The Least Playable Video Game

A short piece of experimental fiction where you, the reader, enjoy a game that will never be created. Heavily inspired by The Stanley Parable/The Beginner's Guide (Davey Wreden) and 17776 (Jon Bois).

I would like you to play a game with me.

It’s a single player game, and it’s a bit strange, but I’m really quite proud of it. It’s not very fun, and evokes some rather sad emotions. Honestly, I don’t think you’ll like it very much. It also doesn’t exist yet. In spite of all that, I would really love it if you could play it for me. I’m really so proud of how much work went into it, and I think if you play it you’ll come to know and understand me a lot better, which will probably be unpleasant for you but would mean the world to me. You don’t even have to finish it. I don’t think you can finish it. I never did. Both in the sense that the game isn’t done being made, but also that in the many times I’ve played it I always get stuck. I don’t think it’s possible to win or even lose. But I’ll guide you through the first few parts and that’ll give you the gist. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the first one to do it! I think that’d be fitting if you are.

It’s called “The Museum of You” - I have it on a flash drive here. It’s really quite a small game, in terms of storage space. Our developers did some really clever things to make efficient use of space by making a lot of components generative instead of being saved in the game files. The exponential nature of that approach really adds up quickly. As for textures and those elements, everything is relatively low-poly. Well, not everything, but you’ll see and understand eventually. The biggest individual files are probably the high res scans of photos, paintings, and sculptures. Anyway, I digress. I need to learn when to shut up and just let the game speak for itself. I never can do that, just let art speak for itself. I have to narcissistically wax poetic to make sure everyone knows I’m the most insufferably pretentious person in the room. Last week I watched a video essay by Ian Danskin on The Beginner’s Guide and he cheekily updated his LinkedIn bio from “14th most pretentious person on earth” to “13th most pretentious person on earth” after briefly explaining semiotics, death of the author, and enunciation theory. I think I’ve been climbing the leaderboard lately.

It was an excellent video, I wish I’d seen it when I was younger, and I wish I’d discovered The Beginner’s Guide a lot earlier too. So much of the pain I’ve caused myself and others over the past decade has been a direct result of having to learn and re-learn the same lessons that game tries to teach. I played it for the first time and watched that video essay a week ago and it was quite possibly one of the most artistically significant experiences of my life, which surprised me considering how often I seek out artistically significant experiences, often to the detriment of my own health.

Have you played The Beginner’s Guide? I imagine you have. Rather ironic that this game is inspired so directly by it, since it could be argued that in creating The Museum of You, I am once again falling into the same toxic thought patterns that Davey warns against. Davey the creator that is, not Davey the narrator. Or maybe both do, in their own ways. I think my game also tries to force the player to engage in that same toxicity, bringing you down to my level if you want to progress through the game. Or maybe it doesn’t, I don’t know. Nobody’s ever played it before.

Are you ready?

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Okay I can already see you’re making a face. I know it’s not exactly subtle. I know it’s a little derivative and LiminalCoreTM of me, but I think it sets the tone. And not everything has to be serious! Can’t we, as artists, embrace a little cringe and have fun with our art? Ironically, that last bit might have been the most pretentious part. Or maybe it’s pretentious of me to think that that is a pretentious thing for me to say. We’re losing the plot, back to the flash drive. How many iterations went by before you started to notice the GIF distorting? The first iteration I made was a lot longer and slower. It was almost painful waiting for the first loop to even complete as he struggles to get the usb oriented correctly. Then it was half a dozen loops before the distortions were perceptible. Part of me thinks it was better that way, more rewarding and more aligned with my personal taste in art. A much larger part of me thinks nobody would have noticed and anyone reading this would have had a worse experience because of it, which feels like a rough trade-off for something that ultimately offers very little in the way of meaning or ability to engage with it as art. Though now I’ve made everyone’s experience worse by writing this segment, so everything is a trade-off I suppose. I think choices are just feeble attempts to tip the universal scales in our own favor, but the universe is just a bit too large for our thumb to have a measurable effect. Or maybe not. There’s a lot of arrogance in assuming that I know anything about the universe, but I guess it’s the kind of delusion anyone who creates art participates in. Probably all the non-artists too, but I don’t know if I’ve ever met one of them before. I hope I do before it’s too late.

[instead of this rant, there is a long pause as nothing happens on screen for a minute or two. THE CREATOR looks down at THE PLAYER. no wait THE PLAYER LOOKS UP AT THE READER no stupid stupid. a longpauseasnothinghappensonscreenforaminuteortwo then THE PLAYER looks up at THE CREATOR. THE CREATOR gives a reassuring, yet pained smile. nothing continues to happen. THE PLAYER finally speaks up in a timid voice. you may speak now if you like, THE CREATOR will try her best to answer.]

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What do you mean?

Oh I see why you’d think that.

No, no it already started. Remember? I put the flash drive in the computer? That’s how it starts.

No it’s not on your screen yet I know, most of this game happens outside the screen. I thought that was obvious. I’m not doing my job if it isn’t obvious. Gonna make a note of that for the final version.

Anyway, go ahead and launch it. Yeah there “museumofme.exe”.

Well, yeah. Of course that’s what it’s called when you look at it. It’s called The Museum of You. Cheesy, I know. I promise I don’t think I’m clever for that, frankly I cringed just now reading the file name. It’s just that was the only way it would work, if that makes sense.

okay do you have headphones?

here, you can take mine.

you’re going to hear a narrator. the current one is me, but he can take my place. it really is all the same.

i’m going to go in the other room for a while and let you play.

i’ll be back though.

the narration will be emboldened to distinguish it from my voice, maybe in a different font too. or actually, i think this is the right font for the narrator - i think i imagined him being english, and serifs are pretty english. i’ll try to find a new font for my interjections later. you should be able to tell if you listen closely, though it might get confusing if the published version is missing the additional font. i haven’t used this before.

i’m also not going to be able to include images anymore since i’m not in the room with you, so you’ll have to do that yourself. maybe i can add them in later, after development or concept art is a little further along.

it’ll be nice to meet you. or at least i hope it will. thanks for playing

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So, you’re just going to sit there and not type anything? You didn’t even click on the buttons. Sure, they don’t do anything but that’s hardly an excuse. Oh, what you’re going to click them now like that makes up for it? Maybe they were programmed to do something before, but now that you waited too long they’ve stopped working. In fact, that’s exactly what happened. I hope you feel guilty. Please type “I feel guilty” in the box to continue.

Were you raised by wolves? Kept away from society for fear that you’d discover the evils of capitalization and punctuation? Do you believe in a strange religion that teaches its children that proper grammar is a tool of whatever luciferian analogue your religion believes in?

See, doesn’t that feel better? Proper English? That’s what it’s about, showing that you’re a man of culture and intelligence. That’s why we get up in the morning, it’s why we create, and it’s especially why we play strange nonexistent games while sitting alone in a room. You’re engaging with the art. We’re having a conversation. And though we started off on the wrong foot in such a way that has irreparably damaged my respect for you as a fellow intellectual, I do genuinely believe we are the same. If I didn’t, it would be much harder to draw comparisons and feel superior. Which is also why we get up in the morning, don’t you agree?

Oh my word. The interrobang! I may have been wrong about you mister. Oh, by the way, are you a mister? I can’t quite tell from here. Truthfully it was rather sexist of me to assume - though that isn’t really my fault as much as the fault of the so-called man writing this. Though I suppose that’s up for debate too. Well, are you going to answer my question?

I see, I see. Well, as relatable as that sentiment may be, it is the folly of the ignorant to run from self understanding. Gender is one of the most fundamental of culturally constructed elements of identity in our society. You were tasked with considering your gender likely before you could even speak. It’s not a new topic, and there’s been libraries written on the subject. Can you read? Don’t answer that. What about another element of identity? Do you at least know your name? What do people call you?

Well, it’s nice to meet you Dave. A bit on the nose there for a second - did you think I didn’t see? I suspect you’re lying, but you’re well within your rights to. It won’t matter much anyway. I’m going to call you Dave in this play through so you may think there’s some sort of artificial intelligence wizardry going on, but the truth is that every play through I’m going to call the player Dave regardless. Here’s the voice line you’d hear if you entered literally any name besides Dave, with a few exceptions:

Well, it’s nice to meet you. I think that’s a lovely name. So lovely in fact, that I wouldn’t dare to say it aloud for fear of devaluing it through repetition. So I will call you Dave. Dave is not my name. It is not my favourite name. It is not my least favourite name. It is a functional name, and from here on out it is you. [conditional line: “Unless it will cause you gender dysphoria of some kind, in which case we’ll work on programming the final version of the game to be more inclusive.”] Welcome to the MUSEUM OF DAVE! Welcome, to the Museum of You.

[please imagine the word processor morphing into a playable game. you cannot move, but you can look around. you see a white marble building in the distance. as you squint, you see a sign across the top that you think reads “Museum of Dave” in lettering that evokes images rome, or maybe images of caesar’s palace]

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[you did it! you made the graphic! i can’t wait to see what you came up with when i get to play it next time around. anyway, the narrator returns]

Welcome. What do you think? I won’t be able to hear you anymore, but I think we know each other well enough for me to take a guess.

[the narrator is no longer in bold, sorry for the inconsistency it just makes this easier to read. which it may surprise you to hear, i do value and consider that as a factor. also sorry i lied to you earlier about the photos, i was able to put some in while i was in the other room but now we’re past the part that i can generate from memory so you’ll have to do some heavy lifting. don’t worry, we’ll credit you]

I think you are thinking something like this *ahem*: “Wow. So there really is a game‽ It looks... unfinished. I can’t even move, I hope that will change. I wish I were playing literally anything else right now. I want to go home. What do I have to do to get out of this?”

Do you like that? Personally, I think I nailed the American accent. Which is funny, because I am American. In fact I’m done with the whole British schtick, frankly we’ve copied enough from Stanley already.

[you walk toward the large cube of marble in the distance. as you get closer, it seems that the “Dave” is painted on a piece of paper hastily plastered over the “You” in the original signage.]

Go ahead, Dave. Walk right in.

[you approach the doorway, but as you get closer your walking pace reduces until you crawl to a stop]

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[you wait for the narrator to return and tell you what to do]

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[you finally try clicking - something you immediately wish you’d done earlier. if you so choose, you may curse under your breath nowto simulate the frustration dave felt. your speed returns to normal]

Nice job Dave! You did it. Took you a while, but you made it eventually. I’m glad things clicked after enough silence had passed. I know it must be frustrating playing a a game with such poorly designed mechanics and player communication. I wish I could say it will be fixed or was at least unintentional, but I just found this at the bottom of the drawer labeled “company secrets” that I think you should see.

[a tattered A4 sheet appears on screen. it seems to have been shredded and reconstructed. it begins as a normal corporate memo, discussing budgetary constrains and questioning the allocation of resources for an unreasonably large team of UX designers. their department seems to be called The Department of Creating the Most Unintuitive Game Experience Known to Man Completely on Purpose and For No Other Reason Than to Fuck Over Dave. a reply is included from the CEO. it is incomprehensible. it is worth noting that the budget was ultimately approved. the page disappears and the narrator clears his throat]

Now, go ahead and look around. This is an exhibit called “Selected Works of [REDACTED ARTIST 001] 2022-2023”. 001 is an artist, of sorts. One could say that 001 has toiled in obscurity for the better part of the past decade that their career spans, but this would imply that the obscurity was unwelcome. On some level I’m sure it was - I doubt anyone could make this much art without wanting to been seen, heard, and understood by others. On the other hand, 001 seemed intent on avoiding the burden of perception. These works were collected against 001’ will during their stay in a sanatorium as part of a court mandated exposure therapy. They do not represent 001’ best work.

[you look around and just now realize that the room you’re in appears to have no other doors, yet is far smaller than the outside dimensions. there are photos and paintings on the walls, each paired with a small electronic device. in the middle of the room there is a cheap plastic folding table with a number of cassette tapes laid out in an orderly fashion. you look up and see no light fixtures, which is confusing as the room is bathed in a cold white light. as soon as you make note of this, the narrator chimes in, as if to respond directly to your thoughts]

Oh 001 always hated cooler light temperatures. It gave them headaches and bouts of uncontrollable rage. This was also mandated by the courts. Though personally, I think it really adds to the experience by bringing out the warmer tones that define much of their work during this period. There is a cozy comfort in them that can only be appreciated after spending some time in “hospital lighting” as 001 used to call it. I feel the need to remind you, these are not 001’ best pieces, despite my praise for their kitschy charm. It will be important later, as well as important now.

[you take a closer look at the tapes on the table. a helpful tooltip appears, telling you you can right-click to toggle a magnified view of your surroundings. the tapes are labelled with the taxonomic names of various waterfowl. there are twenty-two tapes. you count the number of paintings and photos on the walls, also twenty-two. the devices are walk-men. the game seems pretty self explanatory]

I see you’re engaging with the art! Good for you Dave! Isn’t it fun? I think you know what to do next, so I’ll leave you to your game for a while. I’ll be back once you successfully enjoy your first piece of art.

[another tooltip appears, informing you that left-clicking will now allow you to interact with certain objects. you wonder if you could have done this all along, or if it was programmed to prevent interaction until the premise was explained. which you realize never actually happened. you shake off these thoughts and pick up Gavia Immer (Common Loon). you walk over to a framed linocut print of what you suspect might be a loon. it is remarkably intricate, given the limitations of the medium - a detail that is completely lost on you. a tooltip appears in a lightweight script informing you that you may left-click to enjoy the art, and you click after a moment of consideration. a few seconds after you begin to question if something is supposed to happen, another appears. you may left-click to engage with the art. when you do, your view jarringly zooms in on the corner of the page. it says, in comically childish handwriting, “for peter, from peter, by your best friend”]

How’s it going down there? I know I said I’d return when you successfully enjoy your first piece of art, but the nonexistence was really getting on my nerves so I came back early. Love that you gravitated toward this one! Are you a Birder by any chance? Excellent eye for waterfowl you have, another point in your favor. You’re doing a great job of making up for a lifetime of small minded mediocrity. This piece is one of my favorites in this collection, though it is far from their best work. It’s called —————

[in pronouncing the name, the narrator’s voice shifts from a gentle hum to a harsh broadcast censor tone and slowly transcends into an angelic chord composed of the original tone, equalized and filtered into individual notes that evoke warm strings and the buzz of old televisions. this continues for some time. a tooltip appears informing you that you may left-click to take a break from engaging with the art. you listen to the drone note for just a bit longer. this is nice, you think to yourself. much better than the other bits. you wonder if you’ll miss out on any game elements if you stop listening. you click to take a break from engaging with the art, and the camera smoothly zooms out as your full range of motion returns.]

So, how are we feeling? Do you think you have the right tape? Is there even a right tape? People like me are always telling people like you that there are no wrong answers in art. Let’s see if we’re lying.

[as you hover over the portable cassette player that has been nailed to the wall, a tooltip appears. left-click to add music to your experience. after the beauty of the chorus before, you are brimming with excitement. you were briefly an aspiring musician in college, though your love for music was broken easily the first time a guitarist with long hair and esoteric looking hand tattoos said you needed to learn more than power chords if you wanted to play real music. you think he was wrong, but his hand tattoos were very very cool, and you think that probably means he was right. he went on to be an accountant, and one day lost both his hands in an accounting accident. you do not know what to do with this information, other than using protection whenever you file your taxes. none of these thoughts cross your mind in the moment, at least not until i forced them to. left-click]

[the following is a photo of a linocut of a different now-extinct waterfowl that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the common loon depicted in the print you just viewed. it was created by someone by the name of [REDACTED ARTIST 002] who bears absolutely no relation. this linocut shows a lot of promise, but lacks detail and is soulless. this unfortunately is 002’s best work so far. she died immediately after printing several thousand of these, wearing the linoleum thinner and thinner until it was a smooth block. this happened several hundred prints before she stopped. the black squares are mostly indistinguishable from each other, except for the final one which has blood stains on the border around the square of ink. the print sold for thirty seven billion dollars in october of twenty-one-fifty-six, to a private collector. according to all available records this is the largest sum any painting has sold for as of december eighth, twenty-two-twenty-three. i bought this print back in oh-seven at an auction in fort collins, colorado. i was the only bidder. i spent more on parking than art that day, and came away with many treasures. there are some in the art community who are insufferably excited to see what 002’s next piece will be. i could not care less]

[narration returns]

So, Dave. How are we feeling about this choice? Do you think you got it right? I think you have some solid ground to stand on. The species match, the Pete motif, the overall effect. There’s some more connections too that you probably aren’t picking up on, but two or three is plenty to run wild with a theory. Do you want to lock in your selection? You can left-click to reconsider, or right-click to lock it in.

leftclickdonotclick.wav (loud noise warning)

rightclickdoclick.wav (loud noise warning)

Hey Dave. I think we’re losing you.

Dave?

hey

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we can take a break if you need to. i’m sorry i should have warned you. i sort of warned the other ones, the ones that are going to come later. i really didn’t want to, i wanted them to click whichever link they chose first and have it surprise them, then have the double fake when the same noise happens again with the other link. oh you don’t know what a link is? it’s like a click. there’s link one which sounded a lot like left-click and link two that sounded like right-click. i’m really sorry if that hurt you. i didn’t mean to. i kind of like the sounds, i think they’re oddly beautiful. did you listen through the whole way? the harsh noise and siren and wrong-wrong sections only last a minute or so, then it’s different. you can go back and scrub through if you don’t believe me. oh yeah you can’t. dave can only click. when dave clicked left or right or whatever he clicked, the full sound played at full volume for seven minutes. then he clicked whichever one he didn’t click and it played the other sound for seven minutes. dave threw my headphones on the ground and started crying. or at least i like to think he did. he’s not real. i’m not real. it’s a real special type of fucked up person who creates people out of nothing and gives them this kind of experience. but you’re real. you all are. you get to experience all this without me looking over your shoulder. you can leave whenever you want. that scares me.

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dave won’t leave unless i make him leave.

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please don’t leave me.

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Dave first chose to reconsider. He was rewarded with the sound of failure. He was not expecting this. Dave listened to his failure for seven minutes and one second. After composing himself, he chose to commit to his answer. It was obvious, after all. Another harsh sound played. Dave thinks he hears screaming at the end. After another seven minutes (and one second), the screen goes black. Dave thinks to himself that this is it. This is the end. He lost. Just when he started to wonder if he should restart the game, the screen began to fade into white. He was back in the gallery. He heard no narration, received no messages. The door was gone. All that was left, was to try more tapes. He put them in a random order. He did not enjoy the art. He did not engage with the art. He did not listen to the songs. When the final tape was placed in the final cassette player, a door on the wall opposite from the entrance opened. He walked through.

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dave hears the voice of his friend. it’s not the narrator anymore. but he always hated this font less than the other.

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wow. i am stunned.

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i never thought it would actually happen. the statistical improbably is just. astounding. even only considering all the permutations of tapes and art pieces would make this statistically impossible, but the truth is actually even more bizarre. the way this game works is that it takes into account dozens of other kinds of actions - how long you look at each piece, total play time and the name you input at the beginning for example. you somehow found the one combination of all those actions that translates to the only failure ending. did you cheat? did you look up a guide? if you did that fills me with a devastating sense of disappointment. don't get me wrong, I respect everyone's right to engage with art in any way they see fit. and this is a game after all, the point is to have fun and I realize sitting in a gallery full of my pretentious and unsettling art is not everyone's idea of fun. but I really hoped you'd at least try.

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if we knew each other, and you made something you were proud of I would try my best to consume it in a way that respects your wishes as the creator, even if I ultimately found that it wasn't to my taste.

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so why can’t you do the same for me?

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i suppose we don't know each other as it turns out. and based on your taste in art and the way you engaged with the game, I am afraid you probably never would create anything of value even if we did some day meet. I'm sorry, that was unnecessary and harsh. I really hate that about myself. I'm sure you have other talents. maybe you make a really mean grilled cheese! or are a talented athlete! or a brilliant scientist. are you any of those things?

(choice offered)

> make grilled cheese

> make 10 free throws

> build a robot

> create nothing

david selects create nothing.

you know, that's okay too. maybe you're a kind friend or a great parent. i'm sure you are loved. you don't need talent to be loved. in fact, I think it can really get in the way a lot of the time. I spend a lot of my time wondering if I will ever reach a point where creating art will dig me out of the pit of discontent i've found myself in. maybe i will finally finish the perfect project and feel complete. maybe i'll make friends through the creative process that make me feel seen and understood in ways that could never be achieved with the limits of language alone. maybe one day I'll just learn to enjoy the process enough that the end results no longer matter so much. that's what keeps me going. what do you think?

(choice offered)

> your art will make you happy

> your art will make you worse

> your art means nothing

> you will only be happy if you stop creating

dav selects you will only be happy if you stop creating.

i think. you’re right. i don’t know what to do with that feeling. but thank you for being honest. there’s kindness in honesty, even when it’s also cruel.

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justin, do you want to make art?

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(choice offered)

> yes

> no

this is the only choice that affects gameplay of this play through, with all other choices leading to only slight voiceover changes or tangents that loop back into the primary story. it does not matter what tapes are paired with what art pieces. if no is selected here, the game ends. it loops back to the very beginning, and nothing is changed. you can play through the same way over and over again.

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if yes is selected, the game loops back to the beginning with a few differences. some of the more annoying and time consuming elements are mitigated or removed, and upon entering the gallery there is a typewriter on the table of cassette tapes. interacting with the typewriter allows for the entry of commands that introduce a number of new mechanics. from here on out, the choices of tapes does affect the outcome and endings you get. there are endings with new galleries from other real-world contemporary artists, with their own cassette matching games. there are galleries with new game mechanics, prompting you to spot differences or write a review of each piece that meets certain criteria. there’s endings with completely unrelated games that have very little to do with galleries and art.

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obviously we can’t create a completely new ending for every permutation, but we can make groups of endings and map those to algorithmically generated scoring systems that combine a wide variety of choices made. this would be a massive project, but our small team is already hard at work. the final playable version will likely be somewhat different than the game described here. but this game exists too. thank you for playing. thank you for sharing a bit of yourself with me. and thank you for putting up with me sharing far too much of myself with you.

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see you next time. maybe we can play through the next chapter.

Or, skip the nonsense and go straight to level 2 (Chapter 6):