Art Game

FATALE is the newest work by Tale of Tales, developers of The Path, The Graveyard, and The Endless Forest.

On one level -- and, to my mind, about the only level that matters -- Rationalization is a simple, one-puzzle game with a starkly minimalist look and a nice feeling of surreality.

On another level -- and the level that has drawn considerable comment, and perhaps is the key element for the interest in the game, it's apparently a commentary on Objectivism (and if you're interested in exploring that, Kieron Gillen and commenters provide their own, ah, rationalizations).

In Runner, you're a little fellow running away from the ghost-images of three women who pursue you. You're running down a two-lane street, and obstacles periodically appear before you; "doors" that block one lane, requiring you to slide to the other to evade them; and barriers that stretch across both lanes you must jump to get over.

Coil's been out for some time, but we've never reviewed it, which makes it among the few IGF nominees (in the Innovation category) that you can play at present that we haven't reviewed. So it's about time.

Coil is by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, creators of (among others) Cunt and Triachnid.

When is an art game not an art game? We link to lots of art games, you know -- things like Jason Rohrer's Passage or the work of Messhof or Petri Purho, and it's a diverse lot -- but they all have one thing in common. These artists have high regard for the medium of the game, and they are attempting to create something novel and interesting with due respect for what games can do and how they achieve their effects. They have chosen to work their art within the medium of the game, because they love games.

Planned Parenthood sure made a strange choice of developer to do their advergame supporting awareness of abortion services. I could imagine Persuasive Games doing something a bit low-key, or maybe some more blase company doing an economic game that reinforces the value of Planned Parenthood's clinics and counseling. But choosing Messhof, creator of You Found The Grappling Hook and FlyWrench, that was a risky move. The result is the most bizarre advergame ever created, one that doesn't seem to particularly touch on any issues directly related to abortion, much less municipality.

If James Lipton interviewed game creators, he'd have Edmund McMillen sit across the table, then state with breathless, definitive poise: "And then you did Clubby The Seal."

This is the work of a deranged, austere soul: a badland vista, a range of horrible, mutant creatures, an alien fetus, a living ball of tar. Compiled together, you have more carcinogens and tasty flavor additives than an industrial cigarette. He's a brimming, creative LED, burning efficiently but also with a sickly, radioactive aura, his distortions splurging as if through a spigot.

The first project listed in the collection is Gish, which many saw upon first release as a benchmark of quality in the then young "indie" segment. Collaborating with a programmer buddy, McMillen carved the distinct character designs and aesthetic of the bizarre, tar-tastic roll-scape. The results marked a major milestone in his career.

Over only a few years, McMillen has been involved with the creation of 11 more games, mostly short-form casual/art/warped jaunts into a rapid imagination. His web comic, The Outlands, paints the setting from which five of these titles are mined. Each one puts you in the role of a different mutant species existing in the fraid desert. A Cactus that kills not for food, but for sport; an in vitro glob of flesh called a "dumpling"; a skull-toothed brain parasite; a wispy, wailing whelp. What's most striking is that these are not merely cosmetic explorations, each game is its own. While Host and Peashy are typical 2d, spatially-oriented, collision-em-ups, the Whelting and Dumpling games are pretty fresh dynamics, like Diner Dash meets Rosemary's Baby meets Mr. Rogers meets Planescape: Torment. Why not?

His most intriguing works, however, are his latest.

When Coil was released, the Jay Is Games mailing list was buzzing with discussion. Many of us wanted to praise it, with some claiming to "get" it, and others enjoying the vague mystique. One woman called it "totally offensive shit". Coil is an "art game" more firmly than his other work, by far, having you play mini-games, without instruction, that mark periods of a pregnancy. Thematically, it's a more somber look at gestation as a game arc, originally played out in Viviparous Dumpling. Its text leaves implications of a rape victim coming to terms with her condition... or does it? The meaning, like the gameplay, is largely open to inference.

His most recent title was Twin Hobo Rocket, a phallic-themed game where you and your hobo friend sit at the base of a rocket, trying to hit up aliens for change. Hilarious bits of speech annotate this hallucinated fund-raiser. It's a nice yo-yo back from the avant-garde ineffability of Coil.

The compilation site is hosting Windows-only, .exe builds of these titles. However, with an easy bit of Googling, you can play the Flash builds in your browser. I asked McMillen if he wouldn't compile and host .swf files, but he declined. I guess he's pretty much giving the finger to all non-Windows people. That's ok, he's a fucking genius.

Click through for video review.

What's the best way to express one's angsty, teenage feelings these
days? Many would pick up a guitar and write a pop song. Others might
set about writing a self-indulgent autobiographical novel. This Singaporean lad bared his soul to the world by making a game, and that
very fact immediately raises him high in my estimation.

The game in question –- QRP -– is a charming way to spend five minutes. The designer intended it to express how he felt about girls when he was in school, and indeed I do feel that I achieved a fairly good understanding of how he felt about them by playing this game.

Lost in the Static is visually striking game, quite unlike anything you've seen before. As you can immediately understand from the screenshot. Right?

Well, no, you can't. Let's try again. Lost in the Static is a conventional, short, enjoyable platformer with nothing particularly innovative about the gameplay. But the mechanism by which it produces its images is highly unusual, with effective music that (purposefully, one assumes) carries a sense of the static you might get by playing music on an old AM radio or a 45 turntable, providing an interesting and artistic emotional frame for the game itself.