A memorable villain in a game can be a powerful force. Players can learn to hate them, fear them, or even pity them.  Everyone who has played Final Fantasy VI remembers Kefka, and any StarCraft player in the world probably has a firm opinion on the Queen of Blades. The big villains – the bosses – have a lot going for them when it comes to memorability: the story usually revolves around them, they usually get the most epic battles, and quite often they get the best graphical treatment, too.

But what about the little guys?  What about the endless underlings the player crushes on their journey to the Big Bad?  What makes those guys memorable?

Consider, for a moment, the humble Goomba.  Almost anyone who has had contact with video games over the past 25 years can probably identify one in an instant, most likely right down to even knowing their name.  Even those that might not know the name still know they are “the little mushroom men from Mario” (as my father has called them). Koopa Troopas fall into that same category.  Heck, most of the enemies from the Mario series fall into that category.  But why?

For the Mario cast, much of it comes down to longevity and repetition.  Goombas and Koopas and the like have been harassing gamers for over two decades, remaining relatively constant throughout.  Though there have been subtle changes to their looks over the years, they remain easily identifiable, even after the jump from 2d to 3d.  Add to that plenty of out-of-game marketing of the characters, from cartoon appearances to plush toys, and you’ve got the makings of some pretty iconic underlings. So while the Mario minions have a lot going in their favor, what about all the other game baddies that stick in our minds, regardless of repetition or merchandising?  What turns a low-level baddie into something that stays with us, sucking up precious memory space?

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One of the very first things I learned in my Creative Writing 101 class in college was a very simple rule of writing: Show, don’t tell. As a storyteller, the responsibility is on you to draw in the audience and paint a picture for them – let them understand what is going on through their own observations rather than simply explaining things to them. Showing a character’s irrational lashing out at someone is far more engrossing than simply saying “Dave was angry.”

The designers of Metroid: Other M must have missed this class, because they sure love to tell us pretty much everything.

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I remember the day Master of Orion III came out. After heading off to the mall during lunch, I returned to work, bag in hand, and ripped open the package in the car. Tucking the game itself safely under the seat, I stealthily smuggled the manual into my office where I proceeded to read it, a few pages at a time, as soon as the opportunity arose.

While I would eventually learn that the game itself left a lot to be desired, the manual was, on its own, a delight:  Long passages about the history of the Master of Orion universe, plenty of shots of all of the game’s interfaces, and discussions of strategy as you made your way through the game. I read the manual twice that afternoon, and as soon as I got home, it found a place on my bookshelf, among a collection of others.

For a lot of people, the moment they get a new game in their possession, they race home, tear off the shrink wrap, and pop it into their systems to get playing.  For me, however, there is always that one critical step in between: reading the manual.

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The hillside is rough; bare rock protrudes through the ground between patches of scrubby grass.  Despite this, the trees grow thick here, their roots sunk deep into tilted earth, holding on with all their might.  From below, it looked like finding a safe path upward was impossible, but a thorough search revealed a narrow but well-worn animal trail winding a convoluted path towards the top.  The climb is slow, but the top grows ever closer.

With a final burst of energy, you reach the crown and are taken aback by what lay before you – a lake, as blue as the sky above, stretches from just below you towards the forest on the distant hills.  In the center of the lake stands a lone island, ringed with trees, and in the center of that island stands a shrine of whitest stone, its columns radiant in the noonday sun.  From the road below, you would have had no idea such a place existed, but now it beckons to you from across the calm water.

Looks like it’s time for a swim.

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There was a day, long ago, when gender in video games was an unknown topic.  This was not because no one wanted to to talk about it – it was simply because no one ever thought to talk about it.  Early games were essentially gender-neutral; players, for the most part, were not playing people, but were instead playing things.

Pong, Space Invaders, Asteroids: in all these cases, the player’s link with the gameworld is a series of tiny blocks arranged in different shapes, sometimes a spaceship, sometimes a triangle, sometimes a rectangle.  Neutral things any player could connect with.  Things were this way mostly as a limit of technology; creating more detail was not yet an option.  As such, the idea of the avatar, of the player’s representation in-game, was a simple one, and discussions about player identity were a long ways off.

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