Trigger Happy
combinations of these must be manipulated in time with their corresponding symbols floating down the screen. Other “rhythm games,” as they are known, include Parappa the Rapper, in which the player must help a paper-thin rapping dog undergo musical training from an onion; Guitar Freaks, playing on the Japanese penchant for heavy metal by requiring the user to strum a simplified rock ax; and Drummania, in which the player sits on a stool and hits electronic drum pads in time with symbols.
All these games show funny, colorful digital animations on their screens: pulsating cartoon embryos for a rave track; anime heroes performing six-string heroics—but these icons are completely irrelevant to the gameplay. But even these simple games boast a unique structure of semiotic interaction. Notice, for instance, that the symbols on the screen in Dance Dance Revolution are also functioning indexically, because they are pointing to the symbols that need to be stepped on by the player, and the symbols themselves (arrows pointing in four directions) are quite special in that they are utterly content-free—they do not stand for anything else in the context of the game.
323
