I do not consider myself “good at videogames”. Despite playing the dang things for nearly my entire life (I believe I did take some time off while potty training), I still imagine myself as an “average” player. I do not hold any speed run records. I have never achieved some grand rank in a fighting game. There are several games in my collection where, the minute something got too hard, I gave up, and never looked back. Even some of my most beloved games, like titles in the Final Fantasy or Mega Man franchises, I have only completed by never deviating from priorly acquired knowledge (or, put another way, I’m not sure Heat Man’s stage can be beaten without Bubble Lead). In short, while I can definitely play videogames, I have never considered myself “good”, because there are people that literally define the best, and I am nowhere near their echelon.
But then there’s my wife. My wife sucks at videogames.
Okay, that isn’t fair or accurate. My wife is actually very good at many videogames. She saw the end of Candy Crush back when that game had an end (you know, before they just loaded in infinity challenges). She is currently at level 500 or so in Best Fiends, and she started that game, like, last week. She is also a higher level than me on Pokémon Go. That last point is very important, as my wife is an excellent min/maxer, and the minute she understands a system, she can and will exploit it to the utmost to be the best there ever was. I am moderately proud of this fact, but I also know this means that if she ever “gets into” a MMORPG, I will lose my beloved forever. Such is the curse of a husband.
To be more specific, my dear wife is not particularly good at action-based games. Every title I just named could best be described as a puzzle game or RPG. But once you get into games that are more based on bounding over pits or battling against bruisers, she’s out. We spent some time playing Mario, but my princess spent most of her time floating around in a bubble. We tried a few cooperative beat ‘em ups, and my Blaze died a lot while noting it was way too repetitive. Can you imagine? A game where you punch the same three guys an estimated 10,000,000,000,000,000 times being called repetitive? Preposterous! And, despite all these objections, I keep trying to get my wife to play action games with me. There are plenty of two-player experiences out there, so there must be one that Mrs. Goggle Bob can play with her Mister. What’s a boy to do?
Maybe it’s time for the box.
Today’s game is Boxboy & Boxgirl (technically titled BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL!, but I cannot consistently utilize that persistent use of capitals nor the annoying punctuation). This game was purchased randomly on a Nintendo Switch sale, and chosen pretty much for its HAL pedigree. Kirby is always a good time, so this boxing must be a similar experience. Oh? There’s a two player mode? Well why don’t we give it a try, honey? You like puzzle games, right?
Yes, Boxboy & Boxgirl certainly is a puzzle game. If you’ve never boxed before, Boxboy is a franchise wherein a boy who is a box must create additional boxes so as to bypass various obstacles. Spike pits, laser beams, bottomless chasms: you know, that kind of thing. In Boxboy’s world, there is always a box-based solution to a problem. And Boxboy & Boxgirl expands that concept by allowing two boxpeople to cooperate and solve problems together. There is a conveyer belt that Boxboy alone could never overcome, but what if a sentient box wearing a bow made even more boxes? Now we’re cooking with gas (boxes)! And, if you are the kind of genius that desires even greater challenges, consider that Boxboy is wholly based on its puzzle premise, and there are logged rewards for producing as few boxes as possible. You can complete most any stage by uncovering a solution and throwing boxes at it until you are the victor, but can you return and discover the most box-efficient way out of the dungeon? And can you do it while cooperating with a buddy?
And, to get back to the relationship box of this article, I want to be clear that my wife and I are excellent problem solvers. We successfully designed and reconstructed a bathroom, so overcoming obstacles with a box or two ain’t no thang. Spoilers: my wife and I did complete the whole 2-player campaign in Boxboy & Boxgirl, and this article does not end with a pending divorce. We are good at working together. We are both good at solving “space” problems, and, given how my wife works a closet, I have no doubt she would be able to handle Leon’s inventory of ammo like a pro the likes of which Las Plagas has never seen.
But, beyond suitcase stuffing, I can safely say that a certain important person in my life would not make it out of a zombie outbreak alive.
Husband and wife are both great at problem solving. This comes from years of curiosity, education, and a healthy diet of complicated cheeses with equally complicated packaging. But we both have very different histories when it comes to controlling little metal boys that must banish robotic masters. Man has decades of experience with every videogame system that has ever come down the pike (give or take CD-i), and Woman is uncomfortable so much as holding a controller. So things that I take for granted are wholly alien to my love. She does not “just know” the arc of a Boxgirl’s jump is always going to be the same. She does not realize that there are pixels of space that you can use to “float” a Boxboy over the edge of a cliff. And she better not have known that her moving Boxgirl at that one specific time was going to shove Boxboy into an oncoming laser, because if she does, she is a murderer. In short, she does not know platforming like her husband, and, even if she has the exact same (or better!) mental aptitude as her partner, she does not have the experience that tells her what is going to happen when she presses A. She has a general idea that Boxgirl is going to jump, but the how and where are a mystery.
In short, for someone that doesn’t have years of videogame experience, the puzzles are puzzles, but “moving” is a puzzle, too.
So what is today’s lesson? Well, I suppose that even if you do not consider yourself “good” at videogames (like me!), maybe you should consider how good you really are. Years of experience have made you a different person with different skills that you would not have otherwise, and do not take that for granted. And, if you are dealing with someone that does not have the same understanding (maybe someone you are married to), be patient. Do not assume that everyone just has to practice to “git gud”, and realize that you may have decades of “practice” that you are completely discounting. Not everyone has spent their life pressing B to fire, or up to enter doors, and something even that simple is new information to about 90% of the population.
And maybe if we could apply this empathetic thinking to something beyond videogames, we might live in a better world.
… And then we could get back to solving our problems with boxes.
FGC #597 BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL!
- System: Boxxy has been boxed into the Nintendo Switch, and cannot escape.
- Number of players: Well, if it was single player, there wouldn’t be much of an article here.
- They have names, you know: Qbby is Boxboy, Qucy is Boxgirl. But if you wanted me to use those names, HAL, maybe you should have named the game QBBY! + QUCY!
- Did you even try the single player mode? Nope! I played other box games, thank you, I do not need to try being some loner rectangle when I have other games I haven’t beaten yet (I am going to use this excuse until I finally beat Deadly Towers).
- So did you spend any medals on cool costumes or whatever? Nope! We are solving puzzles right now. Do not have time for box customization. That lil’ bow is all the clothing we need between two (or three) boxes.
- An end: Turns out we were about one world away from beating the game on the stream. Could have saved a baby box live! But no! We have human endurance levels! Bah!
- Watch it, buddy: Oh yeah, since this was the Valentine’s Day stream, you can watch my wife kill me repeatedly while everyone laughs.
It’s fun for the whole (box) family.
- Did you know? There is a Boxboy Amiibo. That is more than Dr. Stewart, star of F-Zero, ever got. Sorry, bud.
- Would I play again: My dear wife has requested further box-based challenges. Probably not returning to BOXBOY, but wasn’t there something about a death being squared floating around?
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III for the TurboGrafx-16! From bubbles to parasols, those crazy twins are going to do it all! Please look forward to it!
Cooperation is key!
What does it mean when “difficult” equals “fun”?
And we’ve seen “the mountain is a metaphor” before on this very blog. There’s another game that sticks in this humble blogger’s head that used the exact same story framing: 
And, on a personal note, Celeste is the game I played most during the Spring Quarantine of 2020. The world was falling apart in drastically unprecedented ways, I personally had no guarantee whether or not I would have any kind of income from day to day (spoilers for anyone concerned: I made out okay), and there was the threat of a deadly virus striking seemingly at all times. Granted, as I write this article, things aren’t much better, but there’s now a certain kind of uncomfortable familiarity with the situation. Yes, leaving the house is still a gauntlet of social distancing not unlike attempting to dash through a hotel filled with malevolent and deadly energy, but at least it no longer feels like the whole of society is going to gradually slide into the nearest ocean (we have to wait for 2038 for that). Back in March, when everything was unknown and something as basic as “wear a mask” was reported with equal claims of it being our one saving grace and a way to instantly obtain a malady known as “fungus nose”, things were a lot more ambiguous. And, thinking back on that time, I can safely say that I was probably about thirty seconds away from a mental breakdown every moment. I won’t exactly say I was tangibly depressed, but it was more like I was… concerned. Perpetually concerned. Perpetually might-have-a-heart-attack concerned. In retrospect, it was a surprisingly gentle time, as most businesses were closed (so there was little reason to go outside and risk my life for a damn haircut), the concept that someone might be financially hurting was universally understood (extra unemployment and money from a government that was pretending to care about its citizens that week), and, give or take some supermarket meltdowns, people seemed unusually empathetic for a month or so (we’re all in this together!). Maybe it was just an illusion brought on by not having to directly deal with (much of) the public for a month or so, but, in retrospect, the general start of this COVID insanity seemed like it was the best part; something approaching a reprieve before we settled into 
the usual rhythms of watching our leaders toss more and more “essential” workers into the meat grinder. But when that “reprieve” was happening, it seemed like anything but, as I deal with uncertainty about as well as having a swarm of bees in my pants. March and April’s COVID situation brought me seemingly unlimited stress, and I chose to relax by… playing a game that is supposed to be stressful.
Remember those uncertain COVID times I mentioned earlier? In the Fall of 2019, I finally took the initiative, looked at my rainy day fund that hadn’t been touched for literally years, and cashed in on remodeling my ancient, remembers-the-fall-of-Napoleon bathroom. It was a lot of money, but I sat down with a ledger, looked at the past year’s profits and losses, and determined it would be a passable expense. I also consulted with my fiancée, who informed me she would leave me if she had to deal with a bathroom that involved a crankshaft toilet one more time. Wait, excuse me, she wasn’t my fiancée at the time. That came later, with the other major expense I picked up in February: 
And, when I think about it, this is why I play “hard games” when things are stressful. No matter how badly I mess up in Celeste, it’s not going to impact my life. No matter how many times I damn Vincent to death in Catherine, it’s not going to make a dent in my bank account. Every setback in Bloodborne might mean I lose some resources, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to lose my home. Calling a videogame hard is all well and good, but the fact that there are no consequences (maybe beyond losing a few useless hours of actual life) is what transforms “difficult” into “fun”. Drop any consequences for failure, and repeated failures are enjoyable.
Favorite Level: The hotel stage is my uncontested favorite. It has a decent moral, a quasi-boss battle, and I love me some little black ghosty things that don’t allow you to re-traverse certain edges. It all works together beautifully, and seems to encapsulate what’s great about Celeste.
My fiancée will tell you quite loudly and clearly that she does not play videogames. My fiancée is also a liar. She plays videogames. She just doesn’t play “videogames” as she thinks the world defines them. She plays Candy Crush. She plays some other game that looks exactly the same, but involves farm animals. I think there’s another one with soda. She plays these games constantly, whether we’re sitting watching a movie or traveling to the wilds of Canada. And 
One videogame my fiancée plays is Tetris. According to her own words, it is her favorite videogame (which, reminder, is something she doesn’t play). She’s been playing it for years, and notes that during some of the less hectic times in her life, she played quite a lot of it. She’s good at it. I can say with firsthand knowledge that she kicks ass at Tetris, and I have the recorded play sessions from Tetris Effect to prove it. 
For those of you unfamiliar with the title, Puyo Puyo Tetris is exactly what it says on the tin: it’s a puzzle game that combines Puyo Puyo and Tetris. For those of you unfamiliar with Puyo Puyo, it’s a color-block matching game that has visited America in 
Look, Tetris and Puyo Puyo being played in a sort of parallel is one thing, but outright combining the gameplay of both into one complete board is borderline crazy. The benefit of both of these games is that, individually, there isn’t much that has to be learned or understood to get going. Yes, there are complicated techniques involving starting combos or focused spinning or whatever in both games, but they’re both superficially very straightforward. Match the colors, line up the blocks. Empty spaces bad, alternating colors bad. The end. The best puzzle games are instantly understandable, and both Tetris and Puyo Puyo fit that bill. This is literally the reason your grandpa wanted a Gameboy. But Tetris + Puyo Puyo is confusing. Clearing a line requires using Tetris blocks, while popping puyos require puyo bubbles, and you don’t always have access to either kind of block. What’s worse, there are some moves that don’t seem to have obvious consequences, like how squishing some puyo bubbles with tetris blocks looks like you’re clearing out the clutter, but the bubbles will respawn and fall shortly thereafter. It’s something that happens every time, but it’s not immediate or often enough for a player to quickly distinguish whether these “junk blocks” are the result of something done by the player or their opponent. It creates a sort of “stress” that is not the traditional “things are getting heated because the board is filling up” stress, but more of an “I have no idea why things are happening or how I can make it better” stress. And it occurred to me that this stress could be very traumatic for some people right around when I won a match and my dear fiancée hit me with a folding chair. She is normally so respectful of the furniture!
Tetris x Puyo Puyo loses something. It loses its simplicity, and, with that, it loses its immediate and obvious accessibility. It loses an “easiness” that has been comfortable for decades. But it gains something in exchange. It is more complicated, but that complication adds nuance and techniques that would otherwise be completely absent from the experience. It adds a whole new dimension that was never there before, and would be completely impossible to so much as touch in the normal, base games. I have played 
How about that Story Mode: Is this what it’s like for other people playing 
No matter how hard you try, you can’t capture lightning in a bottle twice.
Tetrisphere began its life as “Phear”, a title created by H20 Entertainment, a Canadian game production company. Phear’s biggest difference between its original form and its eventual N64 version? It was intended to be an 
Tetrisphere is by no means Tetris. There are familiar “blocks”, but they’re not infinitely falling from some unseen heavens. In fact, you are responsible for dropping all blocks, and the challenge is figuring out exactly where on the sphere you’re supposed to drop said blocks. If you drop a shape exactly on a matching shape, and that shape is next to a shape of the exact same dimensions, then both blocks are going to disappear. Line up a few shapes of the same size, and you’ve got a lovely little chain reaction going that could spread across the surface of the entire sphere. Your goal is to peel layers off the sphere so the little robot dude trapped inside can be free to escape and do whatever robots do (conquer humanity?), so every block vanished is another step closer to your goal. Of course, if you drop a block on a non-matching square, you’re stuck with another cumbersome lump of useless obstructing your robot rescue. And just for an added bit of stress, if you make three mismatches, it’s game over. And it’s game over if you take too long, too. And it’s game over if you sneeze on the Pope, too, though that rarely comes up. Point is that there are a lot of ways to fail, and Tetrisphere seems like it wants to be challenging.
Tetrisphere works almost exactly like Candy Crush and its addictive ilk. You shift blocks/colors/candies from spot to spot, and, when they’re all properly aligned, you see a “connection” that eliminates a swath of shapes. Sometimes it’s just one or two blocks. Oftentimes, it’s a whole screen full of nonsense that seems to go on for minutes as blocks you couldn’t have even seen before all appear and instantaneously detonate into tiny pieces. You know you didn’t have anything to do with that enormous chain reaction, but you feel great anyway, because, dude, did you see how many points I just got? Friggin’ nailed it, man! And that’s how players instantly become addicted to these mobile match games: it feels amazing to be responsible for so much winning/destruction. I am become God, matcher of fruits.
Favorite Bot: You’re supposed to take on the “control” of a handful of different robots, and each supposedly impacts a different stat like “speed” or “power”. But damned if I can tell much of a difference between the different automatons, so I’m just going to say… Rocket? He is first…