Electric Highways by Zykoveddy

clyde's picture

I just played through Electric Highways by Zykoveddy and I'm trying to put my thoughts together on it.
http://zykoveddy.itch.io/electric-highways
If anyone else happens to play it, let's discuss!

Thanks again for showing me

Thanks again for showing me this, I feel like I got a lot out of it!

It feels a little lame comparing this to other games I've played, but it was really pleasing how all the jagged futuristic architecture put me in mind of old 2.5D shooter games - particularly Marathon, and the feeling of running around a level in that game after clearing all the enemies, just trying to figure out how to move onto the next part. You could call this a "walking simulator," but it's not as non-ludic as that term usually implies: these stages function pretty well as mazes. That was always kind of frustrating in Marathon, but having this game focus my attention on it brought the memory back in a positive way. That was swell. (Also, the scavenger hunt for runic keys which match their doors inevitably brings Doom to mind.)

Also pleasantly reminiscent of old shooters is the gentle sway of the BORDERS DESTROYER as you move. And the fact that it has a name. This isn't just some shiny metal rod - it's the BORDERS DESTROYER. That giant sign gives the item an incredible amount of character for something so simple, and its return in the final stage felt triumphant as a result. There was kind of a broad gesture toward each area's particular sprites operating as characters of a sort, wasn't there? In the first level, one of those little lamps is seen flat on the floor in a puddle of blood with others surrounding it, like a little crime scene for lamps. And one of the same lamps showed up in the final area as well. There were numerous times where I saw a texture or an object and thought, "haven't we met before?"

I initially found the main theme suggested by the introduction - feelings of isolation in the connected world - a little trite. But I have to hand it to the game, that intro planted a seed that the game somehow bore out in a really subtle way. I did find myself craving sociability as I explored these lonely places. There were so many cool scenes, but with no one else around the only thing to do with them was pass on through. It made me remember my childhood fascination with graphical chat games, the forerunners of Second Life, things like Worlds.com and Activeworlds. I loved to find obscure spots in those things - there were some which were genuinely secretive - and take my friends to them, just kinda hang out. With other people around and the occasional passer by to witness you, you could really develop an affinity for the locales. This game's structure caused me to feel like I was simply being shepherded through, despite the inviting presence of things like park benches and charming ambient sound. Good example of effective dissonance, right there.

There's a connection to be drawn to the aesthetics of Vaporwave, here - "welcome to the virtual plaza" - but I'm not quite putting my finger on it. Suffice it to say, I'm rather fond of the idea of an abstract science fiction. The signifiers and the thematic content without any particular plot or worldbuilding. 30 minutes of C-beams glittering in the dark at Tanhauser Gate.

That was my takeaway. I found it valuable! This strikes me as the kind of game which can have wildly different conversations with different players, though. What did it make you think about? Did we have any crossover?

clyde's picture

I really appreciate you

I really appreciate you taking the time to form and share your thoughts. It's often very difficult to find any amount of substantial thought, or even basic observations on smaller, hobbyist games like Electric Highways (and these are the types of games I prefer reading about). Your observations were really helpful in allowing me to form my own.

I'm really glad you mentioned the similarities to Marathon (once the enemies have been killed). You nailed it. I downloaded Marathon; it's free and here if anyone is interested:

I had no idea what the switches in the first level of Marathon looked like or what button to press in order to activate them (tab) and in the first level I was struck by the similarities in my play-experience to the one I had in the first level of Electric Highways. There was even a stairway that rose in a similar way. Before you mentioned Marathon, I was wondering if my appreciation of Electric Highways was nostalgic. I had been thinking of the textures and the low-polygon corridor design. But you are totally right, a missing piece was the being slightly lost in a constrained environment searching walls for inconveniently placed switches. My response to Electric Highways was similar to yours in that it managed to show me what I enjoyed about being lost in the emptied corridors of early 2.5D shooters looking for switches. I didn't know that was an aspect of those games that I had enjoyed in any sense. I agree that having the navigation and simple, sparse switches being the focus of the game allows me to see that appreciation I've had, for the first time. In direct comparison to Marathon, I notice how much more dioramic some of Electric Highways' levels are. I suppose it could just be having a sky rather than a ceiling, but it made a big difference in how I perceived these levels. Even the Spacelab Telekon level felt more like a play-set for sci-fi figurines. Those play-sets would often include low-fidelity control-panel stickers to put on spots where semblances of consoles and interfaces should be, similar to how some of the textures are used in that level in particular. I suppose Marathon has those too.

Condor by Connor Sherlock was an intial comparison for me. Condor prioritizes sense of height, massive structures, traversal, prediction of paths, and composition of expansive views that evoke Memphis style. Condor does all of that really well. I think it's a helpful comparison to Electric Highways because I initially thought that Zykoveddy was aiming for something more Condor-like but not managing to execute on that, but I don't feel that way anymore. Electric Highways is expressive of vastly different priorities than Condor. The levels in Electric Highways are so different in their apparent goals of expression, but the technique of execution remains similar. The narrative-framework and the description on the download page suggest that expressing kinds of emotion was a priority for this project. The description says "Electric Highways is a game that's all about experience. Everything in this game, especially visuals and music, has been created for the purpose of giving the player a certain kind of emotion." The narrative between levels describes a world in which human emotions are rare; I get the impression that building virtual environments is a way to commoditize them, but this system of production, distribution, and consumption has estranged everyone involved from non-simulated emotional situations. It would be interesting lore in itself (though I appreciate subtle implications rather than long descriptions), but what I really like about this framework is that while it attempts to establish coherency, I think it gave the levels a more disparate feel. The coherency comes back a bit when I give effort to interpretation. The third level for example, I believe it was called "Other Neon" there is this trite pining for a fated love across the metaphoric cyber-sea. I think you were correct in your observation of the park-benches and this virtual courtyard trying to give the sense of a place for people to gather where there are none. In this level, the narration after the first level (where the narrator explains that they receive no acknowledgement for their demonstration of a virtual, emotionally evocative space), the expressions of existential loneliness that turn into creepy observational exercises (motivated by a desire to synthesize companions) shown on the displays in Spacelab Telekon. the narrator's self-suggestion to make romance that seems to result in a looting fantasy that manages to defeat itself with new, obnoxious arbitrary constraints, it all gives the overal game a theme of failed communion due to generality of subject or grandiose scope. Gawd this game is weird in such an interesting way. I have to go to work, but I hope we continue the discussion so I can get closer to what I like about this game. The closest I've come to being able to describe it to myself is this: There's an unfinished quality of the design and implementation throughout the game. That quality is absolutely essential for my enjoyment of it. It's not just the way it informs the narrative framework, but in it's actual existence as this partially successful attempt to express emotions as spaces, aesthetics, props, triggers, and effects. I feel like each level is complete enough for the author which really helps me understand what they actually wanted to express. It's like they say to themselves "I'll get closer to expressing this productive gray, cool, numbness if I make a stairway that rises to allow you to move through an architectural portal....Hmm, not quite, it needs to feel surprising and effectual so I will add a color change, particle effect and explosive sound...." and so on until they manage something that seems expressive enough. That threshold of enough is what I find fascinating about this game.

Blueberry Soft's picture

RE Vaporwave, etc.

There's also the colour palette, which reminds me a lot of DOS-era paint programs. Actually, the construction of most of the graphics does too, particularly the gradients on textures and sprites.

It's interesting that you mention Worlds.com. After playing this I started daydreaming about a game like Worlds, but with zones made by people whose games I like, and with more interesting environment exploration. I've been messing round making a character creator thing in Unity which I linked to this idea too.

...

Something I really like about this is the speed. I think I have a bias toward making slow games, and probably value slowness more than speed for no good reason. It was nice to play a game as fast as Doom (et al) that was also satisfying to explore.

clyde's picture

I'm getting closer. I'm

I'm getting closer. I'm working through Susan Sontag's Notes On "Camp" again (I know it's short, but I get ideas while reading and research them before returning to the essay) and I'm finding examples of things that have the same quality I see in Electric Highways. Here are two two performances that have the same quality, though La Lupe projects with far more force than the other two examples; the subtlety is key.
La Lupe

Chloé Mons

Alex Pieschel and I discussed this type of thing when approaching the earliest games in thecatamites 50 Short Games, but this case is significantly different because even though Zykoveddy seems to be aware of the futility of the task, it's not being ridiculed with humor during conceptualization, but patched with desperate last tries during manifestation. And because of that, the resulting piece has a different sensibility that isn't as distorted by self-reflexivity.

david_is_neato's picture

i just played through

still composing my thoughts... did anyone find all of the numbered orb things? I found them in the first and second level and didn't give it a lot of thought until the last level where they made an appearance on a big panel where you could cycle through their colors. I assume its a password to reveal something? I'll play through again and look into it some more. Try to cohere some thoughts on this too.

I didn't notice those at

I didn't notice those at all! Maybe I'll have a look-see.

clyde's picture

I played through the game

I played through the game six times and I still haven't found any more orbs even though I've been brushing walls, revisiting spots after switches, and running around facing backwards. So I just went ahead and brute-forced the code. It's red.purple.white.blue.green

Blueberry Soft's picture

Kinda wish I had documented

Kinda wish I had documented where I found the three I did.

Vague memories:

  1. (Numbered 1 or 2) Beneath the security camera in the second level(?)
  2. ???
  3. (Numbered 5) In the final level, in the area on the right side of the highway (the side that doesn't have the final door, anyway). SSE-ish. I didn't notice the alley it was in until I had unlocked everything, so maybe it was there at first?
Blueberry Soft's picture

Sontag on camp and taste

clyde wrote:
I'm working through Susan Sontag's Notes On "Camp" again

Oh, I hadn't read that before. I've been worrying a lot recently about taste and how to make things that aren't just experssions of taste, so part of that is perfect for me at the moment.

I'm probably gunna play this this weekend, BTW!, so hopefully I'll have some words to plop into this conversation.

david_is_neato's picture

the orbs!!

they're 1-sided sprites. From the first 2 I found they seem to be 'hidden in plain sight'. Put in places you can plainly see but will basically never view from the perspective necessary to see the orb. Midway down an obvious deadend alleyway facing the dead end, etc.

I guess... any... shortcuts or optimizations you make while exploring cut your chances of seeing them to near 0%. This makes some sense for my play. I didn't find any at all in the later levels because I was so intent on seeing the game to its end. After I got the general gist of the flow of a level (sigil, a button or three, find the interesting texture door) I had switched from exploring each level to finding out how I could most quickly carry on. It reminds me of how I think about all of the places I move through as I commute to work.

Some Things

OK I really wanted to get some thoughts out on this game. Sorry if I repeated anything already put down. Also I kinda rushed this... Whatever....

Thing 1: The set up

Electric highways introduction purposefully apes the classic NES opening cut scenes, A slideshow of images and captions giving information on the world. While often a paper thin attempt to get us to care about the characters (see Ninja Gaiden) Electric highways use this brief intro to suggest a certain relationship between the character we're playing as and the space we're given to explore, giving said space a richness to it that would be lacking otherwise.

The symbols the game presents to us have meaning to ourselves personally, but this tiny sliver of story allows us to think of them outside our own context. What do they mean to our protagonist?

Thing 2: The mechanically light game play

This game differs from most "walking" games (dear Esther, gone home) in that those games reduce the mechanical complexity in order to emphasize their narrative. While it seems electric highways reduces the mechanical complexity in order to emphasize the mechanics it has left, namely the experience of moving through a space at Doom speeds. I guess a counterpart to this idea would be the generic turret sections in most AAA games, where focus is taken away from movement to emphases the visceral thrill of shooting. Movement however, is a lot more flexible in what emotions it can conjure.

(thought I couldn't fit in: Shooting is like a drum, have you ever heard a sad drum?)

Thing 3: atmosphere

I really like how this game creates atmosphere with it's surrounding, At some point I want to revisit this game to more closely examine my emotions to each one. But Regardless of the atmosphere of any particular level, I think there's a through line of feeling disembodied and ethereal, mostly due to because of how the movement feels. If I make a similar game at some point, I'd like to experiment in making the movement feel different to match the desired atmosphere (though I kind of like the dissonance here thematically)

OK i'm done :)

clyde's picture

Regarding thing 2: Do you

Regarding thing 2:
Do you find it strange that the the mechanics are so simplified, but then the spaces have all these mechanically unnecessary nooks with props and effects in them? I feel like Zykoveddy thought hard about how to express the emotions that they associate with the songs, motivates the player with the simple puzzles, and almost wants the player to not pay too much attention to all the details. Maybe Zykoveddy figures that we will look for the orbs and enjoy surprises.
The use of custom props and effects in this game seems so oddly unbalanced to me and I'm intrigued by how they relate to the optimal puzzle-paths and the narrative.

soul

I think the idea behind those spaces was to make the levels a bit more messy. There's an idea in composition that you don't want to follow the rules to the letter, because it makes the piece a little 'too' perfect, a bit soulless. Finding places for these 'optional' spaces seems to be the equivalent idea for level making.

( I think a lot of the rare FPS's used a similar technique)

Blueberry Soft's picture

I never thought of these

I never thought of these things as unbalanced, or really any different than later Doom-clones like Duke Nukem 3D.

clyde's picture

I wrote some unconnected

I wrote some unconnected notes and ideas that are really loose and uncorroborable (possibly). I wrote it in MSpaint to give the thoughts less authority than a typed comment.

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clyde's picture

So this article by Omar

So this article by Omar Elaasar answered most of my questions about why I enjoy Electric Highways as much as I do.

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