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Dialog Tree: Super Meat Boy and The Zone

Dialog Tree: Super Meat Boy and The Zone - Article

by Spencer Manigat , posted on 24 June 2016 / 5,294 Views

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Dialog Tree. The premise is simple - once a week I will publish an opinion piece or article on a given topic. Afterwards, I'll join the comment section below where we can have a stimulating series of branching discussions stemming from what was brought up in the article. In this way, the main article will act functionally as a jumping off point for further discussion down below. The discussions held in the comments will be just as integral to the article as the article itself. Feel free to disagree and let's start a Dialog Tree.


As video game players, all of us have at one time or another experienced "The Zone." The Zone is both focus and immersion in their purest form. It's the experience of becoming completely absorbed in a game's mechanics, to the point where the outside world becomes almost invisible; where all external factors of the video game experience, such as a screen or a controller, become subconscious extensions of your nervous system - almost replacing your fingers and eyes in function. You are no longer pressing a button or looking at a television to control your on-screen avatar - in The Zone, you are your avatar incarnate.

Suffice it to say, getting into The Zone is an extremely addictive sensation. Anyone who enjoys fighting games at a proficient level can attest. There's no feeling quite like the one you get when you know your main, you know your match up, and you're trying to out-think your opponent. That feeling is why fighting games have so much staying power. It can really be attributed to any competitive game. It can also be attributed to any difficult game that requires twitch reflexes. This is where Super Meat Boy comes in.

Super Meat Boy uses difficulty as a tool by which to keep the player firmly rooted in The Zone at all times. If The Zone truly is focus in its purest form, then Super Meat Boy is The Zone most consistently executed. The way the game triggers this focus is by demanding perfect platforming of the player. Meat Boy can only take damage once before the player loses the mission and must restart. There are no checkpoints and there are no quick saves, so the game would, at first glance, seem to be extremely punishing. Thankfully, this isn't quite the case.

THE DIFFICULTY IN SUPER MEAT BOY IS MISLEADING

While it is true that many of the levels in Super Meat Boy demand perfect execution, the levels themselves are extremely brief, lasting only a few seconds each. This means that, however difficult an individual level may be, you're only a few seconds away from overcoming it. The other thing that keeps Super Meat Boy from being overly punishing is the nearly instant respawn upon death. In fact, the respawn is so immediate that it is often quicker to just kill yourself when you know you've messed up a jump than it is to prolong the inevitable.

This is reinforced by the game's music, which is upbeat throughout and, more importantly, does not restart its loop each time the player dies. Having the music constantly playing, independent of the player's actions and failures, is integral to keeping the player completely immersed and in The Zone. It becomes the soundtrack for the player's determination, and any interruptions to that would boot the player out of the experience immediately. All this serves to greatly minimize the sense of punishment from messing up, ensuring that the player, willing to try again, is in the most optimal environment from which The Zone can be reached.

While Super Meat Boy excels at diminishing the immersion-shattering punishment that would be detrimental to creating the kind of environment by which The Zone can prosper, let me not mince words - the game is very challenging. You will die hundreds of times while playing it. However, while Super Meat Boy is very challenging, it is also very mechanically simple. Meat Boy has only two speeds of movement and a jump. He can also slide down walls and wall jump, but that's basically it. The simplicity of these inputs means that, unlike a traditional fighting game, for example, the player need not memorize any complex control schemes with deep movesets in order to be familiar enough with the game to be taken into The Zone.

(Another way that Super Meat Boy reinforces this sense of not punishing the player is in its replays. There's something immensely satisfying about watching all of your failed attempts before seeing that one final Meat Boy, The Zone's prodigy, finally succeed in the end.)

This is going to sound crazy but, because of this ease of control, and despite its infamous difficulty, Super Meat Boy is an extremely accessible game. This low barrier to entry in the game's mechanical simplicity completely evaporates any learning curve the game might have. Once again, this is extremely important for bringing the player into The Zone as soon as possible. The sooner the controls become a subconscious part of the experience, the sooner the player can focus on what they are doing, rather than how they are doing it.

The final element to Super Meat Boy's perfect brew of mechanics and design for triggering The Zone is, of course, its level design. I spoke on it briefly before when I mentioned how short every level is, but this is arguably the most important element to keeping players in The Zone. It goes without saying that the levels must be fair and yet still challenging, but there's a balance. Super Meat Boy achieves this, once again, through simplicity. The game's visual language is immaculate, and because of this it is always clear to the player where they messed up, how they messed up, why they messed up, and most importantly, how they can avoid making the same mistake again.

That's the beauty of this kind of level design. The challenge doesn't come from the levels being these impossible obstacle courses of dexterity; they aren't. It comes from the fact that you can't mess up, not even once. Every mistake made in Super Meat Boy is a tiny one. Every mistake made in Super Meat Boy feels like one that is easy to avoid. There is rarely much thought in figuring out how to overcome a particular platforming challenge. The focus is solely on executing that platforming perfectly, just for a few seconds at a time.

EARLIER I CLAIMED THAT SUPER MEAT BOY USES DIFFICULTY TO TRIGGER AND MAINTAIN THE ZONE

While I still believe that this is a factor, I think that an equally important element to this is the game's simplicity. From its visual language to its straightforward level design. From its quick respawns to its accessible controls. I would go as far as to say that keeping players in The Zone is Super Meat Boy's primary gimmick, and I say this in the most loving way possible. Super Meat Boy isn't the only example of how a game can bring and keep a player in The Zone, but it is unquestionably a shining example of one.


Playing video games since the age of 5, Spencer Manigat has been fascinated with the possibilities of this interactive medium for nearly as long as he could speak. Recently, his growing obsession with learning about tactile mechanics, interactive narratives, and all things on the academic side of gaming has lit a new passion in him to discuss, debate, and critique various topics in this brilliant medium of video games that we all find ourselves participating in. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Pokémon: Platinum Version, and Super Metroid are a few of his favorite games. You can contact Spencer at spencer.manigat@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @spencewashere.


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12 Comments
Teeqoz (on 24 June 2016)

The thing about Super Meat Boy versus a lot of other difficult games is that while it's difficult, it never feels cheap. You don't feel like you were forced to die, you can always know that you actually messed up, and thus you take the consequences of it.

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SpencerManigat Teeqoz (on 24 June 2016)

@Teeqoz - I think that's the secret sauce of a game like this. It works because the challenge is so straight forward and communicated clearly, so rather than punishing the player for failing, the game remains neutral. The feeling that accompanies failure is bad enough. In many ways, failing is actually rewarding in Super Meat Boy.

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DivinePaladin (on 24 June 2016)

I didn't experience SMB first hand until about a year ago, and I thought I'd hate it for its unforgiving tendencies. But God I absolutely loved what I played in that brief spurt of time, entirely because of this. You absolutely nailed down to a science what SMB did so well, and that was make death not necessarily frustrating, but empowering.

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@DivinePaladin - Yeah, Super Meat Boy is a mechanically clean gem. I think that the mark of a great game is the ability to show restraint, and Super Meat Boy nails that.

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SpencerManigat Machina (on 24 June 2016)

@Machina - I'd be really interested to learn about more games which are structured like this.

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SpencerManigat mZuzek (on 24 June 2016)

@mZuzek - What happened to the newer versions of the game? I played the most recent port on the Wii U.

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SpencerManigat mZuzek (on 25 June 2016)

@mZuzek - You know, I just listened to some of the older tracks and, at least when it comes to The Zone, I don't think it is a superior option. I think the newer OST stands pretty well on its own, though I can admit that it probably makes for a far less atmospheric or zen-like experience than the original. My opinions on the matter might be due more to the virgin effect than to the actual comparative qualities of the competing OSTs. Now I need to play the original version somehow, at least once!

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