Games generally have an objective. From cards to family boardgames, there are instructions on "How to win". But as computer games become more complex, some people are changing their approach to get new experiences out of old games.
There are the hilarious YouTube videos of Rollercoaster Tycoon (the theme-park simulation in which the aim is to create profitable rides) in which players have set up elaborate rollercoaster crashes – and just to make you feel better, all the pixelated passengers get up at the end. Meanwhile, Noor the Pacificist, an online gamer, decided to play through to the highest levels of World of Warcraft (the clue to the game's objective is in its title) without intentionally killing anything.
The Sims 3 is set up as a game of middle-class aspirations: get a job, find a home, make money, work hard, find a partner and have a family. But in the blog narrative "Alice and Kev", games design student Robin Burkinshaw created homeless characters. The moving narrative followed the paranoid and delusional Kev and his daughter Alice as they attempted – mostly unsuccessfully – to find jobs and love in a conformist world.
Some game designers have even built this sort of subversion into their games. In Half Life 2: Episode Two, one unlockable achievement is to "send the garden gnome into space". To accomplish this, players have to travel through a world in which humanity has been brought to its knees by alien slavemasters, while carrying a garden gnome. Reviewer Tom Francis and others have created images of this exploit, which turns the game from a sci-fi shooter to dadaist happening.
These are just a few highlights – for pretty much any videogame there'll be a video of someone playing it in a silly way. Maybe we can extend this to real life: next time I feel bored, I'll try wandering around with a garden gnome.
