Searching For Hideouts in Video games
Me and my brother used to explore every rooftop, nook and cranny of the hub area in Super Mario Sunshine, “Delfino Plaza.” We searched for odd corners to use as hideouts.
As kids only one of us could “own” a digital hideout at a time. Even if it was a game like Mario Sunshine where there was no reason at all to have one. A lot of arguments spurred from these hunts.
In real life we often built fortresses, tree houses and secret labs. Proper hideouts. We treated video games as if they were just like any other space. A place where you exist and hang out. Hideouts was just how we existed at that time.
I don’t play much this way anymore. Because I’m an adult, I mostly trudge along and try to make progress.
I think only a kid would care about having a hideout in a game that isn’t designed at all to support it. Since our games didn’t support hideouts, our rivalry and the search was the only reasons they held any value. The harder it was to get to a spot, the more special it would feel.
I love that feeling when you just exist in a game world and hang out, instead of following the objectives. This is why Super Mario Sunshine and Marvel’s Spiderman (by insomniac) are some of my favorite games of all time. They allow you to roam aimlessly, mess around and watch the world keep spinning.
Adults tend to play games like they watch movies. They follow along until it’s finished. And I don’t mean that people never go off the beaten path. We all love to feel like we have agency, so we wander off and search the limit of the world and it’s content. But it’s unusual to hang out in a world and be playful.
I think people have a strong urge to feel like they have a place that is only theirs. A safe and cozy place. Having a hideout in a video game is like having a home tucked away safely from the rest of the world in another dimension.
We’re no better than NPC’s if we can’t forget about objectives and actually react to what’s in front of us. Don’t follow the dotted line with laser focus. Try to treat these worlds as if you’re actually there. If you stand in a cozy spot in a game, let it be yours for a bit. Stand in front of the chairs and pretend to sit on them, even if there’s no sit interaction.
You shouldn’t follow games along like you watch movies, be inside them.
