Minit: Time Loops & Stress vs Escapism
Over the course of four years in college, I found myself gradually become less and less interested in what used to be my favorite hobby. Video games, in general, used to be not only my go to activity in my spare time, but the industry was also one I aspired to work in as a career. I have distinct memories of faking being sick in middle school only to spend all day on the couch completing questlines in Skyrim while my parents were at work; it was the only time I was able to play for that long in one sitting. Non-narrative games like Minecraft, and any number of multiplayer shooters saw that habit continue consistently through my teenage years. However, like many students, there comes a time when you have to put your hobbies and habits on the back burner in place of you studies. Often times, those habits might fade away and become something you can only relive in memories. After a good couple years of thinking video games were something I grew out of, Minit (2018) drew me back in, and showed me that it is possible to present them in new ways.
Minit takes around two hours to finish. It cost $5 at launch, and has art direction shooting for a step above Pong (1972). It’s music is repetitive, and the core, defining mechanic is a simple twist on the plot famous film Groundhog Day (1993). Despite this underwhelming description, Minit is able to make bold statements through its careful choices within its gameplay, repetition, and procedures. The gameplay of Minit naturalizes a nearly universal part of video games; a part which is used exclusively as a penalty. Death in games are core to much of their appeal. The most grandiose escapism is the incorporation of such. The naturalization of being forced to die in Minit changes death in a video game from being a penalty, into a utility to learn from your mistakes than in a shooter or other timed challenge. When made procedural, death becomes something useful rather than something to avoid.
To explain how Minit does this, it is important to define procedures in the context of video games. Game critic Ian Bogost, author of the highly influential book Persuasive Games is the founder of the concept of procedural rhetoric. The following description of this concept was learned from Chapter 1 of his book Persuasive Games (titled “Procedural Rhetoric) as well as his article “The Rhetoric of Video Games” which was published a year later, and expands on the topic.
Bogost describes both procedures in the context of video games, and how they differ from themselves when in combination with rhetoric. Procedures, in the context of computers, refer to the machine’s ability to execute a series of rules (Bogost, Persuasive Games 6). Rhetoric, on the other hand, refers to the art of persuasion, most commonly through spoken word. Procedural Rhetoric, then, refers to the ability to persuade the viewer, reader, or player through the execution of processes, whether they be procedures executed by the player or the machine. Hence, Bogost theorizes that this concept is specific to video games in that they are the only medium where the experience is always tied to the machine executing said processes, or rules. Moreover, games are creative mediums in which tasks, executed by the player, are repeated over and over again. This differs from other forms of entertainment in that they do not allow the viewer or reader’s input. Input in this context refers to the literal pressing of buttons, rather than the creation of discourse like in a professional setting. This form of input is the primary differentiating factor between persuasion in games and persuasion in films, books, music, or other mediums.
Another useful concept introduced in his article “Rhetoric in Video Games” is the Possibility Space. Possibility space refers to the freedom within an environment following recognition of its constraints, or rules. Bogost uses the example of poetic constraints to better define this.
“By designing the rules of literary composition, Oulipian writers share much in common with children on a playground: first they create a possibility space, then they fill that space with meaning by exploring the free movement within the rigid structure of literary rules.” (Bogost, Rhetoric of Video Games 121)
Understanding how video games simulate certain environments, and how they make interactions within them persuasive, are critical to understanding procedural rhetoric as a whole. This is because procedural rhetoric relies primarily on the ability for a game to convey messages through those spaces and processes. Like constraints dictated by poetic forms, the simulation of an environment dictates the constraints that procedures operate within to create meaning. The player only has input on the simulation, therefore, the video games are unique in that they can convey messages only if the player repeats a task they are persuaded to complete.
Before applying these forms of analysis in gaming to Minit, there is one other concept specific to its narrative and form that are worth taking into account.
Lacanian death drive relates to the core mechanic that differentiates Minit from other games. The story begins with the character picking up a cursed sword which causes them to die every 60 seconds, and restart from they picked it up. While it is not a complete reset of the game (some tools they pick up can be kept in their inventory even after they die) it still forces the player to return to where they began. By the end of the game, the player should have learned enough about the world be able to defeat the final enemy in 60 seconds.
Death plays a pivotal role in Minit’s gameplay. Unlike many other games, death is no longer a penalty. In fact, it becomes a tool. Jacques Lacan’s further writings on death drive differs from that of Freud’s in that he sees little difference between death drives and sexual drives (Lacan, 432).
In his 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud introduces the death drive as distinctly different from sexual drives. This is due primarily to his original theorization arguing that they are relating to the masochistic and disturbed (Freud, 9). In 1939’s Ecrits, Lacan connects sexual drives and death drives as one in the same. He introduces the French word for orgasm, “Jouissance”, to demonstrate this. “Jouissance”, in french, refers to both the orgasm and enjoyment in general. What is somewhat paradoxical about this, is that it is the orgasm is end of sexual desire. Human beings desire an end to their enjoyment, an end to sex. In Ecrits, Lacan writes:
“In his Beyond, Freud makes room for the fact that the pleasure principle —to which he has, in sum, given a new meaning by instating its signifying articulation of repetition in the circuit of reality, in the form of the primary process—takes on a still newer meaning by helping force open its traditional barrier related to a jouissance, a jouissance that is pinpointed at that time in masochism, and even opens onto [the question of] the death drive.” (Lacan, 9)
Lacan thus is arguing that the orgasm is inherently masochistic, in that our drives, sexual or otherwise, always seek an end to desire. The ultimate end to desire, then, is death.
So how does any of this relate to Minit? Returning to its defining mechanic: the curse prevents the end to desire. Through various puzzles and challenges around the world, the game makes small arguments that show how the language of games can convey messages without any story at all. The story, then, serves as the possibility space as much as the actual map does. Both contribute to the ability for the player to learn from the procedures they execute.
This leads me to begin by commending the game’s first subversion of escapist tropes; the effects on pacing. Pacing in games are always a challenge to developers. People who play games are accustomed to always being entertained, because in most games you can leave and do something else in the world if you ever get bored. The nature of the curse then gives rise to another obstacle besides being forced to restart; the game times your lives.
The procedure of having timed lives is a direct example of how procedurality can be rhetorical. Minit is a simple game. While it gives the player an open world to explore, they only have a couple story-driven goals to work towards within it. The core mechanic creates more, smaller goals for the player, as well as making them work towards them with more intensity.
To demonstrate this, I propose the utility of one of the first puzzles the player is supposed to solve in the game. To the west of the starting house, there is an old man sitting at the base of a lighthouse. He talks very slowly, and there is no way for the player to speed up the text. When the player first arrives, they listen to the old man for a few seconds and realize he is giving directions. However, he is speaking so slowly that the player dies before he finishes telling them where to go. The player solves the puzzle by learning that they will need to value their time and rush to certain objectives as soon as they respawn. This reminds and persuades the player to not only rush to their objective, but also to be patient once they have correctly allocated their sixty seconds. It is a simple message, but it is effective in its delivery and serves as a good invisible tutorial for the beginning of the game.
There is a valid argument to be made in favor of this being a narrative-driven form of rhetoric, but I argue for the opposite. On the surface, yes, the developers intended for the story to progress such that the character learns to go straight to the lighthouse and listen to the man’s directions. But is it not the player learning to do this from the rules of the game before the character learns to do so?
The case of the old man at the lighthouse gives rise to the question of how, or why, dying is made rhetorical. Deconstructing death in games are often simple. As previously acknowledged, death is almost always used as a penalty. In a shooter like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) dying is a penalty which cannot be used to one's advantage; if you get shot, you respawn somewhere else and try to shoot others and score more points. You cannot die and choose to respawn at an enemy’s back, or from a strategic position. The rhetoric of those sorts of games persuade the player into staying safe.
A psychoanalytic reading of a multiplayer shooter might exemplify the difference between Freud and Lacan’s theorization of drives. Multiplayer games are meant to be fun, yet they have limits that, when met, end the game. Therefore the goal of the player is to reach that limit. They do so by doing things that prove to be somewhat cathartic to players, yet the objective to end the game remains. The death drive, the drive to end something that is satisfying a drive, plays the role of keeping the players hooked while at the same time, concluding that catharsis.
Minit takes away a few factors from this now-traditional formula in games. First, the sixty second life limit takes away the fairness in dying. You aren’t shot by someone better at shooting than you are at dodging, you weren’t poisoned by your own neglect. You have no control over your death. So how do the mechanics in Minit satisfy death drives? Answer: it doesn’t. I argue that, while psychoanalysis has generally come to agree on Lacan’s parallels between sex and death drives, Minit operates from an almost Freudian perspective in which the sexual and destructive drives are separate from one another. It is from this perspective that changes the core mechanic of dying into something useful.
To demonstrate, I propose taking a closer look at a puzzle from later in the game. The final enemy of the game is the CEO of the evil corporation that had both been polluting waters near your home, and manufacturing cursed swords. There are multiple parts to this challenge, all of which speak to the Freudian analysis of the death drive. The first challenge in the company’s headquarters is a long hallway. In a regular game, a hallway would not phase the player; they would simply walk down it and continue. In Minit, the hallway itself is as much of an enemy as a guard would be. Health and time are similar in that both need to be saved and protected. To get around this, the player must either find shoes that make them run faster, or find another path to the CEO. The latter would require the player to allocate the rest of their time to searching the facility. If they succeed, they will still die. However, death here is made useful because they can respawn with a full sixty seconds and walk the correct path.
Protection of time as health speaks to Freud’s conception of the death drive as it gives rise to a nihilistic view of life and death. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud writes:
“So through a long period of time the living substance may have been constantly created anew, and easily extinguished, until decisive external influences altered in such a way as to compel the still surviving substance to ever greater deviations from the original path of life, and to ever more complicated and circuitous routes to the attainment of the goal of death.” (Freud, 31)
Here, Freud is speaking on changes in human history that increased our lifespan, and made us more aware of our health and what we want from death. The industrial revolutions, for example, allowed humanity to not only expect a longer life, but have a more enjoyable one at that. The extension of one's lifespan by means of technology operates in the same way Minit does. In Minit, when made hyperware of your shrinking lifespan, you take less leisure in your actions. It is because of that awareness that you work harder. That awareness makes your life more productive- the procedural escapism of having the ability to respawn makes your death useful.
Minit may not be the most refined, beautiful, or impactful puzzle game, though it’s procedures serve as an interesting text to examine from a psychoanalytic perspective. When death is made a non-punishing procedure, it allows for the player to take notice of how they play. When their life has a countdown, they think faster, act faster, and learn to make decisions better. The hallway, for example, poses as much of a threat as an enemy would. The player uses their death, not necessarily as a physical tool here, but as a utility to force better decision making. The death drive in Minit operates from a Freudian perspective, where the cathartic trade off with dying is eliminated, and dying serves as a punishment that the player slowly manipulates into motivation.
Annotated Bibliography
Primary Text: Nijman, Jan Willem, director. Minit. Devolver Digital, 3 Apr. 2018.
Minit’s defining quality in terms of gameplay is the forced-death mechanic after 60 seconds. The character returns to where they were cursed at the beginning of the game. Through the nearly two hour experience, the player must explore the island their character inhabits in order to find a way to lift the curse, and defeat an evil capitalist who is polluting the nearby rivers and forests. Through the repeated process of dying, Minit takes what is often a penalty in games and makes it a tool. The naturalization of death takes away the fear of it and makes it useful.
I chose to further analyze Minit for this narrative, as well as its form. It has a distinct art style that exhibits pastiche, and minimalism. Its narrative outside the curse also contains themes of Marxism and anticonsumption, though I will not have time to cover those topics at length in eight pages. However, the core mechanic, and the way the player uses it to interact within the simulation allows for important
Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games. MIT Press Ltd, 2007.
In “Persuasive Games”, Ian Bogost introduces and defines his theory of Procedural rhetoric. Procedural rhetoric argues that games are excellent tools of teaching people about how communities operate through the authorship and repetition of certain processes.
This concept is useful in the production and analysis of video games, as well as in application to Minit due to its core gameplay mechanic: dying every 60 seconds. Through this and other repeated processes, Minit teaches the player to both learn about the world you inhabit within the simulation, and not to fear death outside the simulation.
Bogost, Ian. “The Rhetoric of Video Games.” The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning, 2008, pp. 117–139.
In “The Rhetoric of Video Games”, Ian Bogost expands upon his conception of procedural rhetoric, as well as giving a few case studies (namely Animal Crossing and being taught to pay down a mortgage). He also elaborates on the conception of the Possibility Space in games, and how constructed environments convey rhetoric without having to speak at all.
I primarily used this article as a personal introduction to procedural rhetoric. In this essay, though, this article is cited to better explain the possibility space and how procedural rhetoric is applied to Minit.
Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Translated by Bruce Fink, W.W. Norton & Co., 2006.
In Lacan’s Ecrits, he outlines the concept of desire and differentiates it from drives. He argues that desire is singular, and drives are many. Moreover, the end to desire is death. In Minit, the character desires to complete two tasks; 1) break the curse that causes him to die and be reborn, and 2) stop a corporation from polluting a river and exploiting workers. What complicates this beyond the need to complete these in 60 seconds is that there is no resting in death, the character must complete them to die permanently. This ties into Lacan’s theory of desire because normally the end to desire is death. Without permanent death (not to be confused with permadeath which is another mechanic in certain video games), the character cannot rest.
Freud, Sigmund, et al. Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings. International Psycho-analytical Press, 1922.
In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sigmund Freud introduces his concept of the death drive, which was later reformulated by Jacques Lacan. Freud differs from Lacan in that he separates sexual and death drives, arguing that death drives have little to do with sexual masochism, or anything of the sort.
I included this text in this essay because, while Lacan’s theorization is more widely accepted today, drives in Minit operate under the Freudian perspective, where death is not motivated by catharsis.
