Fathom

I was kind of impressed by the game, but I feel it has a couple serious flaws. First, the underwater portion started out interesting...but then it went on for SO long, and there was absolutely no guidance and no sense of progress. I was about ready to say "Okay, this section has no end" and close it down when I finally stumbled onto something. The other thing is that the game seems to promise some interesting insight or "point", but...nothing is explained. It felt kind of hollow and disappointing at the end, like there was really no point to the underwater section.

So basically my verdict is...It was a good try, I'll look forward to the next one.

It was interesting in thinking there was a world outside of what is usually just death and nothingness (ie, dropping off the bottom of the screen).

But atleast for myself, I don't just want 'world'. I want to finish the activity I chose to start - and there seemed to be no indication I was getting there, though fish were around me and this tree thing sprung up. I'm not into just being lost in some other world - I want to finish activities in this one and it didn't feel like that was happening. So I quit.

I also quit after planting the tree, and I feel like I should have done it earlier.
I never once said to myself "holy shit, this is a whole new experience, I'm really being taken to places I've never been before ! Amazing !". Instead, I started enjoying a megaman-like game, with smooth controls, really nice, and after that had to wander around feeling sick because of the fast movement, and bumping in walls to find my way, with all these fish around me that increased the confusion.
So...no, that wasn't good. And even if not for the boredom, I don't feel like it's a "huge middle finger against stale and conventional gameplay". Not at all. Like I said, this didn't feel "new" the least bit.

when they're all around you...

There's kind of an important part after planting the tree. It's called "the ending" and it comes highly recommended.

Just because it doesn't bash you over the head with its message doesn't mean there is no point. If you still don't get it, you need to let go of your preconceived notions.

It's amazing to me how much damage Hollywood and other mainstream media have caused to people's ability to think critically. Everybody expects to be spoonfed all the answers.

Personally, I thought this was a beautiful game. It stirred up a wealth of emotion in me. It invoked a great sense of peace.

I'm far from being a fan of games like Gears of War, the latest Terminator movies, and everything that puts the show before the writing.
I'm a fan of Deus Ex and Dwarf Fortress.
Oh, and I especially hate achievements, and all these things. Achievements were invented in Team Fortress 2, now every single game feels the need to have it just to be hype. Just like the number of games featuring zombies just because it's what people buy at the moment (and they do because others do).
So no, I don' think my critical thinking abilty has been altered by Hollywood. I'm not even american !

But still, this game, and I think every other game that is supposed to give birth to emotions in me, does nothing for me. I play the game, I see the methods the game-designer is using to make feel this or that, and it does nothing at all, I just see the strings holding all these artificial items that some people find "moving", but still, still, all I see is a game, and as it fails to touch me, it also fails to entertain me.

Not a single game has ever moved me, and I don't think one ever will.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Not my thing.

So, what, I drown at the end? Did I miss something? After five mines of bumping about in the dark? After the intro you gave it, I was expecting some big surprise. Nice ideas, I guess, but it really wasn't that interesting. Or fun, Or challenging, Or emotional, or making a point. Nice try though.

Most 'art' games fail, but we must keep trying. I fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colour is the only arty game I would rate as worth playing.

Adam Atomic, aka 'flixel', is one of the developers for cave story for the wii.

Just something to keep in mind.

Personally, I think it IS pixel's art, and that Adam and Pixel together make up flixel.
But that is just one man's idea.

Some movies have terrible pacing - they have something good, but it could be done in half an hour, not an hour and a half.

It is actually critical thinking to talk about pacing. What is a mystical, flowing experience for some is pointless, endless bumping around for others.

Once you get past the first bit, It's a total pain in the arse moving about in this game. It makes you try to find out it's objective, but makes it difficult for you to test any hypotheses you come up with through it's control system.

And what kind of explorer wouldn't shine his torch in front of himself?

I gave this a sincere try, I really did, but I cannot figure out what to do next. I picked up the thing in the water and took it where the fish wanted me to take it, it dropped, and then... what?

I've spent the better part of an hour bumping around in the dark, the light, and everywhere in between, and I can't figure out what to do next. Feel free to ROT13 your answer.

See, I think the problem is that the ending actually almost hints that there might be a point to the "story" and that could be confusing. Looking at it as an abstract "change how you have to think to play", yeah, it's not that bad. But Karoshi did it much better, for much longer, and in a much more entertaining way.

What they (he?) could have done, is make the underwater part last about as long as the first part. At least that would have been cute and made some sort of sense as "one world that is two worlds" or some such. Keep the idea going with more eversions of gameplay would be cool too. But I feel even just a black "THE END" screen would be a better...more fitting end to this.

I'm tempted to not even call it a game, because it feels more like a tech demo of the idea of gameplay subversion. All I'm saying is that this has been done before and better, and while not bad or pointless, it's ignorable.

I had a similar experience to many of those who have posted. While I would agree an unimpressive play experience does not deny this game a possible claim to meaning, I think that those who have simply derided the majority as ignorant Hollywood drones (I'm looking at you, Chong Li) without making any attempt to describe what this game's message might be are performing a disservice to critique.

I suspect this game is about purgatory. You go through the firey dungeon of death, you fight the monster, and you lose and, as our preconceptions would suggest, you die. But your soul is trapped in a nether-world, and only the friendly guides can lead you to your ultimate release: which is death.

The gameplay felt a bit like purgatory too. I encountered a long bewildering trial where there was neither success nor failure, simply forward. With no internal goals to motivate me, I had to take it on faith(!) that my guides were leading me where I ought to go. At the end, there was no great revelation, only an end of trials. You soar into the light... and nothing is revealed, except the nature of your victory, and the hollowness of hoping for selfish individualistic victory in the face of "something grander" as The Dustin puts it.

Perhaps those who enjoyed this game and found some sort of transcendent beauty in it are of a spiritual bent? I am not, and I found it rather unsatisfying. If the traditional platformer is about the great unstoppable individual (perhaps that's the American ideology coming through?), who through sheer perseverance (if at first you don't succeed) overcomes every obstacle, then what is this about? Again, I reckon faith. This game doesn't bring us forward, it brings us backward.

Give me a materialist platformer, damnit! The player would succeed by recognising the objective reality of their situation and engaging in a collective struggle of liberation! On that note, I move on to play (and write about) Ninjabi. If it doesn't live up to my expectations, then I'll just have to keep searching for a Marxist developer.

And that is why you shouldn't over-analyse a game. ;)

This game definitely is polarizing. I think some people are put off by the shift in gameply; akin to somebody listening to a contemporary Rolling Stones song that segues into a Brian Eno mood piece. I agree that the original gameplay, while wholly unoriginal, was entertaining at some level. However, I believe that the run-and-gun segment was in place to highlight the differences between it and the water segment. Every aspect of the game morphs, including the lack of an apparent goal. I find that games like this and Pazzon have to be a strawman argument of sorts; to accentuate the differences between Fathom and conventional gameplay, the developer had to place the player in a completely alien environment - which goes along with the player being in literal darkness as he descends into the depths.

By nature, this structureless design might leave some people confused and lost, but Flixel admitted to this and stated on the TIG forum that if better designed that this wouldn't be a problem. The game shows that designers do not have to conform The game is an interesting experiment, and I think it succeeds at what it sets out to do. Obviously other games do not have to take these ideas this extreme, but it shows they can be implemented successfully.

BAH! That's nothing. Don't get me started on Risk.

Ok, if you've read this far, im gonna spell it out for you *(spoiler ahead!)

you're supposed to follow the dang fish!

And here is my opinion on this game:

the game purposely lulls you into the typical run-n-gun gameplay because its intentionally TRYING to mess with your head. It's like its saying: see this thing you like, that you're used to, that you've grown lazy and comfortable with? Well - forget it! open your mind again. be willing to learn again, rather than just going thru the motions you always go thru when you play a new game.

And that's one of the coolest aspects of indie games, and one of the best things about playthisthing.com

Also - has anybody beat the drill boss at the end of the surface level? if so please share your experience! (you're not supposed to be able to do this, which is of course why i really want to do it)

thanks!!!

I'm getting a bit sick of the 'bait and switch' model in terms of opening your mind. It itself is stuck in a certain paradigm - of bypassing consent. "Do you want to open your mind? Well whatever, I'm pulling a bait and switch anyway".

Mind you, looking for consent is being stuck in a paradigm as well, but I think if you have to be stuck in one, it's a better one to be stuck in, I'd say.

Callan, I'll respond to your blog reply shortly. In the meantime: I think that because the majority of games have extremely linear narratives (and the interactivity usually does not entail affecting the narrative), the "bait and switch" is one of the few ways to actually provide an eye-opening experience - the earliest digital example I can think of is Metroid. And when are you not bound to a paradigm? At least you're part of a different one than the norm, which in and of itself is cool.

But it's not a different paradigm. If it had started off in the water, it would seem not terribly different from the swimming games out there. And of course the platformer bit isn't new. And together - well, they aren't together. One just happens to come after after the other one.

Perhaps if play was flicking back and forth between them for various challenge overcoming reasons, they'd be blended. But as is, you play some platform run and gun and then - that gets taken away. And another game substituted.