You may have heard of the term “rage game” before. Examples include Getting Over It, Jump King, I Wanna Be The Guy, and others. There are other games that are really hard, but they generally get put in a separate category from “rage games”, like most of FromSoftware’s catalogue (Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and the like) or precision platformers like Super Meat Boy or Celeste. Anyway, the point is that these games are very difficult, and you will most likely die (or fall down) many times before making progress.

Now from that description, you may ask: “why would anyone play these games?” After all, it may seem at first glance that these games are all about making the player feel frustrated, having to try over and over and over again at each obstacle. Who would want to play a game that’s designed to make you not have fun?

If that’s what you’re thinking right now, you may be surprised to hear that many people love these games (myself included). Among FromSoftware’s games alone, Bloodbourne was nominated for Game of the Year at The Game Awards, and both Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Elden Ring won in their respective years!

I find it fascinating that people are drawn to these extremely difficult games, especially because, as a math teacher, I’ve seen so many students shy away from challenge, even students who’ve told me about how much they loved Elden Ring! What about these games, especially the non-“rage games”, do people even like? And can we take some of those principles into the classroom?

Satisfaction

I’m a big believer in beauty being a great reason to study mathematics. So much of math is elegant, profound, and, well, satisfying (See 2011 IMO Problem 2, for example). I think many of us chase a feeling of accomplishment, the moment of taking a step back and realizing you just did something amazing.

One of the main reasons people (myself included) say they love hard games is precisely this feeling. Subduing a difficult boss in Elden Ring is satisfying. Climbing to the top in Getting Over It (and I guess this applies to Celeste, too) is satisfying. Executing a technical full combo in Guitar Hero is satisfying.

To me, one massive part of all of these moments that makes them so special is the ability to look back and say “I just did that, and that was really cool.” There’s often a special cutscene, a story arc that the player is fulfilling, or even just the simple “GREAT ENEMY FELLED” banner showing up on screen. A moment to tie the experience together and tell the player “yes, you did just do that, and it was really cool.”

I think in the classroom we often don’t allow students take the time to step back and admire what they just accomplished. We get so caught up on the next thing (or worse, on grades…). Sometimes, pause for a moment and just let the satisfaction sink in. You may even want to point it out, and indicate how awesome what they did was, how beautiful the result they just proved was. Find the cutscene, find the story, find your version of “GREAT ENEMY FELLED” to give to your students. Try not to lose the beauty of the math: make it the goal.

Notes:
  1. Some of this comes down to the types of problems we choose to do as well. I’m planning on a whole other post just about problem choice, so I’ll leave this topic till then.
  2. I do plan on doing a follow-up on the same genre of games just to discuss how these games handle struggle. It’s sort of the other piece of the puzzle: the task that leads to satisfaction upon completion.