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bebopedAs my review of Runner suggested, perhaps the effective way to create emotional meaning in games is through metaphor. Gray is all metaphor, and is interesting precisely because it is. But it's also, well, very tedious to play. Which raises the question of whether art is effective through a metaphorical level even if it is, in some sense, bad craft.
In Gray, you are a small black-tinted person in a field where dozens of white people are running left-to-right past you. Some of the white people are black-outlined; you can maneuver yourself to them, and press "space bar" to enter a "dialog" with them. The "dialog" is represented by a wave that propagates left-to-right from the other person's side of a speech baloon; your objective is to hit space-bar at the right moment so that your speech wave meets theirs "in the middle" (metaphor alert). If you succeed, the dialog goes away, the little white person clutches his head as if in thought, then turns black and turns around to run the opposite way.
Eventually, everybody is black. At this point, you clutch your head as if having an idea, and turn white. Now, you have to -- yes, you get the idea. This time it's harder, however; before the first mass-conversion, you need to hit space-bar only once, or sometimes twice, and time it correctly to convert. The second time around, your opponents typically send three or four "waves" at you, and your "responses" must all be timed correctly. So the difficulty increases.
There is an ending, which also fits into the metaphor, and I'll discuss that after the break, in case you hate spoilers. But I can certainly discuss the game's essential problem before then. It is, as I've alluded, that the game is tedious. Gameplay is maneuvering yourself to intercept someone you can talk to, and then pressing space-bar at the right moment in "conversation." And it's the same basic gameplay over and over, with minor variations for conversation timing. Dull.
Notably, the second time you need to engage in fewer conversations to pull off mass conversion -- perhaps an indication that the developers recognized that their game was dull, and decided to short-circuit the second and subsequent levels in the hope that you'd persevere to get the "ending" despite your boredom.
In short, Gray is making an effective point about the nature of political debate and what seems to be an uncomfortably widening and irreconcilable split in our society between left and right. It is somewhat effective at getting across this point, and the black-and-white nature of the graphics is arty and effective as well. Thus, it's worth playing as an interesting example of metaphorical meaning in gameplay -- but it's still, when you come down to it, pretty tedious.
Spoilers now.
After several flips, you become gray. And can no longer persuade anyone. I guess you've achieved satori-like enlightenment, but unlike a true Bodhisattva, you cannot radiate your enlightenment through the game-space.
Which brings up the question of the value of Gray's metaphor. It is not, in fact, true that truth lies "in between." Truth does not lie "in between" those who believe that the Earth is flat and those who do not. Truth is "justified belief." Some things are true, and some things are not. Some things are moral, and some things are immoral; no "new idea" will ever justify murder.
The ending itself, in other words, implies that moral relativism is "truth" -- which is untrue. In my opinion :).
Talkin' 'Bout the SPOILER
I get fed up with the idea that what's right is in-between two opinions as well. If one party says 2+2 = 4, and the other party says 2+2 = 5, then CNN will report that 2+2 = 4.5.
Let's leave aside any
Let's leave aside any discussion of moral realism, except to say that many are of the opinion that "murder is a moral wrong" is a qualitatively different statement than "water is a solvent."
Let's leave it aside, because I didn't see the game relating to that issue. Instead, the point seemed to be that only apparently simple and unalloyed positions are able to convince large numbers of people to have certitude worthy of mass violent action. The player character comes to have a more refined position over time, requiring a more complex explanation (more button presses), since it includes a refutation of his previous argument. His self-examination leads him to change his mind repeatedly, eventually correcting his thoughts to where he finds himself unable to reach anyone, or at least, anyone driven to see the issue as simply divided. He can no longer interact with them, as they don't even understand what he's arguing for. "Black?" they ask him, brows furrowed "or White? Why can't you answer me even that most simple of questions? Nothing you've thought can change the fact that one of these is unjustifiable!"
Is there really nothing that can be said at that point? There may be, but at least, it's not part of the work, just as the laundromat on the opposite corner from the pictured diner is part of Hopper's Nighthawks. The game made me feel melancholy, but also challenged to answer it, to complete the story in my own life.
Well, CNN, as with any
Well, CNN, as with any corporate media outlet, is interested in popular judgments, not accurate ones.
2+2 = 5...
For sufficiently large values of 2. Which it does, you know: 2.3 (rounds down to 2) + 2.3 (rounds down to 2) = 4.6 (rounds up to 5).
It's a Bit Cleverer Than That, IMO
I think you miss something. It's not just that the gray guy's arguments can't convince anyone (that they just pass through). The gray speech icons turn the black-bordered white speech into all white, the white-bordered black speech into all black.
It's not, IMO, about the "gray area" being right, but rather about capturing an emotion: The frustration of of the moderate, who finds that their nuanced arguments not only fail, but actually backfire. I think the game does a pretty good job of conveying that feeling of frustration (without the mechanics of the game actually being frustrating).
Dialectics
I couldn't disagree more that the end signifies "moral relativism". Hegel's methodology of dialectics - advance of knowledge through facing and surpassing opposing theses - is bluntly apparent. It is also a rather pesimist view on the critical habitus. How moral relativism could fit here is beyond me, all I see depicted is responsible logical operation.
I also did not find it overly dull, since the difficulty is trivial and the game lasts no more than ten minutes. It is just repetitive enough to hint at the tedium of critical operation. It could have justifiably been waaay more over the top than that.
"shades of grey"
It's really quite irritating when people beam that things aren't actually black and white, but that there are shades of grey. They act as though taking an in-between position gives them some kind of vantage point overlooking all the little people who actually take a stand. Here's the thing though - there are colors, and these moderates take their position in the first place because they accept the range of the debate. This value axis only. No spectrum.
It wasn't that tedious.
It was short enough not to get boring, although it would have been if you hadn't told me there was an actual ending.
What struck me was that at some point, when I was white, I lost myself in the crowd, I couldn't tell where I was, who I was.
To me, when you're grey, that is, when you're reasonable and don't think only about yourself or your interests, then people don't hear you because they're not used to it.
Many viewpoints
It's obvious that there are degrees of interpretation in this game -- the authors recognized this and link/invite you to discuss the game in a forum. And from looking at the comments, it seems this game has the ability to hide its own identity and reflect our own beliefs back at us.
I think the tediousness is intentional. It's rather difficult (for me at least) to get another person to come to your point of view (on anything). And you end up repeating yourself over and over as you talk to other people.
I've tried to see both sides of an issue (say abortion) and it can feel like people on each side are uninterested in listening to a person who can see both sides.
To me, it was a very moving game.
2+2=5 can eat me
Just to respond to Greg's initial read of the ending of the game, I can state, for the record, this is not about taking a mid-way stance between gay marriage being legal or illegal, or similar hot button issues of today. I really hate when christian conservitaves ask why there can't be a middle ground between making gay marriage illegal or legal. Not that I'm gay, but to me it's the same as saying "Can't there be a middle ground between blacks being slaves and free men? Why isn't giving them _half_ the rights of a full human good enough? Compromise is everything!" That kind of filth pisses me off.
The game is meant to be much less specific on the kind of discussion and more a comment on the dialog of politics in America today. Normally we don't like to comment on our base intentions for the game as discussions like this one are always more interesting to read than if we just came down with a hammer, but I want to set it straight that I'm actually fairly certain that 2+2=4 in all situations :)
Also, thanks for the mention!
Good review
IMO it IS a solid idea, and it IS dull. Perhaps relentlessly top-down was not the best way to implement this. With a bit of thought, perhaps the metaphor cold have been abstracted a little to enhance gameplay without losing the message.