I picked up a copy of Mosa Lina (Stuffed Wombat, 2023) for a Thinky Games stream recently. It’s comically easy to fire up and feed several minutes of your life into its teeth. There’s no progression of any kind, no heights to reach, every game is different and each challenge can last anything from seconds to minutes.
And… I hate myself for playing it?
Mosa Lina calls itself a hostile interpretation of the immersive sim, which is to say it is a platformer, or perhaps you could say puzzle-platformer. We might end up arguing about genre and we’re not going to discuss my genre agenda here. Not for a few paragraphs, anyway. Each level WITH LOTS OF PLATFORMS asks the player to collect fruit and get to the exit. Or does it? Maybe we could argue about that. But not for now. Maybe in a few paragraphs.
Mosa Lina’s thing is anarchy: it doesn’t dictate solutions. It’s so serious about demolishing the designer-as-dictator, that Mosa Lina can’t be sure a solution even exists. It pleads with the player not to be afraid to “reroll” the game.
See, Mosa Lina selects ten levels at random from a hand-crafted stack and then picks out a selection of hand-crafted tools for the player to use. However, each time the player attempts a level, they will be given just three of these tools. Will these tools be enough to allow the player safe passage to the next level? Ah, that is for you to find out. There is no mathematical proof that a solution exists.
So, maybe you’ve started out with the box gun which is fairly understandable, useful for scaling heights. But you might also find yourself in possession of the frog gun which is useful for – well, that’s for you to find out, right? There are a selection of secrets in the mechanics which means some levels are easier than you think. I’m not convinced I’ve got them all figured out. But I keep asking questions why the developer decided the Bamboo Gun could only carry one bullet. (Yes, yes, I KNOW WHY, hold your tongue.)
I promised to start arguing about genre. Right, well, to inject more randomness and potential for unique solution into the game, Mosa Lina has been built inside a universe of hair-trigger physics. Stuff is either in motion, or begging to be nudged into motion. Touch me and I will fly away into space. Goodbyeeeeeee
In his video essay on Mosa Lina, Caleb Gamman suggests Mosa Lina isn’t an “immersive sim” but, actually, an immersive sim. What the videogame industry considers to be an immersive sim is highly stage-managed illusion of freedom, whereas Mosa Lina really is one, warts and all. That’s a lovely viewpoint, but to me Mosa Lina came across like a portal into the Foddyverse, a parallel reality where Einstein discovered the physics of player fuckery. Here you’ll find QWOPpers and GIRPers constantly trying to Get Over It. Such games feature what Miguel Sicart calls “abusive game design”:
Abusive game design subverts the systems-centric design paradigm and calls for an approach to game design that aims to establish a personal dialogue between player and designer, by means of a game. The game is only the mediator in this dialogue. As such, abusive game design understands games as a personal affair between individuals. Abusive games recast play as a dialogic interplay between player and designer.
Well, that’s interesting, because didn’t I say Mosa Lina opposes the designer as dictator? Truth is, the designer is always the elephant in the room whether they like it or not. I made this fucked-up thing, every choice is mine, except for one: your decision to play it.
I haven’t yet elaborated on just how hard Mosa Lina works to piss you off. Suppose you’ve got a level with three tools and you’ve figured out that this is doable but, at the last hurdle, you klutz up. Instead of transcending through the exit, you transcend, ass-first, through the dark floor of the screen and die. What does Mosa Lina do? It gives you a different level. And even if you come back to this same level, it’ll give you three different tools. You might never see that winning combo again. So much for your solution, spaceboy.
If you want to know what dark magic Mosa Lina weaves to pull players into its dark embrace, it’s pretty simple. Mosa Lina is as jittery and restless as its Foddyphysics. Oh, you died. Now try again with a different level and different tools because who knows what will happen? You can just try again and again, climb back into the action within seconds of failing. It’s so tempting to play because you’re constantly engaged, there’s barely any cruft. All game, all the time, 24/7 just for you. Yes, it’s a drug: immediate and stimulating. Except, that is, when you’ve beaten nine levels.
When you have just one level left, Mosa Lina slaps the label “Final Level” on it and… extends it with some additional tools and challenges. You know, typically, the Final Level is the one you’ve struggled with the most. And Mosa Lina decides this is the level which should be made harder. Well, gee fucking whiz.
I hate the Final Level so much. It is an incredible ball ache, always involving vast deathly drops. The first Final Level took me a hundred attempts to complete. This is NOT a drill, I am serious. Later, I promised myself that if I couldn’t make Final Level progress I would take the game’s advice and “reroll” – which replaces all of the levels and tools with a new set. But rerolling on the Final Level feels so galling.
You might be thinking why I put myself through this at all? I wonder this too. The truth is I’m not a fan of GIRP and QWOP and all that palava. They’re fine for a quick laugh but I wouldn’t like to spend a lot of time with them. I played Heave-Ho with my two children at WASD and, while it was entertaining at times, I was irritated by relentless deaths through failed button choreography.
But Mosa Lina is practically a casual game because there’s no reason to get invested. There’s no path to “victory”. It’s all game, all the time. You can’t become King Mosa, even though I have actually completed three Final Levels in a single session. Sure, it can get really fucking hairy at times, but the thrill of vanquishing an Evil Final Level is something else.
There you go, I’ve now dubbed Mosa Lina an immersive sim, not an immersive sim, a casual game, a portal into the Foddyverse, and a puzzle platformer with abusive game design. How about that for a word salad from taxonomy hell?
Oh Jesus Christ. I keep opening that executable and I keep collecting those fruit because I am a fucking idiot obviously. Thank you for attending my TED Talk.
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Amazing write up.
I saw the trailer for this, and while it looked novel, I could tell it would frustrate me to no end, so I ignored it.
Reading your anger validates my choice.
I played heavily for awhile and it does have a magic sparkle to it, some people will definitely dig it. I think it’s great comedy value for streams.
But that physics balancing act and the Final Level fear – the frustration was always there for me. Aggggghhh but when it comes together you’re like Whoa Cloud 9 Dude
(launches the game again)
all these genres and you never call it a roguelike
(I want to touch the forbidden .exe but alas, .exe)
Sorry Matt, there’s no ability to save your game, so definitely can’t be a roguelike
eh, i dislike genre labels as much as the next genre-label-hater, but “immersive sim” has never meant “freeform physics sandbox”, even though thats a popular interpretation nowadays. “immersive” is the goal, and “sim” is the design strategy. Mosa Lina is clearly neither.
if anything, it feels to me like Mosa Lina is being the anti-Scribblenauts—or perhaps the apotheosis of that design path?
Hello vfig. I’m not actually that troubled by the labels being thrown around here, but I can see that “immersive sim” is meant to represent a game where you solve problems your own way. Thinking about this, I wonder if that’s even true for Mosa Lina? You get three tools foisted on you, so not much choice there. But they say constraints are fuel for the artist…
the only thing I’m really struggling with here is why someone would describe something as lovely as “a personal dialogue between player and designer, by means of a game” and then attach to that the label of ‘abusive game design’. I’ve long held the belief that level design is a conversation between designer and player, and I feel rather intensely that it’s a beautiful thing.
But, uh, if you were to really push me for some examples, I mean actually push me so I fell over, then the words that fell out of my pockets would be ‘Mega Man’ and ‘Dark Souls’ and uh
Joel: “I can see that “immersive sim” is meant to represent a game where you solve problems your own way.” — well, no. thats a common feature of them that arises out of the simulationist design; but its the simulationist approach that is the necessary core. “you are playing this role, and we have built a simulation of the world pertaining to that role, to enable you to immerse yourself in that role.”
CA: “why someone would describe something as lovely as “a personal dialogue between player and designer, by means of a game” and then attach to that the label of ‘abusive game design’.” — yeah, i am with you. a whole lot of game design is embedding a dialogue between designer and player (though of course not an equal dialogue). is Getting Over It abusive game design? i dont think so. sadistic, yes; but its honest about what it is and what you will (or wont) get out of it. however, the game that the Wilson & Sicart paper describes in its introduction, “Dark Room Sex Game”, is quite definitely abusive, since—by their own description—it seeks to trick players into emotional discomfort for the amusement of the other players or the audience. neither interesting nor laudatory—and makes me leery of these two as designers.
CA Okay, I’ll give you that. And, tbh, I think all games are a conversation not just a special handful. Even the dirtiest and most heavily manufactured imsims are a conversation. However, I think the term was deliberately chosen in 2010 to counter the prevailing design narrative of games as perfect UIs: be friendly to the player, give them nav markers, ensure there is no confusion, everything is to grease a player’s passage through a game – in comparison to the rough and tumble of the 80s and 90s where accidental design could easily be frustrating. Spiky design – but thoughtfully spiky – is now more commonplace (consider the roguelite craze). Plus I think we have different sensitivities today with regards the nomeclature. Calling something “abusive” is a unlikely to be scaffolding imagery we want to associate with these days.
vfig I see your point. I guess Mosa just taking on how immersive sims have ended up collapsing into fight/talk/vent problems. I remember Warren Spector talking about he wanted multiple solutions to every Deus Ex problem and that often meant explicitly building out the parallel approaches. And haven’t all 0451 games inevitably followed this path? (I’m struck by how the Core Decay trailer shows of EXACTLY this solution branching.)
On Sicart/Wilson. Yeah, Dark Room Sex Game is not my kind of game – far too personal-boundary-crossing for my liking but then it was an experiment. I’m not sure it meant much in terms of future design trajectory; Wilson’s JS Joust is great fun with friends (and sometimes strangers) plus he was recently part of the team that made Saltsea Chronicles.
So I started playing Mosa Lina over the weekend and, good lord, did this click with me instantly. I’ve laughed a lot at my successes and failures and taken some 20+ gifs already. Since you folks played and discussed this the ‘Second Layer’ update basically doubled the number of tools, levels, ‘boss level parts’ and added even more ambient music. It’s a veritable feast of improvised chaos now.
I remember reading your thoughts on this back when you posted it Joel and thinking ‘oh, that’s a shame’. Then it went on sale a month or so ago and I just couldn’t resist picking it up.
Perhaps I’m still in the honeymoon period (a few final levels under my belt) but I just haven’t come close to frustration yet. I find it weirdly liberating because there’s no real expectation on anything to work out. If I mess up I know I’ll get another shot at it soon enough. Yes, it won’t be with the same tools but that also makes it kind of exciting because I might discover a new synergy or tool ‘quirk’. I really like that it has a batch of levels and a batch of tools to mix and match for each ‘run’, because it provides variety without it being overwhelming.
I’m just in awe of how ‘pure’ and focused Mosa Lina is as a design. When you go to quit out it says ‘no saves, no progress, only random’ and that’s so… refreshing these days when so many games want to shower you with extrinsic rewards and have you ‘progressing’ and building up towards things. I think it was droqen who said he really likes the daft points system at the end of each level. It’s silly and cute, just like the rest of the game.
Anyway, yeah, wow, I love this thing. And the music is great as well. Reminds me of Aphex Twin’s ambient works and some of Biosphere’s Substrata! The Caleb Gamman video was really interesting and amusing too.
Oh, this also made me think back to Skill Up’s video about The Finals over a year or so ago. The Finals has been my go-to online shooter since my brother and I packed in Hunt: Showdown, but thanks to its varied set of gadgets and dynamic fully destructible environments (which is run server side so you’re all seeing and traversing through the same chaos), you get this unpredictable emergent play where you can do all kinds of wacky but incredibly satisfying stuff. Anyway, Skill Up said it was a kind of multiplayer immersive sim. You’ve all got to fight over and grab a cashbox and then deposit it into a cashout station. The cashout takes time, and in that time it can be stolen. But you’ve got everything from jump pads, throwable anti-gravity cubes and grappling hooks, to goo guns, portals and scenery ‘dematerialisers’ and ‘reshapers’. There’s no lock and key design here either, just some tools and various unpredictable situations so it allows players to get creative. Here’s several choice replays I’ve enjoyed over the last year or two:
https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/comments/1jb5jqr/the_finals_is_actually_an_extraction_shooter_in/
https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/comments/1dhgsrw/manage_to_pull_of_this_legendary_double_team_kill/
https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/comments/1jbw25z/my_most_clutch_goo_gun_moment/
https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/comments/1frz0w4/smoke_jpad_is_lethal_cant_believe_this_worked_lol/
That last clip shows somebody sneakily putting down a ‘small’ jump pad in smoke so that an enemy team runs into it instead of a big jump pad, effectively tossing them into the abyss 🙂
And finally, my favourite where somebody defends their cashout by ‘dematerialising’ several floors so that it drops through the building, then sealing it up at the bottom to secure the win.
https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/comments/1gg98ey/the_most_fluid_demat_of_my_life/
Oh hey it’s on Mac now!
wow this game is literally the devil
Gregg – I saw that Mosa Lina had an enormous update and I was kind of tempted (short games are in much demand right now) but I feel like I should go back and take another look.
But then again Matt calls it the devil – so maybe it’s not changed in that way
Will take a look at those The Finals links when I get some time!
I am enjoying the game which has a steep learning curve at the beginning–both learning the mechanics and learning that I am going to completely lose most of the time and I need to get over it. It really is very Foddyian. But less cruel in that the Foddy games are long and here messing up doesn’t cost much progress. Sometimes I might spend five minutes bumping around trying to make something work but that’s my fault. And “If you mess up you’ll never have this kit again” is familiar from roguelikes.
Joel’s description is apt with everything waiting to be set into motion, and this reminded me of Nightsky. Nightsky is really about immersion, the natural-feeling physics and the clicks and taps you make when you hit something; but also the spinners that you set into motion that keep moving, in the background, long after you’ve passed them. I’ve said that I think the reason I find Nightsky moving is that this object permanence helps give the sense that there is far more in this dream world than just you going left to right. But of course the world is also designed to help you go from left to right. It loves you but wants to let you know you’re not the only thing in the universe. Mosa Lina, as it says on the hint screen, is hostile–indifferent in that it has no desire to guarantee the possibility of success on any given screen, hostile the way the screens are bloody-minded in the first place. But the hostility is liberating too. Knowing some screens can’t be solved at all makes it easier to give up on the ones that just I can’t solve, which is necessary for mental health.
However it does annoy me that I have to go through the opening screen every time I start it.
Yes, that opening screen is annoying! Thankfully bringing up the menu allows you to skip it by selecting Reroll. It’s not very intuitive.
The first time I used the frog and pomegranate guns I beat the levels the first time, almost without moving. When I got the same level and frog gun again I utterly failed and couldn’t reproduce my prior luck! I thought that was interesting and it showed how much latitude there is even when you take two random elements away (the level and tools). It makes everything feel very much your own.
https://imgur.com/a/TZJsWOK