Masocore

Overview

Masocore is a postmodern indie game genre in which the designer intentionally frustrates the player. This frustration is typically accomplished by restructuring a preexisting game genre to place it into one of three categories of frustration:

Trial and Error

Trial and Error is the most common form of Masocore frustration. In Trial and Error Masocore, games are typically designed with a singular strategy in mind and if the player deviates from this plan, the game is reset via the player's death. Often, these strategies are broken up by segments of the games referred to as "screens" so that the player is not forced to replay the entire game upon death. This presents frustration as an aesthetic, arising from repeated player death, as opposed to a discouragement. Braid is an example of a Trial and Error Masocore game.

Confusion

Confusion is another common form of Masocore frustration and is often paired with Trial and Error. Confusion Masocore consists of games in which the conventions of the genre are broken in favor of seemingly random or absurd logic. This often manifests itself in the form of cheap death or illogical puzzles. Seven Minutes is an example of a Confusion Masocore game.

Play

Play is the least explored method of Masocore frustration. Play Masocore consists of a game without player death and with relatively complex mechanics. This takes away player motivation, shifting the source of challenge to the mechanics of the game as opposed to the rules and goals of the game. Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist is an example of a Play Masocore game.

Games

I Wanna Be The Guy
I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie The Game

In IWBTG, there is practically a pixel-perfect path that must be taken. Straying from that path results in an instantaneous player death, with a mockingly violent explosion of blood & gibs and fanfare-like guitar riff. However, the path is rarely ever apparent to the player in the first attempt. The game achieves this through having no rules to the game world at all. The player has absolutely no guarantee that the next tree, the one that looks like every other tree encountered in the game, won't explode and kill them when they get near it. The patch of grass the player is standing on could very well rocket up into the sky and kill them without any warning. As a result, the player is perpetually on their toes, and forced to memorized practically every inch of the game in order to successfully complete it.

Seven Minutes

Seven Minutes

Seven Minutes is an art game that expresses its nihilistic theme and manages to delightfully frustrate the player through its anti-platformer gameplay. Each level in the game is a single screen with each screen focusing on a certain platformer design flaw that must be bested in order to progress. If the player is killed, the screen restarts and the rules of the level stay consistent. Seven Minutes is an excellent example of how Masocore properties can be used to force a design focus on the player as well as to build an atmosphere and emotional landscape for an artistic experience. Seven Minutes contains three possible endings, one of which requires a poignant gameplay twist.

Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist
Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist is a collection of four surreal gaming experiences expressing a disdain for man's desire to "play God." With each stage, the player is bombarded with epileptic aesthetics, disorienting controls, and absurd gameplay. The result is the single example of a Play Masocore game that leaves a player feeling satisfyingly frustrated.

Psychosomnium

Psychosomnium

Psychosomnium is an art game that softens the hardcore difficulty of Masocore games in favor of illogical platform puzzles revolving around death and gameplay surprises. To give examples of these puzzles is to spoil the game however one basic set of gameplay logic in Psychosomnium comes into play when the player's character dies in the same screen as an NPC. In this case, the player assumes control of that NPC. This concept forces player death for the purpose of puzzle-solving and is one reason why this game is Masocore. From a plot perspective, Psychosomnium is merely a surreal dream with a surprise ending of Masocore proportion.

Mighty Jill Off

Mighty Jill Off

Mighty Jill Off is a humorous and thoroughly challenging Masocore platformer made by Anna Anthropy, the woman who coined the term "Masocore." The premise is that the player is a masochist who must make their way through a painful course in order to please the Queen. One of the notably longer Masocore games, Mighty Jill Off attempts to cover many platformer concepts and force the player to execute moves perfectly. Furthermore, Mighty Jill Off has one of the more relevant plots to fit the Masocore genre's difficult gameplay.

Virtual Silence

Virtual Silence

Virtual Silence is a slow-paced and more puzzle-focused example of a Masocore. The player has the ability to manipulate the background color and thus render blocks, enemies or bullets of the same color invisible. The game starts off with multiple screens based around these puzzles but then uses the last level to speed up the pace, instantly changing the game's difficulty. On top of this gameplay lies an oddball story about a mother coping with her son's autism. In both gameplay and narrative, Virtual Silence is a unique game.

N Plus
N / N Plus

The N games take a far different direction than something like I Wanna Be The Guy, resorting to physics based twitch skills much more than memorization. Each level is a single screen, and there are hardly any "surprises" thrown at the player as they progress...what you see is what you get. The missiles & laser turrets behave the exact same way every time, so the challenge comes from having the dexterity to avoid all the obstacles and get to the exit. The player will die dozens, maybe hundreds of times simply trying to make it through a handful of N levels.

Jetpack Cat
Jetpack Cat

In Jetpack Cat, the player controls an orange cat with a jetpack through very challenging single-screen levels. The player's health and fuel are tied together in a single meter, which means that the player must maintain jetpack fuel at all times, or face death. It also means that taking enemy fire will drain the fuel, making it harder to navigate the countless instant-death obstacles that litter the levels. The game also focuses a lot on bullet-hell shooting segments in addition to masochistic platforming.

Braid
Braid

Braid, while seeming like more of a puzzle game on the surface, can be considered Masocore by virtue of the fact that the player is repeatedly dying and rewinding time to perform the exact same jumps or precision movements over & over. The time mechanics in the game allow it to be one of the more brutal platformers out there, as the player can simply rewind to the exact point where they made a mistake.

Romhacks

Romhacks are the most commonly known form of Masocore games, in which people hack ROMs for existing games like Super Mario Bros, and rearrange the levels to make them excruciatingly difficult with a heavy focus on trial & error.

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Name	Platforms	Developer
Jetpack Cat	PC
Takeshi's Challenge	NES, WSHP	Taito Corporation
Silver Surfer	NES	Dodekaedron Software Creations, Inc.
Virtual Silence	PC	Virtanen
Mighty Jill Off	PC
Bit.Trip RUNNER released on May 17, 2010	WSHP	Gaijin Games
Demon's Souls released on Oct. 6, 2009	PS3	FromSoftware, Inc.
Trials HD released on Aug. 12, 2009	XBLM	RedLynx Ltd
Seven Minutes released on Feb. 23, 2008	PC	Virtanen
N+ released on Feb. 20, 2008	PSP, XBLM, DS	Slick Entertainment, SilverBirch Studios, Klei Entertainment Inc.

Concept Name:	Masocore
Appears in:	16 games
First appearance:	Takeshi's Challenge
Aliases