Nate Maxson is a writer and performance artist. He is the author of several collections of poetry including The Whisper Gallery and The Torture Report’ He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.”
When It Rains
Videogame developers have a term they use
For giving the player the illusion of agency, of choice
They say “when it rains” to describe keeping the players engaged through use of relatively small details
Because someone playing a game, upon encountering a seemingly random event within the digital sandbox
Such as, for example: a rainstorm
Secretly feels like they can’t step in the same river twice
When actually,
They can
They feel like it has never rained on pixilated soil before
I’ve felt it, though I don’t play as many games as I did when I was younger
It’s a thrill
Believing the rain is yours and yours alone
It really is
Another example, in most games that have a purportedly open world
The path towards where one needs to go is brightly lit by lights of some kind
As if only one street in the whole made up city was afforded public utilities
The rest of the area is there of course, it’s formed and there are objects and things to look at
But they’re hmm, how to put it?
They’re just dim
Compared to the brightly lit primary quest
And most of the time players will simply follow along without needing to see the rest
Of course, most people don’t quite realize how these things work
They just keep playing
Rescuing the princess and the planet ad infinitum, unaware of the developer’s invisible hand
There’s an almost spiritual element to it, in my opinion
I was told these things by a friend of mine who is involved in that industry
Who, for reasons of security, must remain anonymous
He told me about what “when it rains” means
To those in the know
He whispered this over the table at Ihop where we had been drinking coffee and discussing
His career, my old hobby
But don’t think of him as some protagonist from a Lovecraft story
Discovering the truth and slipping away
Because we had a bit of a laugh
When the waiter, upon presenting us with the bill
Remarked as he pointed to the window adjacent to our booth
“It sure is raining hard out there”
Our silence like crickets
Punctuated in the springtime
By forced laughter, not as loud as the rain
Or the espresso machines