Silence And Space
On the parts of games where nothing happens
Ordered by the measured length of the gap each essay examines, longest first.
Six pieces about stretches of games in which the designer withheld something: an event, a voice, a marker, a piece of music. Each headline figure is the longest continuous gap we timed in that game.
01Traversal22m 07s
A snowfield crossing with no companion, no score and no marker, timed three times. The shortest run was nineteen minutes forty and the game is right not to have interrupted any of them.
Survival34 hours19 silences
05Traversal19m 30s
An arch on the horizon and nineteen and a half minutes of flat rock in the way. Nothing happens when you arrive, and everyone we asked walked to it anyway.
Open world52 hours28 silences
03Traversal14m 12s
No fish, no islands, no encounters, no reward for exploring. Fourteen minutes each way, and the whole argument the game makes about distance rests on the crossing being dull.
Exploration26 hours23 silences
02Occupancy8m 40s
One bench, one prompt, no achievement and no timer. Sitting changes nothing about the game state, which is exactly why three of us sat there for more than eight minutes.
Adventure18 hours11 silences
04Narrative6m 55s
Eighteen openable doors with nothing behind any of them. A horror game that spends seven minutes proving it will not jump out at you, then trades on that restraint for nine hours.
Horror12 hours16 silences
06Acoustic5m 02s
Eleven hours of continuous music, then one back garden in which the composer is instructed to shut up. Five minutes of wind and nothing, in the middle of the loudest game in this issue.
Narrative11 hours14 silences
Each headline number is the longest single stretch in that game meeting all four of our conditions: the player has control, no dialogue is spoken or written, no music plays above ambience, and no objective changes. Median figures for each game are on the measures page.
Titles are withheld throughout. This journal argues about design decisions, and naming the games turns every argument into a verdict on whether to buy them.