Can we really distinguish “gaming” from “metagaming”? How can play in a game be separated from the experience of play in a game, especially when the player is human? In relation to a human perception and experience of reality, is the video game a mediation of experience or is it a system within a system (of experience)? Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux describe a “metagame” as games “to,” “from,” “during,” “between,” “about,” “within,” “around,” and/or “without” games. The “metagame” which I will be thinking with the description of a game within a game, although another preposition might fit or even fit better. I would like to note that “a game within a game” assumes a system distinction within an already defined system as a game is a closed system by its nature. We can say that, in terms of a video/computer game, the game system is already one which is structured through a digital/computational medium. Since my (human) operation of the game exists in a physical and bodily realm/environment or system, my experience of play in a video game is already one which is experienced through a bodily medium in a digital/computer medium. Does this mean that my experience of a video game is already an experience of a system within a system? Practically, is the perspective of a player of a video game already a metagame (a game within a game)? Since the outside system of experience is known as life (or human life to a human player), does that mean the experience of play in a video game can be understood as a life within a life?
This line of questioning might be odd to consider. Why does it matter? Well, this questioning helps me to consider my expectations of a video game. Is it reasonable for me to believe that a video game can act as an escape from my embodied/bodily reality in the physical world? Or is it more reasonable to understand that my experience of play in a video game cannot be detached from my bodily reality at all? If my experience of play in a video game cannot be detached from my bodily reality, we will see the entry (or “re-entry” as some systems/cybernetics theorists call it) of my bodily reality and experiences into my in-game experience of play.
I am interested in looking at how I describe my experience of play in Stardew Valley in order to see how I am experiencing play in relation to my bodily/embodied experience in physical reality (aka in real life/IRL). Here are around 2 hours of my play in notes. The first half of my notes were taken during play, and the second half were taken after the 2 hours of play as more of a reflection.
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I check the time; it’s 2:18pm on a Friday. It’s fairly warm outside for winter. My phone says that it’s 44 degrees Fahrenheit to be exact. I love that: how 44 is a multiple of 11. Today is February 11th, 2022. I love that even more: how it’s the 11th, how February is the 2nd month of the year, and how 2 x 11 is 22 and that it’s 2022. I am an undergraduate student living in the dorms. My dorm is on 55th street, which I love for the same reason as above. I live on the 11th floor, which was assigned to me by chance. I love that too. I sit here writing, wearing braids which, when pulled to the front, feel like the number 11 laying on my shoulders and down my chest. As a child, my mother told me that mine and my twin sister’s lucky number is 11 because we were born on the eleventh floor of the hospital. I’m not sure if I myself believe in this luck that my mother describes; however, I cannot help to notice patterns in my experiences and note when the number 11 appears in my life. I almost feel seen in a way when I come into contact with the number 11, and I also find myself even generating or forcing patterns of 11 into my experience of life.
At 2:22pm, I go on my phone and enter the Stardew Valley app. Stardew Valley is the only “mobile game” app that is on my phone. I only chose the mobile version to play for the class since I lacked storage on my laptop computer at the time I started playing (in the beginning of the quarter). I wouldn’t say that I am a “mobile gamer,” or a “casual gamer” or even a “gamer” at all. However, I did love mobile games in grade school.
When I enter the Stardew Valley app, the game’s interface floods the entire screen of my phone. The game asks me, “Would you like to restore from where you previously left off?” I press the green check mark and accept, consenting to my entry into the game. The music changes from the upbeat flute-like home screen music to a different, more calm tune. As a new player of Stardew Valley, I’ll admit that I don’t yet know these songs by their names.
I don’t just hear the music; I also hear the crackling of a fireplace. I’m no longer myself in Chicago; I am my player character “Sasha” who is standing inside their house on their forest farm. Sasha is a nickname for Alexandra – the name I was given when I was baptized and used to use when I was forced to go to church with my mother. I think Sasha is a nice name, but I don’t ever use it personally and that’s why I chose it for my avatar – it’s both familiar and an alternate name for me. I chose a forest farm since it most resembled the conditions of my home back in Northeastern US. Sasha has green skin and wears a short sleeve shirt and some shorts. I just recently found that I could wear certain items that I obtained in-game, so now Sasha also wears some brown leather boots that cover their legs up until their shorts and a funny-looking tan cap “Good Ol’ Cap” which I remember to be a reckless purchase I made at the “Abandoned House” for 1000 gold. I found the boots (for free) somewhere, but I can’t really remember where. I’m fond of Sasha’s appearance. I know that I don’t look like my player character, but I’m not really trying to.
Right now, it’s 11:11am in the in-game universe. I can’t help but smile when I see this in-game time. I begin to play as Sasha. I leave my house with my hoe, my watering can, my steel pickaxe and my scythe in my inventory. Once outside on my farm, the first thing I always do every morning is water my cat’s dish. My gray and white cat is laying stretched out by her dish. I’ve named this cat “Gwen” after my IRL gray and white cat “Gvasya” at home. This digital cat, apart from maybe the villager “Linus”, is the only NPC (non-player character) in the game that I care for and care about. She is the spitting image of one of my IRL cats and, as her caretaker in-game, I feel as though I have a responsibility for her care. Linus reminds me very much of my IRL twin sister and my IRL maternal grandfather, so I also feel a need to care for them.
After watering the dish, I water my modest array of crops and harvest any that I can. It’s only the 3rd day of fall, so this is my first round of harvesting fall crops. In my house, I have a chest where I collect one of each crop or forageables that I’ve ever harvested. I try to limit my collection to only those items that have a gold star. Before putting anything I’ve harvested this day into the “shipping bin” to be sold in exchange for gold the next day, I go into my house and add any new crops or gold star versions of crops into this chest. This might be hoarding, but I enjoy seeing and collecting these digital items. Maybe I feel less alienated from my farming this way. And, as they don’t spoil like normal fruits and vegetables, I don’t feel like the extra gold that they’re worse is not worth giving them up at the moment.
After putting some items into the shipping bin, I leave my farm and go east into “Pelican Town.” I make my way to the “Blacksmith” building, where I should find the villager “Clint.” I remember receiving a message the last time I played that my updated “Copper axe” was ready to be picked up. I make it to the Blacksmith at 4:10pm, but I’m locked out since it closes at 4:00pm. I had forgotten. That’s frustrating, but it’s okay. I’m fine that nothing really got done today.
Before going home, I go South of Pelican Town and stop by the beach. I pick up a clam on the sand and spontaneously give it to the villager “Elliot” who appears to be heading home themselves for the night. Elliot says that “that’s a great gift” and thanks me. As I walk home, I check the villagers’ trash cans in town and get “cookies” and a “broken CD”. When I finally get back to my farm, it’s 7:40 pm and I decide to just call it a day. Inside my house, my cat Gwen is curled up on my bed and the fireplace is going. I think about how maybe it’s not good to always have the fireplace on since I’m honestly not sure yet if my house can catch on fire in Stardew Valley. It’s 9:30 pm when I get in bed and select “yes” for the question “Go to sleep for the night?” I can’t help but wish that I had such good sleeping habits IRL. After going to sleep, I’m told that I earned 55 gold from farming (“corn”). 55 is a lovely number. Then it becomes day 4 of fall, and I am awake again. I repeat my “morning routine” on my farm and spend the rest of my day doing any activity that will deplete the rest of my energy.
I repeat this sequence of actions until I reach day 11 of fall. It was 11:11 am on my farm, and by then it was 4:16 pm in Chicago. I had experienced many things during my play in Stardew Valley between 2:22 pm and 4:16 pm in Chicago:
- I bought and planted a cherry tree, and some other new fall crops. I harvested my first eggplant, cranberries, and bok choy.
- I smelted 11 copper bars from a lot of copper ore I had also mined.
- I had made over 6,000 gold from the shipping bin but my current balance was barely over 3,000 gold.
- I upgraded my watering can to a copper one.
- I watched the villager-brothers “Sam” and “Vincent” have a moment on the beach where the older brother Sam had to comfort Vincent about how their father was out deployed in the war. I also had to comfort Sam and tell him that he was right to instill hope into his brother.
- I gave Elliot another clam on his birthday.
- I found some wild blackberries, wild plums, and hazelnuts which made me happy.
- I found Linus’s basket and gave him some wild blackberries and plums. When I was looking for the basket, I discovered a new part of the map which I had never seen before to the west of the bus stop through the tunnel.
- I also got a sashimi recipe from Linus in the mail.
I exit Stardew Valley at 4:16 pm in Chicago because I needed to go and meet up with someone IRL. I close the app and, in doing so, leave “my life” in Pelican Town.
(Note: screenshots were not taken at the exact moments described in writing, so information might not match up perfectly)
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My single-player experience of play in Stardew Valley is only one approach to play in this game. However, it is still valuable to analyze this way of play at least for me. This is how I, at this moment, choose to play in Stardew Valley by myself.
From my account above and from prior experience of play, I find that I am engaging in play in the game with prior beliefs and preferences that I hold outside the game world. For example, both in and out of the game, I notice and seek out the number 11, and I give care to those I feel responsible for and feel are close to me like my cat and Linus. Although “I” become Sasha during my play, meaning that my position as the player and the player character become blurred once I’m more immersed in the game than my physical/embodied reality, I (as Sofiya) do not forget my experiences that are not the experience of play in the game. In other words, I as the player play in relation to my own (out-of-game/character) preferences and interests, and I do not solely roleplay or perform as the player character Sasha.
For me, this dynamic in my play resembles what Erving Goffman outlines as the “background” and “foreground” of a performance/performer in a communication event. This concept of the “background” and “foreground” is helpful to describe my experience of play in Stardew Valley, as the background to my play is all the experiences which I have had in my bodily/embodied physical reality (which include experiences of play in other video games) while the foreground to my play is the presently-occurring experience of my immersed mediated experience of play and operating Sasha in the digital world in Stardew Valley. This positions my experience of play in Stardew Valley (the specific/new communication event) as a combination of my experience inside and outside of the system of the game. This means that, as I play, there is constant re-entry of my past experiences into the experience of play in the digital universe of Stardew Valley. In this perspective, I am engaging in some sort of “meta” where the system of my life outside the game enters the system of my life inside the game. Unlike Boluk-LeMieux’s “metagame” that centers their “meta” around the game, my “meta” experience in play in Stardew Valley centers around my living experience/experience of life. Based on how I describe my experience, I understand my play in Stardew Valley to be a digital/computer mediation of my experience in the physical world, rather than a distinct and new alternate reality where I get a “fresh start”. Does this position my play in Stardew Valley as a life within a life? Is my play a “meta-life” rather than a “metagame”? Perhaps so.
