Hue Ball, A Metaphor For How We've Made A Mess Of Things

Saw a review of Hue Ball, an iPhone game, posted on Twitter. Described as addictive. I downloaded it and started playing. Essentially you start with a cannon swinging left to right and three stationary coloured circles on the screen. Every several seconds these 3 circles will develop layers and the player is supposed to shoot circles/balls from the cannon to prevent these layers from accumulating. Each layer or circle destroyed is a point earned. Targeting a circle is much like playing snooker or pool. You can aim straight or bounce off other circles or balls or the walls. So that's the skill but I guess. Each layer is a colour hence 'Hue 'in the name of the game. Admitted the colours get pretty as they layer up.

Start

Three things to be aware of. One, the layers can't exceed five else the circle becomes a permanent skull face. So the player has to keep the shooting and aiming right. Two, each ball shot out becomes a layer-accumulating circle. So the more you shoot, the more you have to shoot at. Three, when the ball you shot out bounces back towards and touches the cannon line, the life counter decreases. So the more bad ricochets that happen, the quicker the game is over.

I've been playing this game for about two weeks. It is fun but then I got existential about it. The game is a metaphor for humankind! Hear me out - you start off with a cannon that's doing nothing, minding it's own business (that's people).  The 3 circles in the open frame are just out there accumulating layers as time goes by (that's the earth or animals or plants). One is compelled by the need to earn points (that's greed or need to be a busybody) to blast a cannonball out at the three circles. Left on their own these circles would turn into skull faces and the player wouldn't even be affected or suffer any disadvantage. The need to intervene and perhaps gain a perceived advantage compels the player to shoot balls, with or without realising that this action causes an immediate effect on the external environment, and also has a lingering long term effect that needs to be dealt with sooner or later. The more shots fired, the greater likelihood that the open frame is pitted with more circles to contend with, each one growing as time goes by. See where I am getting at? 

The mess after a while

Let's say the open frame represents the environment. The more we mess with it or try to control it, the more problems we create. We chop down trees to make stuff. There's less forest to clean the air and control greenhouse gases. The animals too have nowhere left to hide and enter our cities. We then have to deal with more issues than we started with. 

Let's say the open frame represents Saddam-era Iraq. The problems were there but not the kind that the western powers said there were (as later proved). A coalition of the willing was raised to liberate Iraq from tyranny and mayhem at a huge financial, moral and human cost. And today, we are nowhere close to having a peaceful Iraq. Each intervention caused more bloodshed, more lives lost, more confusion among locals and allies, less trust between the Arab States and the West, more pockets of self-styled militia waiting to get a piece of the action with no simple end in sight. The more cannonballs shot out, the more balls to juggle, manage, deflect and solve for. 

For every action, there is reaction. For every cause, an effect. That's what Hue Ball is about. That's also what life is about. 

We're here to do God knows what. Survive maybe. On a TV commercial for a green movement, there was a line "We need the Earth to survive, the Earth does not need us." It's true. Leaving this alone is sometimes the best thing to do. 

Sort of leaving things alone

Another line from a song comes to mind too - the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A shocking statement to say the least. But think about about all the things that have been done in the name of all that is right, good or holy that have ended in varying degrees of fiasco, mayhem and arsed up. 

It's the history of humankind, in a harmless point and shoot game.