Headphones blaring I’ve Seen Footage by Death Grips. I’m all out of explosives, plenty of ammo in my guns but the corridors are too tight for me to safely take care of the horde on my tail. I think to myself, “If only I can find the teleporter?! Please just give me room to safely shoot behind me.” I turn into a corridor, run to the end of the hallway which, to my dismay, is blocked. I turn around hugging the wall and the wave of pure hate hugs the other wall as I successfully turn around & continue from where I came. Narrowly weaving in and out of dozens of zombies successfully without taking any damage. I see that there's only one possible exit, or so I thought. I run straight for the door down a narrow hall and see the grey tile floor which up to that point signified a teleporter room. This time it was an office and with nearly dozens of these things pouring into the entrance with no exit I’m engulfed. I throw my hands up from the keyboard in agony as I see my protagonist torn limb by limb.
I have been waiting for a game to teach me how to deal with fear all my life, by any means. While I hold a great propensity for wanting to be terrified, often times coping with it for me is physically exhausting. Teleglitch may be that game. It being a rogue-like that lifts the controls of Hotline Miami & places them in a setting which reminds me of Hull Zero Three set to a visual & audio aesthetic akin to Quake II. Teleglitch also happens to be a difficult game, which is what I really wanted to talk about here. Many gamers have a narrow view of what constitutes ‘difficult’.
Generally, when describing our own experiences we say a game was difficult, when in reality all it required was patience and a base level of competency of mechanics which at the time we lacked. This is understandable. That isn’t what makes good games that happen to be difficult stand-out, these are the ingredients. So often these two ingredients hold a duopoly over the conversation. It's how a difficult game prepares its ingredients to me which makes it special. Often times working off the players expectations, or breaking up the difficulty with segments of relief or euphoria. When people talk about Dark Souls they fall into this trap of only talking about it's ingredients in the difficulty, but overlooking the beauty in how it's ingredients were prepared. How the theme was entirely constructed to serve the design, to the subtle ways the enemies play off your expectations. On their own, these ingredients are nothing special, but when properly prepared they can make something which is truly unique & make what is generally thought of as bad design, good.
When I started Teleglitch I found myself someone quite adept at it’s mechanics. Having completed Hotline Miami multiple times, going for the A+ on every level. On top of that I’m someone who takes my time learning it’s specific systems with nearly 20 hours played so far. This is the proficiency & patience I talked about previously, something which the game requires. Neither of these things are what makes it’s difficulty special. What makes it special is that despite the investment, instead of feeling like an expert at the game, I now feel like I’m merely surviving. And that feels so good.
This is because the game does such a wonderful job in first capturing the stillness in exploring the unknown and then transitioning to the breakneck adrenaline rush of running for your life. There are points when it is not viable to be patient. Instead quick action is required. There are also points when you are just overwhelmed by odds out of your favor, which makes the successful chases so euphoric when have just enough time to get away. At this point in time, no matter how proficient I become at the systems, I’ll never not be immobilized due to fear from having an enemy with a gun surprise me. That’s incredible. What grabbed me with Hotline Miami was how well it captured it’s aesthetic that it was going for. Oddly enough, Teleglitch does this equally well with the similar mechanics but in a completely different setting.
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