QWOP game

When I first heard the name “QWOP” in class I honestly had no idea what to expect. It confused me why Sam, who normally is one of the first people to volunteer, had no desire to undertake this game. But as soon as Preston began to play it all started to make sense: it is almost impossible to move the runner.

            After watching someone with a lot of experience playing videogames struggle on a game with such few rules and commands, I decided I wanted to try (without the pressure of the entire class watching). I watched a Youtube video to kind of get the process down before I began to see if it would help. However, even with knowing the order to press the keys in, the timing of the game is extremely difficult to get right. The farthest I made it was 6.8 m but I was unable to time it right again and eventually gave up on the idea to duplicate my score. Instead, I began to just try to make the runner completely flip over after he fell (which took a while but eventually it did happen once).  While the game only resulted in failure after failure, I found it was hard to stop playing (either by the real rules or my own).

            What I find the most interesting about the game QWOP is that it creates a whole game based on the one thing everyone takes for granted when playing almost all other games- the ability to run, or to just move in general. For example, in Super Mario Bros., the first thing the player does when they begin the game is run to the right in the experimental space provided. Most controllers or keyboards allow the player to run by simply hitting the left, right, up, or down keys, but not in QWOP. QWOP forces the player to think how legs actually work and use that knowledge to create the rhythm that your thighs and calves use in real-life running. The fact that a game can be so memorizing and difficult with the only rules being, “use the QWOP keys to move your legs,” amazes me.