whole of my argument, you’ll have to purchase the full issue and get access to a bunch of cool games as well:
So, here’s the thing about putting an entire video game on pause in order to make players gamble their in-game lives on games of chance: You can’t deny how effectively it raises the stakes, can you? To force a player to confront the fact that all their skills and abilities as gamers don’t amount to diddly-squat when pitted against the world’s dumbest, most random game. Sure, you might be able to play Dark Souls blindfolded or whatever other comparable metric it is we use to determine who are true masters of game these days (I remember back when Ikaruga was what we collectively settled on as the supposed “hardest game ever made”). But in a game of [seemingly] pure chance, you are forced to confront the fact that you are utterly powerless — if only for a brief moment in time. But it’s not enough when the stakes are just some currency that you can easily make back: To have to wager your ability to progress on chance is a daunting prospect. An understandably frustrating one to boot, when the odds don’t wind up being in your favor. But then again, shouldn’t that be the point?
