As much as gamers love a long, complicated, and well-thought-out game, there’s something wonderful about brevity. I say this not as a time-strapped videogame player; rather I appreciate the creativity that arises from constraints. With videogames becoming ever more complex, mimicking the complexity of real life, what has disappeared in a sense of abstraction and a sense of restraint: Because anything can virtually be accomplished, games often move in the same direction with a focus on polish, but without a real sense of character or oddball creativity.
Anton Chekhov, a master of the short story, wrote hundreds during his life and was a master of the form. The limitations of the short story was a boon, as the novelist Richard Powers observed:
One can say with some assurance that in settling upon the short story as his chosen narrative form, Chekhov elected in essence not to represent all of life, not to make a splash, but to fashion discrete parts of life and focus our attentions and sharpest sensibilities there as a form of indispensable moral instruction. […] Chekhov made his stories precisely commensurate with life and with a view of it we can accept in an almost homely way.
The game designers for the 10 Second Contest are thinking along the same lines. By drawing back their intentions, their games pull a different type of narrative into sharp focus.
Which one is your favorite?