Comment for HNRS 353

I think it's actually Sisyphus who rolled the stone - Icarus was the one with wax wings who flew too close to the sun.

I completely know what you mean, though, and I think that's a really good metaphor for a lot of these early games. I'm not a huge fan of pacman, as I mentioned in class, and I think this sense is part of the reason. I don't particularly like the game plan and the urgency of running around, and if you succeed and get to the next level, what do you get? More of the same.

I think this also goes along with why I tend to be drawn to RPGs, or games with some plot be it narrative or emergent (but there). I like to feel like the progression means something, not just a step closer to a level that goes too fast for me to finish.

A lot of early games suffered from Sisyphus-syndrome due to lack of ability to save, too. I remember with the original Super Mario game, if you turned it off you lost your progress. That led to long periods of the game being on overnight or during dinner and such, but we definitely got more familiar with those early episodes than we wanted to just to get back partway up the "hill" to the later levels.