In traditional media—novels, films, essays—rhetoric is the art of persuasion through language. A thesis is argued, a moral is presented, and meaning is delivered primarily through words and images. But in games, something profound occurs: the system speaks.
This is the core premise of procedural rhetoric—a concept introduced by Ian Bogost in his 2007 book Persuasive Games. Bogost posits that games don’t just communicate through cutscenes or dialogue, but through rules, mechanics, and player interactions. Indie games, less beholden to mainstream conventions, have become fertile ground for this kind of rhetorical experimentation. While AAA games often default to cinematic storytelling, indies frequently say more with a mechanic than a monologue.
This blog explores how indie developers leverage procedural rhetoric to communicate complex, often subversive meanings—and how the systems themselves become arguments.
What is Procedural Rhetoric?
To understand procedural rhetoric, we must first untether ourselves from the assumption that games “tell stories” only through traditional narrative devices. Procedural rhetoric argues that rules, systems, and player interaction constitute a language of their own—one that can express arguments, ideologies, critiques, and even moral dilemmas.
A traditional narrative might say “capitalism is exploitative.” A procedurally rhetorical game might make the player enact that exploitation through mechanics—extracting resources, dehumanizing NPCs, optimizing spreadsheets of suffering—all while rewarding the player for doing so.
The message isn’t told. It’s played.
Why Indie Games?
Indie games, unlike their AAA counterparts, are often created by small teams—or solo developers—with fewer commercial constraints. This freedom enables experimentation not only in aesthetics or genre but in ideological structure. Because procedural rhetoric depends on systems-level design (not just story), it thrives in environments where mechanical innovation is encouraged, even if it comes at the expense of polish or mass appeal.
Indie developers can take risks. They can make games that frustrate, confuse, or contradict the player—not for lack of design clarity, but as part of a designed rhetorical effect.
Case Studies in Procedural Rhetoric
Let’s look at several indie titles that demonstrate how systems communicate meaning independently of—or in tension with—narrative text.
📌 Papers, Please (2013) – Moral Fatigue by Mechanical Repetition
At face value, Papers, Please is a bureaucratic simulation: you play a border inspector in the fictional dystopia of Arstotzka, stamping passports and determining who gets in. The gameplay loop is simple—review documents, check for inconsistencies, approve or deny.
But it’s in the procedure that the rhetoric takes shape. The game slowly escalates complexity—adding new rules, conflicting information, emotional pleas. You’re punished for errors and must balance efficiency with empathy. Do you approve a sick woman’s invalid visa so she can get medical care, knowing it could cost your salary or endanger your family?
The message isn’t “totalitarianism is dehumanizing”—it’s you feel dehumanized as your empathy erodes under pressure. That fatigue is systemic, not just narrative. The rhetoric is embedded in the grind.
📌 This War of Mine (2014) – Desperation as Choice Architecture
In This War of Mine, you don’t play a soldier—you play civilians trying to survive a siege. The game’s mechanics focus on resource scarcity, moral decisions, and psychological trauma.
You must decide who eats, who sleeps, and who scavenges dangerous ruins at night. Do you steal medicine from an elderly couple? Do you risk your own survivor to save a child?
The procedural rhetoric here is clear: war is not heroic. The mechanics deny empowerment. Every choice feels compromised. There is no optimal playthrough—only survival and guilt.
📌 Cart Life (2011) – Capitalism as Oppression Through Logistics
Cart Life casts you as a street vendor navigating poverty. The game simulates not only buying and selling goods but managing time, hunger, hygiene, and legal licenses.
What makes it rhetorically powerful is how logistics themselves become oppressive. Miss a train? You’re late to your stall. Forget to feed your cat? Your daughter grows resentful. Can’t afford a license? Police confiscate your cart.
The player quickly internalizes how difficult it is to “just work harder.” Systems—intentionally clunky, unfair, rigid—don’t just simulate poverty. They argue that poverty is produced by systems, not personal failure.
📌 Return of the Obra Dinn (2018) – Empiricism as Narrative Assembly
In Return of the Obra Dinn, you are an insurance investigator tasked with identifying the fates of 60 crew members aboard a derelict ship. There is minimal dialogue or exposition. The primary mechanic involves witnessing frozen moments in time and deducing identity, cause of death, and relationships through visual and contextual clues.
The rhetoric here? That truth is not given—it’s assembled. Your understanding of the narrative emerges not from being told a story, but from practicing logical reasoning, pattern recognition, and human empathy.
It argues for player epistemology: how we know what we know.
📌 Baba Is You (2019) – Linguistic Construction of Reality
A game about pushing words around to change rules doesn’t seem philosophical—until you realize Baba Is You is fundamentally about constructivism: the idea that reality is shaped by language.
“Wall is Stop” can be rearranged to “Wall is Push.” “Baba is You” can become “Rock is You.” The player reconfigures reality through syntax.
It’s playful—but deeply rhetorical. The rules don’t just exist—they are constructed, reconstructed, and negotiated. This is a procedural argument about flexible truth and logic as a tool of power.
The Rhetoric of Friction
While narrative-focused games often strive to make the player feel good, procedural rhetoric often leans into friction. Games like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy are designed to frustrate—not arbitrarily, but in service of an emotional argument.
In Getting Over It, you climb a mountain with a hammer. The controls are awkward. You fall—a lot. The narrator muses philosophically as you fail. The game’s procedural rhetoric says: “Success is meaningless without struggle. Patience is a form of victory.”
The message emerges not from the monologue—but from the act of persistence itself.
Procedural Dissonance: When System and Story Clash
Not all rhetoric is intentional. Many games unintentionally undermine their own themes with procedural dissonance—when the system and the narrative say different things.
Imagine a game that preaches peace, but rewards violence. Or one that tells you your choices matter—then railroads you into a single ending. This kind of systemic contradiction weakens rhetorical force.
Indie developers, by being close to both narrative and mechanics, are often better at aligning theme and procedure. When done well, every action reinforces the message. When done poorly, it reveals the designer’s failure to understand their own system’s implications.
Procedural Rhetoric and Player Agency
One of the most compelling aspects of procedural rhetoric is how it engages player agency. Traditional texts offer interpretation—but games offer intervention. You don’t just observe a rhetorical structure; you test it.
This transforms the player into a co-arguer. Your actions support or resist the game’s rhetorical framework. In Undertale, killing enemies contradicts the game’s moral message—but the game is aware of that contradiction and responds. In The Stanley Parable, disobedience is the message.
The best indie games embrace this dialectic. They don’t just present a system—they ask you to question it.
Limitations of Procedural Rhetoric
Procedural rhetoric is powerful, but not without limitations:
- Accessibility: Players must understand the system to receive the message. Overly opaque design can obscure meaning.
- Ambiguity: Games are interactive and systemic—players may derive unintended messages, especially in sandbox-style titles.
- Player Resistance: Some players reject the rhetorical premise—seeking optimization over reflection.
Indie designers often accept this ambiguity as part of the rhetorical field. They don’t chase “correct” interpretations—they provoke interpretive labor.
Procedural Rhetoric as Game Literacy
Understanding procedural rhetoric is not just useful for critics—it’s a form of game literacy.
Recognizing what a system rewards, what it penalizes, and what it ignores helps players become more reflective. It allows them to see games not just as entertainment, but as arguments with rules.
The more players become fluent in this rhetoric, the more discerning they become—not only in what games they play, but in how systems shape their values, habits, and assumptions.
Conclusion: When the System Speaks
In the hands of indie developers, procedural rhetoric becomes a potent design tool. It transcends cutscenes and dialogue boxes, embedding meaning in moment-to-moment decisions, failures, and mechanics.
Games like Papers, Please, Baba Is You, Cart Life, and This War of Mine don’t simply tell you what to think—they let you discover meaning by enacting it. The argument is coded into friction, reward, repetition, and rule.
And perhaps most radically, these games show that systems are not neutral. Every rule is an ideology. Every mechanic is a metaphor. Every win condition is a worldview.
So the next time you play an indie game, ask yourself—not just what story it tells, but what systemic truth it asks you to live through.
Because in the language of games, the procedure is the persuasion.