But Nintendo hopes players look elsewhere. Not at their 4K televisions, or at the Switch’s display. They want people to play video games by looking directly into the eyes of another human.

During a live-streamed presentation in Tokyo, the company showed off the concept via a title called 1-2-Switch. The software asks the player to ignore the screen and focus on their opponent. Among the collection of challenges is “Quick Draw,” a Western-themed duel. At a media event the following day in Manhattan, I watched as that child shot his dad dead using fast reflexes, a steely glare, and a bit of imagination. But I didn’t understand why this might be appealing until I tried it myself.

I played against a local man I’d just met, named Ryan. Each of us held one of the two controllers—Nintendo is calling them “Joy-Cons,” and they feel like smaller, curvier Wii Remotes, controllers from a previous Nintendo console. Seconds after meeting this stranger we were staring deeply into each other’s eyes. I realized then I almost never play video games that make you look directly at your opponents. Actually, I rarely look directly at people at all for an extended period—let alone strangers. It was thrilling. We hammed it up. We sought dominance through arched eyebrows, found advantage in a widened iris or a furtive glance.

The software takes pains to distract from the screen. When “Quick Draw” begins, a deep-throated John Wayne soundalike calls out in a smooth drawl, “Face each other.” If you peek at the screen you’ll find it covered with a thick banner admonishing you in text: “Look each other in the eye!” And so you do. What it and the other games in 1-2-Switch require—speedy reactions for a duel, consistent timing in sound-based ping-pong, rhythmic squeezing while milking a cow—is almost secondary to the drama playing out under your opponent’s eyelids. Ryan’s eyes were intense, but playfully so. After each round the surrounding skin would crinkle; this was all a put-on, that rare chance to strike innocent fear in another through wide-eyed intimidation. 1-2-Switch is Wii Sports with Eye Contact.

If that sounds unappealing, consider the modest games of playgrounds and school buses. Blacktops are littered with kids testing their interpersonal boundaries under the guise of play. First one to blink loses. Two for flinching. “Honey if you love me.” Not to mention traditional, head-to-head sports like tennis, boxing, and judo. Facing one’s opponent isn’t new to games so much as to video games, which largely have remained moored to the screen.

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But not entirely. Over the last decade, a series of experimental and independent game makers have tried to bridge the digital and physical worlds more seamlessly. Most of these titles are prototypes or art projects, shown as part of public exhibitions or featured at conferences like alt.ctrl.gdc, a sideshow of the annual Game Developer’s Conference. They often use bespoke controllers, like Frank DeMarco’s Planet Licker, in which players touch ice balls with their tongues to move an alien through space. But even that one requires a screen to view the cosmos.