Why Do I Hate "Spot The Difference" So Much?

"Spot The Difference" games are quite old at this point. And anyone close to my age has probably been playing them in restaurants with kid's activity sheets for as long as they can remember. There are many many books and comics that employ the same central mechanic: look at two things and figure out what is different.

The base mechanic in and of itself is very banal, but when specifically employed in a horror context the meaning turns sour for me.

Warning: basic critical thinking required

Hey you there, internet user. I am writing an article here that is specifically analyzing my personal interpretation of a series of stories, games, mechanics, and trends. Basically nothing in this article is "absolute truth", rather it's "just, like, [my] opinion, man".

I want to explicitly mention that when I am criticizing the meanings of mechanics in games, I am not making any assumptions about the developer(s) behind those games. It is a tale as old as time for a creative to later be embarrassed by an interpretation of their craft. I am here producing that interpretation so I explicitly want to explain that I bear no ill intent against the developers mentioned here. They are all free to express and create however they see fit. And especially when I start talking about the political implications of certain game mechanics, I need you to do a few things

1. stick with me and let the ride take its course.
2. understand that I am talking about game mechanics on their own, and I am not making any assertions about the political identities of the people behind those mechanics.
3. Call a loved one and tell them that you care about them (it's not related but goddamn it people should do that more!)

Aside about how I experience many games

Unfortunately I do not have a large pile of cash just laying around my place that I can use to buy anything I want. So primarily I experience newer games through watching a YouTuber play them. Usually this is Markiplier but sometimes I'll branch out and watch someone else. This is some important context to know because if I had played the games for myself there may be different details that I have never seen in the YouTube videos. But from what I can tell, I can see enough to get a proper understanding of the high level concepts of each game.

"I'm On Observation Duty"

"I'm On Observation Duty" (and similar games) all meet a very baseline requirement of narrative expression. Things happen. They are games where you flip through virtual cameras in a 3D space and watch for "anomalies", that is you try to spot the difference between now and the last time you looked. Sometimes the changes are subtle like a chair being repositioned. Sometimes they are extremely obvious like a monster rearing their maw directly at the camera. What is significant about these kinds of games is the lose condition. If the player fails to spot a significant number of differences, they lose.

Now loss being tied specifically to the quantity of differences further reinforces a central message: there is a way that things ought to be and deviation is something to be scared of.

Conservative Ideals

The fundamental core of "conservatism" are these values:

• adhere to "traditional values"
• avoid change

Blended together conservatism can be vaguely understood as someone saying, "I liked how things worked at this one time and I wish we could just keep doing that forever".

Now I am specifically referring to them as ideals because they remain vague and unrealistic. Change happens, traditions change, communities go through hardships and discover different traditions that better adapt to the changing situations. But this is mainly the point of ideals. Ideals are not something to be "achieved" rather they are a beacon with which to orient oneself.

And in the simpler terms, I can definitely agree with conservative values to a degree. Having some stability and retaining a cultural tradition down through the ages is, to me, a net positive for society at large.

However there is a very loud and flatulent elephant in the room that I cannot ignore. Conservatism, at least where I live in the United States, is largely "owned" by the Republican Party (which if you are not from the US it is important to mention that our "republicans" actually don't mind having a monarchy so they're a bit different from yours). Also that same Republican Party has been increasingly swinging hard right politically and deep diving into the festering abyss of white christian nationalism which is our own home grown form of fascism that has been leeching away from society at large.

It may be subtle but I kind of fucking hate those guys? Like especially when it comes to fascists, I believe that the world is better off without them in it. And there are very very few groups of people that I seriously believe that for.

Jesse What The Fuck Are You Talking About

Now why am I ranting about the righter right wing of US politics? Because its relevant to this article about dumb little horror games.

See the entire premise of 'search and destroy all that is different because you are in danger if you don't' fills that specific ideological niche of conservatism.

I do not believe that this is some "dangerous thing that must be eradicated from public society" I mean that'd be damn hypocritical now wouldn't it.

I believe that specifically blending "spot the difference" with a " death based game loop" and "horror elements" creates a perfect storm to fit the modern mode of conservatism, which has become generally "fear of outsiders". You can see this in plain fucking daylight with ICE activities. They are just making up big numbers of "illegals" they need to search out and 'eradicate'.

The base desire to protect one's community is being actively twisted into bigotry, violence, and searing hatred for those that ought to be considered part of that same community that one would protect.

By positing that some people "don't belong" in a country that literally has claimed to pride itself in being built by immigrants, the sense of community is twisted into excluding vast swaths of people that could literally be your neighbors. And the rampant racism enables broad assumptions about individuals to be considered a valid base with which to exclude them from the community, which now opens them up to extreme violence.

Basically ICE is playing the shittiest version of "spot the difference" but the "normal" everyone is being compared to are cishet, white, and able-bodied people. So you can see why we so many people are starting to call them things like "Gestapo" and "Nazis".

Land Of 10,000 Lakes and potential bastion of dignity

The feeling is hitting extra hard since I live near Minneapolis, a major victim of "Operation Metro Surge". The collective trauma for everyone living in the area with half a brain has been palpable. And that's just me speaking as a white person! There are those afraid to ever leave their homes again because of how horrific things have been for them.

Minnesota overall has been exceptionally welcoming to immigrants, from a governance standpoint. There are always gonna be a big pile of assholes doing what they do, make life fundamentally worse for the rest of us. But those assholes are generally not taking big seats of power like on the federal government level.

For those unaware, Minnesota is a state in the USA. We're bordering Canada on our northern side and the upper eastern side of our state borders Lake Superior.

So consider how it would feel if a paramilitary organization invaded your home country, claiming to be there to protect your community all while persecuting a vast majority of your community members? At a minimum you should feel "not great" about that! (And if you don't, Jesus fucking Christ go to therapy.)

Back to silly games

So basically what I am trying to say is that while the game mechanics in and of themselves are not worth freaking out about, the very fundamental core of them is very reminiscent of different ethnic cleansing operations. And while at no point have I even thought that the developers of these games would have ever intended for this, I can't help but see it every time I see a world that was created to encourage that same ideal. And it most certainly is not an ideal that I want to pursue.

Now that being said, this is solely my interpretation. One could just as easily see the game mechanics as the experience of a victimized person having to constantly perform threat assessment for all the subtle changes in people's behavior and details in their environment. But that trauma from community scale violence is not so easy to ignore. I likely will never play one of these games myself because of it.

Human Shaped

Now for the infinitely more positive part of this article. Why do I love "Human Shaped" so goddamn much despite it being in the same genre?

Story Overview

In human shaped you play as a young adult struggling to set out a life for themselves. They live in a small apartment working a job a friend helped them land at a nearby convenience store. Slowly the world turns dark as strange creatures start trying to replace the people coming into the store. The player must correctly identify the replacements and refuse to serve them. Generally there is little to no violence but the existential dread is what really gets to me.

At one ending of the game, several monsters talks directly to the player character insisting that the player character isn't doing a very good job "fitting into [their] skin". And generally the motif of humans saying their skin is uncomfortable and how they want to stop "wearing" it is a way to know when someone is being taken over.

At the ending I prefer, the player character is given one final temptation to rest and allow the monster to wear their skin. The monster insists that it can wear that skin so much better than the player, that people would love them more if the monster took over. But ultimately the player character rejects the offer, insisting that their humanity is their own in all of its beauty and flaws.

I think it is a really good story that is worth analyzing with a couple lenses.

Lenses

Lens of transition

The lens of transition is valuable. While noteworthy that I don't mean transitioning as in being transgender, I suppose that is another way one could attempt to analyze the narrative. I feel like the basis for that is much thinner than what I am proposing here.

The story centers around a young adult struggling to make that transition from child to adult. They are finding their footing and trying to be what their family wants them to be, a successful and happy adult.

It's far from easy, it's a struggle. And throughout the story they are thinking of giving up. So many people around them have already given up the dream of "growing up" and are choosing to remain childish or simply remove themselves from society. They are being tempted.
The thought of giving up on adulthood, dreams of success, and society at large are something that young people are struggling with more and more. This game is set in Japan where this exact social phenomena has been wearing down an entire generation of young people (while noteworthy for this article, this phenomena is not strictly limited to Japan). Why should one work hard when the rewards are diminishing year by year. Why should one dream of financial success if all they can manage is a night shift at a convenience store. Why work hard when the best you can do for yourself is a small apartment, microwave meals, and a shitty job?

And that's why I prefer the ending where the player character rejects that temptation. The offer of giving up means resting, no longer working so hard. But the player character rejects it and insists on working for their betterment.

Lens of technology

Now another crucial lens also focused on that has to do with recent social anxieties is the rise of Generative LLM-based Artificial "Intelligence". More and more people, influencers, businesses, software, and tools are insisting that everyone ought to use AI to make their lives easier. They should use AI instead of writing that email. They should read an AI summary instead of reading an artfully crafted article. They should generate a pile of slop websites to suck in enormous amounts of ad money off of anyone just trying to find a simple piece of information.

AI claims to democratize information while decimating they very scaffolding people spent decades building to actually make information more accessible.

If we consider the monsters in the game to be AI, we see this sequence. The player character sees people replacing fundamental human aspects of themselves with AI. They're replacing their sources of information with AI, they're offloading their critical thinking to AI. And they insist that the player character should join them in their inhumanity in the ceaseless pursuit of just another gigawatt, million dollars, or token set. All semblances of reality and humanity are eroded over time by the hammering of websites to feed the infernal machines.

In this the player character sees the people choosing to replace their humanity physically represented as inhumanity. Wearing ill-fitting skins that can't make a full appearance of humanity. Like many of my ilk, the player character mainly rejects the nonhuman characters and tries to stick with the humanity centered characters. But they are being worn down more and more. Maybe the player character should just give in and use the automation to improve their lives somehow.

But then in my preferred ending they are facing a final crisis where they are forced to decide. And in that moment they insist that they must assert their humanity and reject anything that would strip them of their humanity, no matter how difficult it can become in the modern world we find ourselves in.

Lens of truth

Finally the lens of truth!

There is a troubling trend I have been seeing, especially amongst younger people.

And usually when you hear an older person saying something like that you're about to hear the most dogshit take you have ever heard. Hopefully this is not that.

What I have seen with younger people in my family and what I can see of younger people online, there are extreme pressures of "always on" social medias and the ruthless opinions shared behind anonymous masks. The public square has been wholly moved online into the social spaces where anyone can say anything to anyone with some limitations (and depending on the site, those limitations usually do more harm than good). These people are growing up and developing their young minds in a virtual panopticon where every possible thought, action, and image is catalogued, archived, and mocked relentlessly by armies of faceless accounts.

I should also mention here that this issue is not limited in effect on young people. Older people are being affected by the same social implications as well. But many older people had the opportunity to develop a stronger sense of self without the digital panopticon before such technologies were created, so the repercussions are dampened slightly for them.

If it isn't obvious, I firmly believe this is a deeply unhealthy way to grow up. But unfortunately our physical world has so few real physical spaces that children can spend time together and develop meaningful relationships that it's one of the few ways these young people can build connections and a stronger sense of self.

This constant pressure to never ever ever make a single mistake because it can and will haunt you for potentially decades can be damaging. Potentially for the first generation ever, these children are being raised in possibly the most hostile learning environment to develop their personality and identity. The pressure to conform can be crushing. They are under so much pressure to wear a false mask and just present this perfect facsimile of humanity.

I believe that the player character, as a young person growing up in this cruel space, is struggling to decide for themselves if they are willing to live as their authentic self or not. It is a true act of courage, especially now, to assert yourself as yourself truthfully and without compromise. To be fully one's self can be absolutely freeing. But it does come with a social cost. All those pressures to conform can be too much for some.

In this interpretation of the story, the player character is working through this struggle. Do they choose to become a husk of their true self just to garner social acceptance, or do they choose to be authentic and accept all consequences of that choice? Hopefully obvious by now that in the ending I prefer they are rejecting the allure of donning the mask. They are rejecting perfection and falsified personalities.

Ludo-narrative, Mechanics Have Meaning

The tale as old of time is "ludo-narrative dissonance." Now that is generally taken to mean that the meaning expressed by the mechanics is fundamentally different from the meaning intended by the narrative of the game.

Now the classic example is a game that wants to make the violence in the game feel meaningful and tragic, but then the actual mechanics are many series of extreme violence which the player is actually forced to engage with to proceed through the story. A game that forces you to kill thousands of grunt soldiers but then has the player character say something to the final boss like "you're a killer and I'll never be anything like you!" This definitely creates a weird feeling for the player since they just killed so many people and are being forced to act like they are on some kind of moral high ground.

While ludo-narrative is generally talked about, the crux of it is that mechanics have meaning. The kinds of mechanics and systems employed in a game can synthesize into a interesting expression of meaning. This expression of meaning is not always intentional by the author, which is really important to understand. Like when I say that "I'm on Observation Duty" has game mechanics that express a meaning of conservatism and is eerily similar to the methodologies and intents of ICE in the US, I am not accusing the author of "I'm on Observation Duty" to have any such intent or plan to express that. In all reality they were likely trying to just make a fun little game. The mechanics just happen to synthesize into that meaning in my personal interpretation.

Conclusion

When taking the differences in how "I'm on Observation Duty" and "Human Shaped", it is really interesting how such similar mechanics can be fully re-contextualized to have different interpretations and meaning. What brings up thoughts of trauma and bigotry in one context will aid in asserting thoughts of self-actualization in a different context.

I believe that every form of art is worth exploring. It is worth sharing what meaning we can find in the beautiful expressions of raw humanity. And when I dislike something I definitely try to dislike it for a reason. And most importantly even when I dislike something that doesn't preclude it from carrying value. Maybe for someone else "I'm On Observation Duty" is a really heartfelt expression of some meaning to them.

I certainly welcome differences of opinion on this. But I felt like I have a meaningful enough take on things that it was worth writing. For a while I was having a hard time writing this because I wasn't sure it would be worth writing an article that was just about a game I dislike. But when I first watched Markiplier play "Human Shaped" I found a sufficient foil.

This article was a long time writing. I had a lot of help from my lovely dears helping me sort out my words and figure out which parts needed more revision than others. Thank you my dears, for everything.

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