By the time the video game Below was released at the end of 2018, the anticipation was high.
The game had been announced in 2013, when its studio – Capybara Games – was trying to follow the success of the award-winning Sword and Sworcery. Below had some ingredients of its predecessor: an engrossing world, problem-solving, a simple main character armed with a sword, and a soundtrack by Jim Guthrie.
Despite the similarities though, Below ended up falling, well, below expectations.
The reviews weren’t awful, but reading their headlines gives a decent idea of the overall reception: “Headaches and Heartache” – “Curiosity and Consternation” – “Mystery but Not Enough Magic.” Clearly, these reviewers are bigger fans of alliteration than they are of the game they were tasked with reviewing.
And yet the reviews are not universally bad. Some like it, and some seem to like it at least in part because of how frustrating it is. Reviewer Colin Campbell describes his addictive frustration eloquently:
Tough games generally reward me by offering up small lessons, each time I die.
But Below’s lives are often meaningless and mundane. It is not uncommon for me to spend an hour traveling down to my corpse, only to die within a few feet of my goal.
Below offers no tutorial, no guidance about its arcane systems. Even after all these hours of play, there are fundamental pillars of design that I don’t fully understand.
The goal of Below is to plumb as far into its depths as possible, to reach new levels. But even this simple target is disturbed by devious design decisions. I find one of my lives to be charmed, perhaps by my own careful planning or maybe by pure luck, and I gain a bunch of levels. Have I achieved something special, or have I missed something crucial? I ought to feel triumphant, but instead I am unsettled.
I respect this nonchalance about Below. It manipulates me, but not in the usual way of game design, which is obsessed with my approval, with creating guarantees of engagement.
Below’s best quality is that it does not seem to be worried about my happiness or my expectations. If anything, it wants me to suffer; it demands that I spend hours in a stew of boredom and outrage.
Below doesn’t care. Play or don’t play. Its point, so far as I can tell, isn’t to beg me to stick around, but to dare me to walk away.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. In the game, any time your character dies you re-start near a campfire. Maybe it’s that illusion of warmth and light that gives some players the hope they need to continue. Guthrie’s rich acoustic guitar evokes a campfire (and hope, and warmth) perfectly.
2. While the guitar is the dominant instrument, it isn’t the only instrument. At 1:49 a sparkly keyboard brings a new texture.
3. The ending, abrupt and on an unresolved chord change, makes the listener feel what some reviewers might refer to as curiosity and consternation.
Recommended listening activity:
Un-giving up.