Pilgrim in the Microworld

A detailed description of trying to get better at a video game: Not killing monsters with swords in Darksouls, but destroying bricks with a ball in Breakout; “git gut” in 1980 on an Atari home console. Sudnow previously published a learning auto-ethnography on playing piano, and “Pilgrim in the microworld” is rather similar in that it describes the minute details of perception and action. However, I found "Pilgrim…" more fun to read, maybe because I know how Breakout works better than I know how to play jazz piano.
He tries different ways: Practicing a lot, meeting with programmers, thinking up methods to beat the game, seeing it a sport or seeing it creatively. In this regard, one of the best descriptions of being competentily incompetent in something and trying to learn more.

Jazz pianist David Sudnow didn't play video games until he went to retrieve his teenage son from an arcade in the early 80s, and he immediately dismissed them as a silly money-sink designed to keep teenagers occupied. When an Atari 2600 ruined a party of academics, however, he decided to give games another shot and try the Atari for himself. Thus began his decent into obsession.

Following in the style of Ways of the Hand, Sudnow's deeply detailed exploration of the phenomenology of playing jazz piano, Pilgrim in the Microworld provides an equally detailed account of Sudnow's quest to master Breakout on the Atari--from the physical feeling of the controls to the subtle changes in his strategy of where to look on the screen. The book follows his transition from bemused to curious to obsessed and back, all the while revealing the most subtle changes in outlook and strategy, changes that most of the rest of us would never consciously stop to think about.

Sudnow is clearly catering to a high brow audience. His descriptions are peppered with references to classical music, and never misses an opportunity to name drop Debussy, Lenny Bruce, Nietzsche; but his tone only serves to legitimize the deep study of games at a time when they were regarded as low brow entertainment. As you might expect from the title, the writing recalls Thoreau or Dillard in its tone and approach--carefully balancing obsessive detail with a narrative arc whose drama you only appreciate when you've finished the book. At times the depth of his analyses of the most trivial functions of the hand or the eye can become exhausting, as--no doubt--his frustrating play sessions were, and these sections toward the middle are best handled by giving the book a rest. While others might complain about the pace of the middle chapters, to me, these sections only further highlighted the experience of Sudnow's frustration, and as a whole the book is engaging, thought-provoking, and masterfully written.

As a game studies text, this is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in phenomenology or player experience. No other personal account of playing games has come close to this level of thought and analysis. At times his descriptions teeter on the edge of what might be considered obsessive mental illness, but Sudnow's perspective is entirely unique among the field, and this level of detail will be incredibly hard for most researchers to duplicate.

A must-read for game studies researchers, obsessive gamers, and gamers who also happen to be musicians.