Slop

Being perfect isn't the point.

At least, I don't think it is? I'm not sure. I'm not sure I really understand the point. These games feel like they're kind of a lot of things, even if they're all similar enough that the lines are blurred enough to resist delineation. If you squint hard enough at Peak, you can see a little bit of Fall Guys. The slapstick isn't the whole point, but I don't think success-at-all-costs is either. It's okay to fall. It's expected to fall. Sometimes the reason you fall wholly isn't your fault. And that's not a bad thing. That's kind of the point? Probably?

Wouldn't surprise me if MIMESIS and Lethal Company and R.E.P.O. were all answers to the same essay assignment, but the ways they differ are interesting enough to be worth considering. What do you do when you can't trust the people, or the environment, or the hazards? The answers to these things are different, and they make different challenges. I'm not sure I'm interested enough in the formula to really pull them apart and magnify their components. They all feel to me like putting people in hazardous situations over and over with low stakes but high regularity, and let the sandbox tell the stories. Whether any given run is meaningful isn't the point, it's that there's merriment in the chaos, and stories come out of them. At least, I think that's kind of the point? Probably?

I don't think it's too far of a stretch to start with Garry's Mod's very popular Prop Hunt mod, and paint a clean line to Meccha Chameleon. The way these games explore the idea of hide and seek is appealing, and simple to pick up in a group setting. Confusion lasts maybe one or two rounds, and then everyone is on fairly even ground for navigating the game. It's easy to get the general group on the same page and relatively level ground, then it's just creativity and exploration and laughter until the game's done. Of course any competitive game could have an objective winner, but I don't think that's the point? Probably?

It's a little bit hard to box all of these things in, though, even if the generally accepted term on most social media is "friendslop." But even within the genre, I'm not sure I can fit Fall Guys and R.E.P.O. in the same category. The thing they have most in common is that they're multiplayer games that don't mind being a little messy. That is, I guess, part of the slop? And the fact that most of these require you to bring your own friend groups, rather than lancing yourself unbidden into matchmaking, is the friend? Fitting these things together doesn't work very cleanly. And I don't think they should really fit together cleanly. When I categorize my game lists, I certainly wouldn't put them together in the same places. The mouthfeel is just a little too distinct, even if I can see the reason why they're often painted with the same brush. But I don't think them being that easy to jam together is the point? Probably?

Because they aren't really games you're supposed to be good at. At least, in the same way you can be good at Devil May Cry or Hollow Knight. Even if R.E.P.O. does have a speedrun page, it doesn't feel like a game that lends itself to speedrunning. The mechanical interactions in the game don't lend themselves to precision and excellence the same more consistent, less randomized games do. The way you flop, the wall you fall, the way you stumble, it feels like it wants to resist the idea of player perfection. Being good at these games is nice, it's a good feeling in any game, but it's not the point? Probably?

That lack of precision is load-bearing for the genre—not just part of the wallpaper, but part of the foundation. You get too much fine control, you find too many ways to play in a way that looks cool and is effective, and you lose something. Maybe that's the slop, and maybe friendslop wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't, at least a little, slop. It has to ooze. Maybe we all want an excuse to reach past the pretense, past the requirement to be optimized, efficient, skilled, capable, and a credit to every team we're placed into. To play a game where the mess is a little bit the point. To, for a fleeting moment, throw ourselves heedless into the ball pit and throw around the plastic, unbidden by expectation or precision or perfection. Because that kind of skill in your play isn't the point? Probably?

In exactly the same way I struggle to fit all the friendly slop into a single bounding box, I have a hard time not seeing bits of Skyrim and Besiege in there too. Because these games are imprecise, oftentimes down to their bones, that can be hard to escape. It's not necessarily the intent, but you couldn't pull the messy aspects out without changing something important. Maybe that's part of the appeal of friendslop, seeing the joy that was already buried within games at large put into a concentrate and sold with and without pulp to be picked up by friend groups. Almost certainly wasn't the point though. Probably?

I don't think there is a point, though. There are probably a ton of them, mixed into the starter. And trying to pull them out piece by piece is as much a fool's errand as trying to unbake a cake to reuse the components. Friendslop is too many things, but all of them are at least a little fun. All designed to have funny moments, be engines to generate funny stories, to be messy and chaotic and disposable, to play in whatever way speaks to the group, or the player, or to pick opposing ways and lean into the friction. Or maybe none of those things. Or maybe all of them. Or to get just a hit of some other feeling, something that other games had once upon a time, packaged in a way that can be shared with a group, or be the foundation of an in-joke that will outlive your memories of any given game night. Maybe?

Is any of this even worth pointing out? To try to distill something so inherently ephemeral, left half-baked with just enough intention to drive the current run into the next run, but leave a cloying desire for mastery at the door. The games aren't designed to be faultless because the faults are where to find the little treasures, plucked and mined and missed and found again over dozens or hundreds or thousands of moments. There's no way to be a perfect player in friendslop because there's no such thing as perfect play. None of it is meant to be perfect.

Being perfect isn't the point.