It’s not a stretch to say that one of the most common aspects of games is the notion of objectives.  The player is taught how to do something, and then expected to do it at harder and harder levels of difficulty.  Some people might even try to cite this as one of the definitions of a game.  (The other definition, of course, is based on the requirement of fun, which is equally flawed.)

This results in an extreme example of “the ends justify the means,” especially since virtual media has no readily observable consequences.  The player assumes (often, quite correctly) that nothing they do matters, as long as they manage to complete the objective, and make it to the end of the game (or level).  I could go in-depth about constructing games that don’t allow this careless attitude, but that’s not where I’m going now.

I want to think about using a different idiom: “it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”  Let’s imagine a game where you always “win”; that is, you always make it to the end, no matter what.  With that prime objective removed, what can we focus on?  Well, naturally, once we know where we’re going, we want to know how we’re getting there, and why we’re going at all:

SoundTrek

Obviously, this is only one of the many ways we could direct player attention, but that’s the point.  Once we release our insistence on “win”-based games, new opportunities emerge.  I could probably take this game further and develop it, adding more interactions and branching storylines, but it’s only meant to be an idea prototype.  That is, what can be developed from this?

I want to see games where the emphasis is placed on how the player interacts with the game, how they feel when they do it, do they rush or hesitate?  Because once we do that, we can drop objectives and endings entirely, and create experiences that never end; the game will tell a story to the player, who in turn tells a story to the game.