Train Wreck Valley

"Train wreck valley" is a curve that describes the increasing likelihood that you will walk out of a movie with craptacular acting, writing, special fx, etc. But as the curve approaches 100%, a funny thing happens: you stay to watch the entire film because it is so bad, you find yourself laughing hysterically.

My favorite train wreck: "Savage Planet", a distant planet plagued by budgets so low, the giant carnivorous bears that stalk the "actors" can't be shown in the same frame because they are all stock footage. Priceless.

Train wrecks have a strange appeal to us that is at the same time, both morbid and hysterical. Morbid, because even though we know the film is so awful, we can't help but to stare as we walk out of schadenfreude. Hysterical, because the execution is so bad that we experience a pleasure response from creative choices that are so far from logical as to be absurd. Train wrecks essentially become parodies of themselves.

So far, the Train wreck genre has found a comfy home in the vaults of SyFy, but translating this genre to games will be a more difficult challenge. The reasons are that the game will have to walk a thin line between logical outcomes and the absurd in order to achieve satisfying game-play. This is best achieved by creating ground rules in which the player understands that certain core elements of the the game will remain engaging and reliable, while other elements are fair game for absurdity.  By this standard, Atari's E.T. doesn't hold up, because while the game itself is so awful as to be amusing, there is not sufficient structure in the game to keep it engaging or predictable. Starship Titanic, on the other hand, does a great job of being absurd without sacrificing core game play.

The number of games that venture into the realm of humor and absurdity are already quite rare. The prospects of someone developing games that are both profitable and witty, scathing parodies is doubtful... but for the sake of advancing games into new genres, I'd love to see some.