The Player: old games, new approach

Games generally have an objective. From cards to family boardgames, there are instructions on "How to win". But as computer games ­become more complex, some people are ­changing their approach to get new experiences out of old games. There are the hilarious YouTube ­videos of Rollercoaster Tycoon (the theme-park simulation in which the aim is to create profitable rides) in which players have set up elaborate rollercoaster crashes – and just to make you feel better, all the pixelated passengers get up at the end. Meanwhile, Noor the Pacificist , an online gamer, decided to play through to the highest levels of World of Warcraft (the clue to the game's objective is in its title) without intentionally killing anything. The Sims 3 is set up as a game of middle-class aspirations: get a job, find a home, make money, work hard, find a partner and have a family. But in the blog narrative "Alice and Kev" , games design student Robin Burkinshaw created homeless characters. The moving narrative followed the paranoid and delusional Kev and his daughter Alice as they attempted – mostly unsuccessfully – to find jobs and love in a conformist world. Some game designers have even built this sort of subversion into their games. In Half Life 2: Episode Two, one unlockable achievement is to "send the garden gnome into space". To ­accomplish this, players have to travel through a world in which humanity has been brought to its knees by alien slavemasters, while carrying a garden gnome. Reviewer Tom Francis and ­others have created images of this ­exploit , which turns the game from a sci-fi shooter to dadaist happening . These are just a few highlights – for pretty much any videogame there'll be a video of someone playing it in a silly way. Maybe we can extend this to real life: next time I feel bored, I'll try wandering around with a garden gnome.