What do you feel when you hear this sound?
Joy?
Happiness?
Delight?
Well, congratulations, you have been conditioned by a video game.
But as sinister and manipulative as this may sound,
it's actually quite common.
Video games often establish a link between a visual or acoustic cue,
and a certain emotion in the player to be able
to trigger that sensation at any given moment in the game
and by that - they create something like an interface
that gives the designer control over
when to make a player feel the way he intends him to.
If it's the pleasure of getting an extra life.
The feeling of empowerment.
The excitement to have found a secret.
Or even negative emotions -
the frustration of having screwed up for example.
It's the simple technique of Respondent Conditioning,
made popular by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov,
who observed that his dogs would react with
increased secretion of saliva when he fed them.
In his experiments, he began to ring a bell right before yummy-time
and after a while, his dogs would start drooling
when they heard that sound, even without seeing actual food.
Respondent conditioning connects an innate biological response
to an unconnected stimulus - in this case an acoustical cue.
And that's pretty much exactly what happens
in the examples mentioned before.
Only that you don't hear your tummy growling.
So a few days ago, I saw a visual essay about the indie game Axiom Verge by
Mark Brown from Game Maker's Toolkit,
an excellent video in a brilliant series about game design -
you should definitely go check it out.
I'm gonna link it in the credits.
When I saw the video, I knew I had to buy Axiom Verge and play it for myself.
It shamelessly and openly steals a LOT from Super Metroid and its successors.
But it does it with skill. It's really the game that Metroid
fans have been waiting for even thought it isn't even made by nintendo.
It pretty much gets all the core elements of its role model right:
The adventurous exploration.
The binary design of power-ups and natural level borders.
The subtle and effective way of teaching the player its mechanics.
And also the dark, unsettling and eerie atmosphere of venturing into the unknown.
You still remember how uncanny and disqueting it was to
explore the depths of Planet Zebes' cave maze,
with new unknown dangers lurking behind every corner.
It was as exciting as it was frightening.
But there is one ingenious design trick in Super Metroid,
that I have never seen in any other game since.
It's the
- very sublte, but incredibly effective -
way Metroid uses respondent conditioning
to reinforce the feeling of discomfort.
Now, on the surface, every game since Metroid on the NES
uses the same kind of acoustic cues as other games.
The triumphant jingle, when you find a new power up.
The pleasant sound effect that signals you got some life energy back.
This is all straight forward:
The acoustic design of the cue is in accordance
with the emotional significance of the event.
Positive reinforcement for positive actions.
When we look at well made Horror Games, it's same thing.
In Silent Hill 2 for example, you carry a radio around
and the discomforting static noise of the radio
forecasts an equally unsettling event:
that a monster is nearby.
The stimulus is in line with the emotional meaning of the cause.
Now listen to this:
This... is the music that you hear when you are in a room with a power up,
an important waypoint or where you are at least allowed to be safe.
This music always comes with a reward for your exploration...
But what you get to hear is the creepiest, most eerie
and unsettling melody in the entire soundtrack.
All the other tracks, sure, they all convey a certain sense of menace and foreboding.
But they're also rhythmic, melodic, catchy, often times even empowering.
But this...
it's a spine-chilling cacophony of random oscillator tones
broadcasting what seems like an alien radio communication code
accompanied by a suspenseful deep background layer...
And that track has always been scary.
In Metroid on the NES we hear what seems like the feet of a giant insect
tapping nervously against the wall from the other side.
Or later - in Metroid Prime, it stays equally eerie.
Just with an added layer of looming static in the background.
While most scary video games at least allow you
a sense of comfort in a save zone, a warm place,
a brief refuge from the terror that awaits outside,
the Metroid games deliberately rewire your brain by
connecting a positive event to the emotionally opposite stimulus
to never make you feel completely at ease.
And by that, they trick you into longing for that
feeling of queasy unease again
- to feel safe again.
Yes, the game tries to make you a little bit schizophrenic...
Until your mind becomes one with the dark and menacing
labyrinth of Planet Zebes.
Zebb.. Zsebbesz.. zap.. Tepes...
Uh, whatever...
Now, a silly thought, but:
if Super Mario would play the most happy melody in the world when you die...
...would it turn the game into the ultimate suicide trainer?
So as always:
Thanks for watching.
Keep on playing.
And I see you.
Next Time.
On RagnarRox.