Step Inside

You had me at “you climb inside a big cupboard”.

(Safe-distance digital hugs all around re COVID-19. Arcade Tokyo pushes on for your isolation entertainment!)

I once wrote an essay on Tetris Giant in which I observed that the use of an enormous joystick was surprisingly effective at drawing the player into the world of the game. While most games offer their control interface in a form convenient for the player – a familiar stick-and-six or a wheel and pedals with adjustable seat – Tetris Giant is far less servile. Instead of accommodating the player, the game asks you to accommodate it.

It takes humility to give yourself over, physically, to the culture of the cabinet. You can only cross the threshold into the game's space on the game's terms.

I am reminded of the Japanese custom of removing one's shoes on entering certain buildings. You cannot stroll into a home as if it were made for you; you must give yourself to the space. In turn it will welcome you.

At the highest-class restaurant I have ever visited, I was required to remove my shoes at the door. This was a place that was there to serve me, and it did, with exquisite grace and generosity, but first I had to submit to a mutual divesting of pride. In a good world, submission begets kindness. The restaurant served with gentle and personal attention, on condition of my faith in its goodness.

And so it is with the subtle relationship that the patron enters into with Mobile Suit Gundam: Bonds of the Battlefield. This institution offers its services only on certain conditions. You must register as a Pilot and await your turn. You may only enter a Pod once it shows "Vacant" and is not occupied with the private indulgence of another Pilot. Finally, having given yourself away in piousness, you must literally step into its world, shutting the door and life out behind you.

In return, envelopment in a wrap-around environment. Detailed controls comfortably at hands and feet. "Engaged" displayed to the outside world and safe fantasy behind closed doors.

You can pilot a mech and fly through your very dreams: all it will cost is your ego. And ¥300.