Rohrer's Passage has always polarized gamers; either you appreciated its attempt to elevate the medium past primal urges or you thought it was pretentious fluff. Developer Lurk falls into the latter camp, and did the most indie thing you could do in response: make a parody game poking fun at it. While Rohrer's piece is heartfelt and earnest, Lurk's anti-Passage is absurd and nihilistic -- and elicits a chuckle or two as well. While he claims that games can never be art he inexplicably made a game that would qualify as such, albeit in a satirical Dadaist sort of way. If you've ever participated in one of those "iz gaimz aart" arguments in a forum (or here!) it'll whack your funny bone.
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche would have loved this. You play as a nondescript little dude that flails his arms and legs about -- tweaking out I presume -- and maneuver him through a bleak and bizarre landscape. There are women NPCs in this game, but unlike Passage these chicks will run away from you if you approach them. Keys and familiar chests are present, but they blip in and out of existence at random. Because of this you'll invariably be lead on many a wild goose chase before tracking one down. When you do you might pick up some cash... but those previously indifferent floozies will swoop down upon you and steal it. You'll get some action, though. All throughout a prick in a suit spouts mindless prattle like "I don't usually do" and subliminal pictures of toothpaste ads and nuclear explosions flash on the screen -- a little jab at mass media I guess. As the game progresses the top and bottom walls close in on you; eventually you'll get squished and the game ends. And if you're like me you'll smile.
As a satire on life it's great, and it works well as a counter-point to Passage too. Lurk made Life ironically and it reflects his view of Rohrer's game, namely pointless with minimal interaction. I don't agree with the man, but I gotta give kudos for the lulz.
And yet somehow I felt my
And yet somehow I felt my life can be related more to this than to Passage
Thanks !
Made me laugh surprisingly hard for a link coming from the home of pretentiousness.
Not to mention the warmish feeling to know that my taste matches the ones of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard :-P
I think he's right, it's not
I think he's right, it's not art. A finely crafted chess set might be art as an object, but that doesn't make the game itself art. Nor does a bunch of arty stuff in a video game make it rise above being a game. It's just a crappy game with a bunch of art tacked on, in this case.
Now, can you make art by playing a game? Yes, yes you can. But that still doesn't make the game become art itself. A paintbrush can make art - that doesn't mean a painbrush IS art itself.
It's actually quite annoying to see people create art with a game in their own heads, then attribute what they created as being part of the actual game/activity. It attributes too much to the game and does not give credit to their own creativity. Table top roleplay suffers from this extensively.
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Philosopher Gamer Blog
I like how the girls run
I like how the girls run away from you until you get the money, then they run to you.
OWCH!
That's a game to give you epilepsy.
Kind of funny. Not what I'd call "replayable." I think it was more artsy than Passage, which I thought overrated. (Passage didn't make me cry, this game did make me feel pangs of existential angst).
cooties
"I like how the girls run away from you until you get the money, then they run to you."
I tried to run away from them when they rushed me. Game trained reflexive actions, eh?
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Philosopher Gamer Blog
This is ugly as hell & just barely playable by a slim margin...
...and yet, it succeeds above and beyond in one department where "Passage" never even came close-- being a game.
www.designersdilemma.wordpress.com
Renegade Pixel Ludomancers' Existential Angst
To be fair neither title would pass any crotchety ludomancer's definition of 'game', but thankfully there are renegade teens like me who see pixelated graphics and movement with arrow keys that can't tell the difference. This indeed does give the existential pang that I'd liken to animator Don Hertzfeldt's late 90's stuff.
I can feel the conditions
I can feel the conditions driving this piece far more than I could in Rohrer's. Slight and shallow as it is, the mechanic of gaining money to attract women adds a much appreciated dimension of challenge to the mix. It isn't just a matter of no-risk choice as it was in "Passage". No matter how little the output, there's a wafer-thin feeling of earning something, and that raises the stakes. If Rohrer had put some kind of obstacles or difficulties in the way of the girl, then perhaps his game would've been more of a game.
Granted, I'm not saying this one attains any lofty, promised-land goal, either. But it feels closer, in its snide, shit-eating grin kind of way.
www.designersdilemma.wordpress.com
Yeah, I'm really happy that
Yeah, I'm really happy that this game was made as well. From what I'm seeing over at the TIG forums Lurk is continuing with his 'art' games, albeit in a more sincere manner.
I really enjoy your comments here Bob. Heh, I checked your site and I saw you're the dude who made "Off With Her Head", the game that kind of kickstarted my contributions to PTT.
Oh, if anybody want another memento mori you can check out this platformer made for a Poppenkast:
http://www.thepoppenkast.com/forum/index.php?topic=1576.0
What's to gain?
This game is cool, for a spell, in a "Life sucks and then you die" kind of way. Passage seemed too much like it was trying to impart meaning to the journey. Indeed, the very concept that it was a journey, linear at least in appearance, with a coherent narrative about gain, companionship, and loss, seemed somewhat flawed.
Life bombards you with sensory input. You wonder, for a moment, what is going on. You chase objectives, as you learn how the world works. Suddenly you have an awful feeling of doubt as to whether these are really objectives? Why are you chasing? What difference does it make? You then either fall into depression and do nothing in particular, or like a true existentialist you live life to the fullest, chasing whatever object you can find, simply because it's the only thing to do! And then you die, and it doesn't matter what you did.
Jeez, humans always believe
Jeez, humans always believe HARD one way or the other. Either they full on believe in some sky fairy, or they full on believe meaninglessness.
As much as you might doubt any particular gods existance, also doubt the idea it doesn't matter what you did. You. don't. know.
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Philosopher Gamer Blog