Gravitation
Posted by Derek Yu Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:10:00 GMT
Jason Rohrer, the creator of the moving and bittersweet Passage, has released a new game, called Gravitation. The basic theme behind Gravitation is “mania, melancholia, and the creative process.” To say any more, of course, could potentially ruin the experience, but I can recommend it highly.
(Thanks, Phil Fish!)
Crackheaded experience.
If this kind of crap is the best we can come up with for the “games is art” argument, Ebert was right. This is like pointing to a blank canvas and saying that it is a cow eating grass (you know how the joke goes). You can sell a blank canvas as anything you want, but it’s still a blank canvas (regardless of what people think they see in the white). If you see melancholia in this game, you need to start taking your Celexa again. This and Passage are the two greatest hoaxes gaming has ever seen.
If watchmaking is art, games are art. There. Won the argument. Now let’s stop looking for meaning on blank canvases.
To hell with games as art, I want games as games.
Why so much hate Squidi? Can you not handle people are trying to evoke feeling and understanding through game play? Like the blank canvas in your argument, your post lacks any sort of substance, you never once said why these games cannot qualify as art. Are you perhaps, trying to make yourself feel cool by hating on what is popular in the community?
I really enjoyed this. I wouldn’t play it again, but I am glad I did. If you have a heart and some imagination, then Rohrer’s games will touch you.
At the risk of feeding a troll I feel the need to respond. Whether or not you want to call them art (which I don’t think is really a productive argument to have), this and Passage are games that evoke genuine emotional responses in people. I’ve shown Passage to a number of folks, gamers and non-gamers alike, and in almost every case they’ve both managed to pick up on the game’s primary metaphor, and voiced an emotional response to the game.
While it wasn’t melancholy, this game evoked an emotional response in me as well. I think that’s amazing, and I’m glad I played both. They’re games that are beautiful in their simplicity, but they’re certainly nothing akin to a blank canvas.
While I won’t be so aggressive as Squidi, I must say I don’t see these kinds of games as anything to further games as a more attractive and accepted medium. But it’s mostly because I can’t enjoy them. :)
Even if you don’t like the games, I think you at least have to respect that this guy is out there trying something new and trying to express some new things through gaming. Give the guy a bit of a break.
Even if you don’t enjoy the games, at least they’re a step in a different direction! That’s my opinion, at least.
Squidi, I think you realize your arguments are a bit weak (even if the basic point is valid). If we’re talking about watchmaking, Jason’s games are more like specialized watches where every movement of the hands is meant to evoke some meaning beyond telling time. Of course, you may just see a watch (possibly a really pretentious watch, at that). That would be totally understandable. But a lot of people can see meaning in them, whether it’s what Jason intended or not. And that can’t really be ignored.
Also, just out of curiosity, what would you say are works in movies, literature, painting, music, etc. which you feel succeeded where this game fails? Just to get a sense of where your opinions of art are coming from.
What I’m about to say will seem like I am negatively criticizing Gravitation, but wait for the end to see my real point.
I’m impressed with the ideas at work here, because it is clear that emotional response is the author’s intent. That is not the primary definition of art, though the word does have a lot of claimed and defended possible meanings.
Visually, some games are more clearly art than this or than Passage. Visual (or for that matter, audible) art is not what makes a game art though, because visual art and music exist separate from gaming and that which is in a game may be separated from it. The interaction, experiences, and mechanic then are, as best as I can see, the primary points of interest in games as art. That being the case, I have had stronger emotional responses, been more involved, had more memorable experiences, and viewed more elaborate/elegant mechanics in a few commercial games. That does not make the game any less art, though it starts to push in the direction of it not being the best art in the realm of gaming, of it not being exemplary.
Gravitation is exemplary of games as art though, but for new reasons. It is not deeply interested in the player as one to be entertained and gratified, but it is interested in the player as an audience. That’s uncommon and usually results in “games” that are only interesting as ideas to rabid (usually indie) gamers or to creators - artists. Gravitation and Passage still have a certain unapproachability for outsiders (mostly because of the current aversion to the oddity of limited pixels), but they can be appropriately experienced by outsiders when given the chance.
These two games are also notable as art in that they are attempting to break new ground, to do new things. Experimentation and creation are necessary to the development of art, and seem to be scarce in the realm of videogames.
Oh, for an example of the mechanism as art, I would advocate Dwarf Fortress.
Ok, i’m just gonna throw my thought out there for the hell of it. Passage was to me not a game. The point with games are that they’re supposed to have some point of interactivity, right? That’s why they’re called games and the reason we’re playing them. When i played Passage i was contemplating putting down my waterglass on the right key and let it do the “playing” for me. It actually did evoke a few thoughts from me though, which was nice, but i never saw myself as playing the game. I know, it had a few choices in there: pick up the chick, go solo.
To me games are very much an artform, i’ll go down in a beautiful mess of blood and gore before i claim otherwise. I don’t have to play them for enjoyment as long as they evoke some other kind of emotion(s). But i really do want to play, not just watch a few bouncing balls collide with each other cough the marriage cough.
With that said, I enjoyed Gravitation a lot more than Passage. Both as a game and as art. At one point I thought about Gravitation “Hey, I’m way too focused on my own goals here (going up), maybe he failed to make this an artgame by making it interactive and hinting on goals.” But then i thought, maybe that’s the point. We all know how the creative process can be like, sometimes you just want to reach a goal. Blah, blah. Enough brainfarting.
What the hell is a game? Just because it looks like one, does it make it one? looking at the marriage again
Obviously Squidi missed the whole point, of course he knows what art is… and when did monetary compensation come into the picture? sell that blank canvas. if you got nothing out of Gravitation I feel sorry for your family.
what’s art anyway.. anything can be art, not everything has an artistic value but that doesn’t mean it’s not art.
corporate logos are art, dog turd sprinkled with chocolate chips is art.
the best analysis of Gravitation I read is from a kotaku commentator named T6spades
“How your view of the world seems to widen and the winter cold melts to spring. But only when you show your child friendship and compassion. It’s that “warmth” that lights your world and warms your heart, the feeling that you can jump and touch the very sky itself.
But when you become to absorbed in your own personal goals you lose that warmth. You feel that you can jump so high that there is no point in coming back down. In the end you forget what you left behind. So self-absorbed in hoarding, you only come back down to revitalize that feeling, only to leave immediately after, off to pursue your selfish goals. The child is no longer a child, he is but a tool for your use.
That selfishness reveals how cold you are. You create a wall of ice that slowly alienates your child from you. If you continue to ignore your child the wall eventually becomes impenetrable. The child can no longer be seen and you can no longer feel warmth, nor ever replicate the feeling again. You won’t be able to jump as high as you used to, or to see as far as you could. All your left with is the cold ice and the winter darkness as the fire slowly ebbs and fades.”
I was too greedy and blocked myself in with lots of ice cubes. :(
Limited interaction is still interaction. Where the limits are set is something that is up to the author, who is crafting the experience.
When my dude’s hair caught on fire, it reminded me of Michael Jackson filming that Pepsi commercial. Suddenly that game of ball with the little girl took on a whole different meaning and the game elicited an emotional response; though probably not the one the author intended.
“Passage was to me not a game. The point with games are that they’re supposed to have some point of interactivity, right? That’s why they’re called games and the reason we’re playing them.”
We only have one noun in wide use, unfortunately, but actually the word we call something doesn’t determine what it has to be. This is a semantic issue.
Alec, What if Passage was a screensaver and chosing to go with or without the girl could be checked in an option box. Is this enough to be interaction and make it a game? I’m not asking to prove a point, just want to know what people are thinking about what makes a game.
Gustav, I miss your warmth.
gustav … did you notice the treasure-collection side-objective of Passage? The interaction is deeper than just a check box.
Regardless I would even call Progress Quest a game in a sense; I don’t see any point in insisting on a strictness of definition there. Is the label important to you? Why?
what if your girlfriend plays mind games with you.
Two words: “Sewer Shark” ^__^
The main problem I have with Passage/Gravitation is that the game aspect always feels tacked on and that… just bugs me :/
Yeah, I’ve seen paintings made entirely of mud splotches with vague names underneath them, but it feels like a waste to use a canvas and tools just for that. That’s what these games are, underdeveloped, pretentious games which may or may not have a soul underneath it all. Unique does not mean great.
What I’m failing to say here is, crippling and deforming the game aspect from a game isn’t a benefit. IMO the strength of video games is that you can make an engaging game that ends up fueling the player’s emotions. The author has one part down, I just wish he’d try to utilize the medium to the fullest.
Zaphos, It isn’t really. I just expect certain things from something called “a game”. Part of that being interaction. I played through the passage twice and didn’t notice any treasures. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m very excited about seeing the medium branching out and growing, in any direction.
Like i said, i want to know what people think makes a game: down to its simplest form. What Lackey said gave me an answer I’m very content with ;p
konjak, i’ll be around when things are less threatening. Send me noitu2 and love, ok?
mots, she does all the time but i never get it. Go figure :D
Obviously, this is art, because all gaming is art. This is just not GOOD art. What people are reading into it isn’t actually there. If you played this game without knowing it was by the Passage guy or have a little sentence “To say any more, of course, could potentially ruin the experience” - you wouldn’t know to look for anything unless someone told you to. And when you look for something, you’ll find it, whether it actually exists or not. All this hoity toity talk about the deeper meaning of Gravitation is just a bunch of people trying to GUESS what the author intended. It’s not there. You just know that something is supposed to be and that’s enough.
The reason I hate things like this and Passage is because it gets the lion’s share of the discussion without actually exemplifying the very things which do make games art. These are TERRIBLE games, barely interactive, few interlocking pieces. They are glorified Tiger Electronics LCD games.
The beauty of gaming comes from the creativity that a new form of media gives us. Before the creation of computers, we had no way to even remotely approach the kinds of simulations and interactions that games give us. It is totally new, and through it, we are literally inventing new ways to think and interpret the world.
Dwarf Fortress is art. Super Mario Bros is art. DOOM is art. Flight Simulator is art. Tetris is art. Our brains have long been trapped inside our human shells and now we learn that our brains can see in third person, in few and many dimensions, as god, as creatures and mechanical vehicles completely inhuman, and general takes our brain away from our body long enough for it to explore the very nature of identity and self. Games are one of the few things in existence where you can successfully become smarter or dumber. The beauty in games is how it affects you intellectually, not emotionally.
Emotion is emotive. It’s passive. You can watch someone else get hit by a stick and feel their pain. Intellect is interactive. You can’t watch someone else solve a math problem and feel anything - unless you make it your own problem by trying to solve it in your head too. Something can only affect you intellectually through interaction. Games are interactive. Games have a unique manner by which they can affect you. Why praise games on the similarities to other media when they do something so unique and wonderful?
Passage and Gravitation are small fry. They have lame (optional) subtext and they don’t really work very well as games. How can you have the primary example of “games is art” being a crappy game that nobody would bother playing more than once? If anything, a game is something where the experience is tailored to the player. How many people have had DIFFERENT experiences playing Passage or Gravitation than their neighbor. It’s silly. These games fail on many levels, but their greatest sin is that they are simply bad games.
I’m sorry, but this is something I’m passionate about. I believe games deserve respect for the things they alone can do, and anytime somebody brings up something like Passage - hardly a game by any definition - it’s like people suddenly forget that the best games that are the best art are simply going to be the best games, period.
“What people are reading into it isn’t actually there. If you played this game without knowing it was by the Passage guy or have a little sentence “To say any more, of course, could potentially ruin the experience” - you wouldn’t know to look for anything unless someone told you to. And when you look for something, you’ll find it, whether it actually exists or not. All this hoity toity talk about the deeper meaning of Gravitation is just a bunch of people trying to GUESS what the author intended. It’s not there. You just know that something is supposed to be and that’s enough.”
Have you ever taken an english class? This is exactly what you do with books. You read the book, then you look for meaning in it, whether there is meaning or not.
Art is given meaning only when people look for meaning. The art itself serves only as a guide in finding a theme.
This game teaches life balance by forcing the player character to alternate between work and family life. The thing is, the game mechanics are created by a game designer, and may or may not reflect the actual state of the real world. When I play this game, I don’t feel that I’m learning about life as much as I feel that I’m learning the rules of an imaginary game world.
Teaching with mechanics is a weak way to convince someone of something, because a game designer could easily create a dishonest design that doesn’t accurately reflect the real world. When all the author uses are mechanics to argue a point, the player has no means to disagree.
I think if this method is to be successful, it needs to rely on well-developed characters and realistic situations instead of metaphors.
I think it’s fantastic that someone is doing this, though. We need to be having these types of discussions.
Flight Simulator is not art. It is artifice. It’s right there in the name: Flight Simulator. It is not Flight Interpretation or Flight *Abstract Rendering”.
Of course, you can have an emotional response to a simulation, but a simulator is not going to attempt to make you feel sorrow or loss or regret.
At the very moment that the child in Gravitation and the Wife in Passage left, I felt a true shock of loss. It was a far more effective emotional response than any sympathetic character in a movie because of the interactive nature of the game. I had become far more emotionally invested in the game character than some dumb drone up on a movie screen.
So, just as a film or book or song can have any number of possible goals, why should a game be denegrated for having a goal beyond a pure visceral high?
I would love to see an expansion on the ideas in both Passage and and Gravitation by way of increasing the number of choices in a similar game. Then it would become more clearly a “game,” maybe a little bit like an adventure game (of the Lucas Arts, Sierra, or text adventure sort), but without words. With a large number of choices and with good story and emotional direction, such a game would be very attractive.
I think you try too hard to fit these games into what you believe a game should be based on all the others you have played. Sure the game play itself is simple, point collection just movement and jumping, but that is part of the design, you don’t get hung up on the mechanics if its only jumping and points.
Every experience in life triggers emotion. The problem being the majority of video games work on 1 or two emotions, excitement, usually, and joy, if you are lucky. Passage and Gravitation tend to evoke emotions that haven’t been dealt with before. I felt sorrow when the little child was gone, I knew that my actions contributed to its demise and I felt bad. Arguing that games should be emotionally void is a poor argument and bad for games.
No one expects these to revolutionize gameplay only how people look at games.
I thought Passage was much more successful in getting it’s point across than Gravitation. I didn’t feel as connected to Gravitation as I did Passage.
Gravitation’s interactivity just seems arbitrary. Pushing ice cubes into a fireplace was just too out of place, and it took me out of the game.
As did the head-on-fire image. It made no logical (or emotional) sense until after I played the game and read the statement. The symbolism is just too personal and specific to the author to have any real impact on the general public.
Passage worked well because it was a very simple message that actually fit with the very simple interactivity. Gravitation just seemed a disjointed effort by comparison.
Yeah, but part of the fun of these games comes from knowing that the author has a certain intent, and then figuring out (or not figuring out) what he’s trying to convey to you. The expectations the developer sets up with each game is a big part of the enjoyment.
I dunno, have you ever seen the Cremaster movies? I tried watching one and couldn’t get through even half an hour of it. I felt it was a pretentious jumble of random and uncomfortable imagery that was barely tied together.
You probably feel similarly about Jason’s games, but for me they succeed in a way that Cremaster doesn’t. Mostly because I actually get to diddle around with the symbols in the game, rather than just sit and let them play out in front of me. I think games are much more suited for these types of things.
And yeah, look at the discussion it’s drummed up! Mostly because of people who hate the game, rather than people who like it…
Yeah, it is fun to figure out what the author wants you to take from it. My roommate, who wasn’t looking for any meaning in the game, watched me play though it, and his only comment was “this looks like a shitty game.” I was expecting a message, so I thought it was pretty interesting.
I hope that Jason keeps making these.
I’ve seen Cremaster 3 (whatever one has the guy trying to get to the top of the Guggenheim to meet the goat legged topless girl). Totally retarded, to put it mildly.
Subtext is an underline. It’s something which supports, emboldens, and enriches an experience through a deeper understanding of the connections between the different elements. In this case, the subtext is being used as a replacement for gameplay. Yeah, it deepens the experience, but only so far as to take bone dry and make it slightly damp.
Sorrow is easy. The reason why melodrama exists is because sorry is easy. It’s a very predictable mechanical response. The fact that such a simplistic experience can elicit such a response from people says less about the artistic value of games than it does for the simplicity of the human emotive experience. You felt sorrow because a little four pixel girl disappeared for no reason? Ask people about a little robot named Floyd sometime. Why aren’t we talking about Planetfall? There’s some god damned art! Or Planescape: Torment. There was some subtext applied within the context of actual character, plot, and interactivity. Know that quest where you have to solve a murder, only you never really have any conclusive evidence and the game never really tells you whether you picked correctly or not? There’s your subtext with the emotional response, but it’s a complicated emotional response that operates on many conflicting levels.
I just… why can’t we have these conversations about GOOD games? You want to talk about sorrow. Let’s talk about a game that so affected its audience that many of them spent YEARS looking for cheat codes to bring the pink dressed girl back from the dead! Want to talk emotional responses? Let’s talk about a game so sick and twisted that it makes some people physically ill to hop into the shoes of a brutal murderer! Want subtext? Let’s talk about a game where the main character may have been wandering around town killing innocent townspeople thinking they were demons that represented repressed sexuality and rape!
There are better games out there to be having this discussion about - but nobody is having it because these games had the balls to be games first. They aren’t short. They aren’t simple. And they don’t say “ooh ooh, I’m deep” when you first load them up. You’ve got to work to see these things, and it’s that work which makes them all the more valuable. But most importantly, they are good effin’ games - something these mini-games seemed to have forgot.
As for Flight Simulator, oh I assure you that it’s art. Simulations are perhaps the greatest art computers are capable of. The watchmaker’s art.
Squidi:
Your bit about intellect and activity was pretty interesting to me. I’m not sure if it’s true – in particular because I don’t think you can really separate the emotions and the intellect and call one passive and the other active, even if there’s a grain of truth in it, they aren’t that distinct and thinking deeply requires feeling deeply, and vice versa, or in other words they can work together as a whole. But it’s a pretty interesting idea.
It is true that games tend to be much more intellectually stimulating than emotionally stimulating, even if games can do both. On the other hand classical art like novels and movies and music tend to be more emotionally stimulating than intellectually stimulating, even though those can do both as well (there are some pretty intellectually stimulating novels out there too). But I think that it’s interesting to see that some people value one over the other – not explicitly, but implicitly, for instance in the way they describe what types of art they enjoy and how they enjoy them (“made me think” vs “made me feel”).
But as I said, I think both are important. Too much stimulation of emotion without stimulation intellect and you have melodrama, too much stimulation of intellect without stimulation of emotion and you have, I don’t know, Umberto Eco maybe.
If this is indeed the real squidi, I am not surprised by his answer, maybe Gravitation needs a Negative space… hey at least the guy had a good idea and made a game with it..
Passage and gravitation are closer to real life than any other game I’ve played, scores mean nothing, you can’t win, you just play and stop when it’s over.. it’s a lo-fi portrayal of life. look back at your experience with passage, be honest with the reactions you had while playing it.. I remember seeing a chest while walking with my partner and cursing because i couldn’t reach it as she was blocking my way.
I didn’t think much of it at the time but after reading the creator’s statement it got me thinking.. I can’t say any other game I’ve played lately got me thinking about my person.
Gravitation probably had a bigger impact because i knew what to expect from it.. flying up and catching stars only to come back down to recharge.. using the child, his reaction of love when playing with him didn’t move me, I was after the stars.. coming back down to the lone ball after my run got me thinking.
while squidi has a few valid points about interaction he completely misses the point of emotions.. feeling a certain way should make you think about it, seeing emotions as something overbearing and dismissing them will lead to a deficit. Emotional intelligence is as important as IQ, not to insult squidi but my impression of him is of a narcissistic individual.
well as far as I’m concerned, it was simple, although I got felt an emotional response to the visual and aural art, I also felt something because of the interaction itself.
therefore, imo the interaction was art.
I’ve played Passage countless times through, just to get that sad emotion that no other game has really given me before. I think the arguments on this page are a little pointless. I played it, I loved it, I think it accomplished something that no commercial game to my knowledge had managed before it.
If someone else played it and didn’t get it, then fair enough. I hate Halo like the plague, but I won’t call it a bad game. If any game can attract such a strong and passionate fan base, then it must be doing something right. If Passage makes a load of people feel a sadness and closeness that they haven’t felt before in games, then the game should be commended for doing so, despite whether you personally got it or not.
As for the art debate, I don’t think games are art, or at least not yet. I don’t want to go into details on why, but I just don’t see games as an art form. Nor do I care about ‘interactivity’ or whether it’s ‘intellectual’. If I enjoy something, then well done to whoever made it. If people aren’t fans of Passage, then step around it and move on. It’s ridiculous and completely unfair to claim that those who do enjoy it are wrong. If the game didn’t work on any level, then why would it be attracting so many passionate fans and sparking so much conversation?
Passage isn’t going in a new direction. Not only that, it also fails in the direction it chose. Both ICO and Passage incorporate the companion idea. Ico creates an emotional connection between the player character and his companion through it’s game mechanics. Passage creates NO such connection. If you feel something while playing the Passage, it’s because you’re transferring your own emotions for situations you are aware of in your own life, rather than in the game world. The game fails to illicit emotion based on it’s game mechanics, and thus fails as game-art. As for Gravitation, I found no game mechanics pertaining to “mania”, “melancholia”, and the “creative process”. The game only makes sense as such AFTER you are told about this, but then you are just making the arbitrary connections the designer directs you to make, rather than thinking for yourself.
It kind of seems to me that the only reason Gravitation and Passage are considered art is because they’re filled with metaphors and symbolism and that stuff. Take that away and you’re left with two pretty bland games. Is making the player think enough to call a game art (and good)?
I don’t know. I don’t think I ‘get’ these games.
BigBossSNK said:
Ico creates an emotional connection between the player character and his companion through it’s game mechanics. Passage creates NO such connection. If you feel something while playing the Passage, it’s because you’re transferring your own emotions for situations you are aware of in your own life, rather than in the game world.
I think you’re being a little prejudicial here. The emotional attachment you feel for the characters in ICO is the same sort of attachment you could potentially feel for the characters in Passage. A person could play through ICO with the same sort of clinical detachment you played through Passage and make the reverse argument just as easily. In fact, when playing ICO I was glad of the times when I got to explore alone because the girl was often times in the way or acting stupid. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful game and one of my favorites, but saying that an emotional attachment is formed just because you have to drag the chick around is as silly as expecting someone to be moved by Passage. Either you are, or you aren’t. You make your own connection with either game.
What the hell is wrong with you people? I think you are just jealous. :-/
“You make your own connection with either game.” Not really. Passage relies on emotional transference (the gamer superimposing his own reality onto the game’s premise). The thing is, every game can do this. This is more to do with the gamer and his mentality while playing the game than the game itself. Ico on the other hand doesn’t rely on emotional transference. The gamer doeasn’t need to feel any connection to the characters themselves. Instead, Ico creates the belieavable illusion that it’s game characters are emotionally connected. The player character’s life is intertwined with his companion’s, he needs her to proceed and vice verca. Ico relies on game mechanics to employ the “caregiver” emotional circuitry. But ultimately, games aren’t art just because they make you feel something, or because they create a world believable in it’s emotional interactions. It’s the message behind the medium that’s the deciding factor. The Passage follows two themes. Life as an action - reward cycle with diminishing capabilities, and the possible existence of a companion, which does no more than block your way. It succeeds in the first, even if it only examines it superficially, but the latter statement is just naive.
” Instead, Ico creates the belieavable illusion that it’s game characters are emotionally connected. The player character’s life is intertwined with his companion’s, he needs her to proceed and vice verca.”
In defense of gravitation, it also does this to some extent: in order to jump higher you need the little boy (yes, it’s a boy with long blond hair, I thought it was a girl at first too), so there is a game mechanic tie between the two companions. This tie was less important in Passage (although not totally absent because the girl did double your score, but she also made walking and navigating the maze more difficult, which may lead some to resent her for that handicap rather than feel a connection with her).
What I don’t like about his games isn’t what any of you guys are talking about though. What I don’t like about his games is that it’s a pessimistic idea that romantic partners or family domestic life handicap one’s ambition and that there’s a choice involved between the two. I mean, sure, the both take time, but why can’t you do both? Why can’t you excel both at collecting treasure and being a husband, or both at collecting stars and playing with your son? You can do both, and it’s weird to have two games basically saying you can’t, although I give them props for saying that no matter what you choose it won’t really matter at the end, which is true.
“Not really.”
Yes… really. Otherwise you and I would have the same reaction to both games. If an emotional reaction is desired, then the player needs to supply it. The game mechanic of “protect the girl” in ICO is just as artificial and arbitrary as “walk with the girl/watch her die” in Passage. ICO is just a lot more detailed in the level of interactivity. The creator’s intent in both is for you to have an emotional response, but there is no guarantee. Like I said before, either you’re moved by it, or you aren’t.
If Passage didn’t effect you personally, that doesn’t mean it’s a failure as a game. Look at all the responses where people claim it did have an effect on them. Do you think they’re lying for some reason?
Do you think that everyone feels the same way when they look at Monet’s Water Lilies? No. The emotional response is up to the viewer to supply. You make your own connection with the art.
That sounds fun! It is like going back to the old school version!
“Lester said about 17 hours later:
That sounds fun! It is like going back to the old school version!”
Oh goody, another zombie post.
“His games have a pessimistic idea that romantic partners or family handicap one’s ambition and that there’s a choice involved between the two” True. In real life, more people in your social circle means expanded opportunities common among you. A game about life should at least partially reflect this.
“You make your own connection with the art.” No. You CAN make your own connection with the art. But that doesn’t mean all art is arbitrary in regards to it’s emotional response. There are specific emotional circuitry in the brain, and so long as an art piece employs those, it creates an emotional response.
“Do you think people who were affected by Passage are lying?” No. They ‘re true about their emotions. But the game didn’t provoke these emotions through gameplay (art-game). They are transferring their emotional experience onto the game world.
i agree, ICO is a game, ICO is also art, passage is not a game, wether passage is art?, probably. but in the end, i want to play a game, otherwise, i would look for art in other genre’s like, books, movies, paintings, screensavers (passage) etc.
25 years ago these games would be like every other game out there.. simplicity is not a flaw
That transfer isn’t just happening randomly, it’s happening because the author deliberately underlines universal experiences with the mechanics of the game.
How are the rules of the game not expressing the author’s specific points? I mean even though it is absolutely basic like “you inevitably get older and die”, “there are things you can’t do / places you can’t go with a partner”, and “life is richer with a partner.” These rules are obvious and certainly don’t rely on reading the artist’s statement to understand. How could these be more directly stated through game mechanics?
Maybe Squidi doesn’t understand the game because he’s never actually been through the creative process.
BigBossSNK said: But that doesn’t mean all art is arbitrary in regards to it’s emotional response. There are specific emotional circuitry in the brain, and so long as an art piece employs those, it creates an emotional response.
You’re talking about symbolism here, in which case, yes it is arbitrary. There is no “magic art” that effects everyone in exactly the same way. You seem to be trying to insist that there is. The “specific emotional curcuitry” you’re talking about is just that… specific. To the individual.
Whether or not symbolism in art is effective in generating the desired response in the viewer depends largely upon the social upbringing of the viewer, their mood at the time of viewing, prejudices, forehand knowledge, etc. On top of that, symbolism in one culture is not going to be as effective to people of other cultures. Even symbolism between classes in the same culture can differ.
Can an artist try to aim for a specific emotional response in his target audience? Sure. But to say that the individual viewers aren’t responsible for their own emotional involvement is just naive.
BigBossSNK said: But the game didn’t provoke these emotions through gameplay (art-game). They are transferring their emotional experience onto the game world.
I can think of one very specific game mechanic that elicited an emotional response from me, and that is the inability to pick up certain chests if you have a partner. The first response was frustration, which led to resentment of taking the girl instead of leaving her behind, which led to guilt both at wishing she were gone, and for getting so sucked into a silly little game.
But the game didn’t force me to feel that way. It doesn’t have the capability of directly controlling my emotional state. The game is not me, so my response was my own. I as a viewer supplied that response to the experience.
“Maybe Squidi doesn’t understand the game because he’s never actually been through the creative process.”
My life is a lie!!!
there is no life
Halo 3 is way better than this game. Master Chief rocks!
“there are places you can’t go with a partner”, “life is richer with a partner”. These messages are correct, but only under a limited scope. Partners don’t just limit you from obtaining some goals, they can also expand your goal set. Life isn’t richer with a partner unless you put in the necessary effort. The message’s scope is too limited.
“But to say that the individual viewers aren’t responsible for their own emotional involvement is just naive.” Emotions arise from biological programming, or social programming. An art piece can use either of these agents to elicit a response.
And as I can see you are uninformed, here is a piece about certain emotions being biologically programmed in humans. http:// www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080227121840.htm
“I as a viewer supplied that response to the experience.” True, but there are ways a game can manipulate your state of mind, so long as you are compliant to it’s rules. See http:// www.stephanebura.com/emotion/ for a more in depth analysis.
BigBossSNK said: Emotions arise from biological programming, or social programming. An art piece can use either of these agents to elicit a response.
YES OF COURSE IT CAN. But just because it CAN doesn’t mean that it WILL. It depends on the viewer.
The word “elicit” doesn’t mean “force.” It means “draw forth.” You can’t draw water from an empty well, just as you can’t draw emotion from an incapable or unwilling participant.
Just because I intend for you to respond in a certain way doesn’t guarantee you will no matter how good I am at manipulating biological and social programming. You have to be familiar with the same symbolism that I use. You have to interpret it. You have your own unique database of what the symbolism means to you. Therefore YOU fill in the emotional blanks in any work of art.
BigBossSNK said: And as I can see you are uninformed, here is a piece about certain emotions being biologically programmed in humans.
Go screw yourself. Not only are you just being condescending but your example has no relevance to this discussion. You’re just pulling shit out of your ass.
Yes it is a limited scope, if that is what you were trying to argue you should have said so from the start! Whether it is TOO limited is where we seem to disagree, heh.
I think “emotional engineering” is a somewhat ignoble pursuit anyway. What is the reasoning behind “I want you to feel sad” as a goal?
I don’t think either this or Passage are very deep but they are appreciable on a philosophy=mechanics level and that’s something.
I also don’t see them being held up as the absolute paragon of this Games as Art silliness except in the occasional bit of hyperbole… cough http://grandtextauto.org/2008/02/24/pvp-portal-versus-passage/ cough …and besides, we should concern ourselves with looking at things for their own merits and not their relative popularity.
Will anyone read all the way down to here? I liked this (better than Passage), played it several times. I found the game mechanics more interesting. I also found the audio/visual changes effective in eliciting emotion. The point where the child left (as a part of the overall arc) was really great. What I didn’t like about this game (and about Passage) was the allegorical feel of it. It was highly symbolic and metaphorical, and that keeps some distance between me and the game. Overall, I’m glad I got to play this; it’s a relatively new idea in games. More literal content would make me happier, but I don’t know how you would do that :)
““there are places you can’t go with a partner”, “life is richer with a partner”. These messages are correct, but only under a limited scope. Partners don’t just limit you from obtaining some goals, they can also expand your goal set. Life isn’t richer with a partner unless you put in the necessary effort. The message’s scope is too limited.”
So, you’ve moved from ‘this game isn’t art’ to ‘okay, maybe this game is art, but the message is WRONG anyway’. It seems like you just dislike the thing and are taking any angle you can find in order to declare it ‘not worthy’. Furthermore, I’d highlight that all emotions elicited by things other than real life are ‘artificial’, given they exploit the capacity for emotion we have in order to interact in real life; the presupposition that you alone can know what ‘really’ elicits emotion and what isn’t working hard enough is naive.
Squidi: sorry, one of your replies got stuck in the spam filter (#34) and I just retrieved it.
“YES OF COURSE IT CAN. But just because it CAN doesn’t mean that it WILL. It depends on the viewer.” You ‘re taking a point I didn’t make and trying to disqualify it. Hopefully, it’s fun for ya.
“Go screw yourself. Not only are you just being condescending but your example has no relevance to this discussion. You’re just pulling shit out of your ass.” Your brain is hardwired to respond to certain stimuli in a certain way. Games can use that to predict possible reaction from the audience. Still don’t get the relevance? I’ll bring out the visual aids if you ask nicely.
“So, you’ve moved from ‘this game isn’t art’ to ‘okay, maybe this game is art, but the message is WRONG anyway’” As I said before, a game is judged as art or not based on it’s message. Art ultimately elucidates, it doesn’t obfuscate. If the message is incorrect or near sighted, the game loses it’s art edge. You getting this?
“Furthermore, I’d highlight that all emotions elicited by things other than real life are ‘artificial’, given they exploit the capacity for emotion we have in order to interact in real life;” Sure, but that’s your own arbitrary distinction, with which no neuroscientist will agree. The same brain circuitry operates whether talking to someone you know, reading a letter from a lover or watching a movie.
“the presupposition that, by working hard enough, you alone can know what ‘really’ elicits emotion and what doesn’t, is naive.” There is no formula to make a deterministic prediction for eliciting emotion, if that’s what you mean. But the distinction I’m making between Ico and Passage is that the first creates a world of believable emotional interactions, which is close to “everyone“‘s emotional circuitry, whereas the latter is more of a conduit for emotions for people who are so inclined whenever presented with specifics symbolisms (no game required).
I hate to play devil’s advocate here, but I have to agree with Squidi. I just found this game pretentious and deliberately obtuse. If games are art (and I think they are), then this is the equivelant of a crappy modern art painting.
I normally avoid jumping into these discussions. But I just have to clear something up once and for all.
In Passage, you can
WALK UP AND DOWN TOO
Really, 99% of the people who claim Passage is not a game (calling it a screen saver, or whatever) think you can only walk right. If you think it’s not a game, play it again, and try pushing the DOWN ARROW.
There’s a score, and you make choices that affect your score. Thus, it is a game.
If Jason makes a third game like this, I’ll be disappointed that he’s getting stuck in a rut doing the same thing. Passage was fine as an experiment, where you have a short game with a highly abstract but clear theme as the main point of the game, rather than an afterthought (like the “story” that is tacked on to the gameplay of most games out there). I appreciate Passage as an attempt to present games in a new way.
Gravitation, though, was mostly a disappointment for me. It was the same as Passage: take a theme and present it in an abstract game. It was still emotionally affecting, but I can’t appreciate it as an experiment. And, the problem with the abstract and generic representation is that it makes the games obvious and overly simplistic.
Jason seems to be caught up on the idea that generic equals universal. It does not! Make something more specific, the more universal, and more complex, it becomes.
This whole conversation above pisses me off too much to comment on it. But because of that I feel like I have to state the obvious…
This game is incredible. It’s moving, powerful and a huge step for games, or rather… interactive art.
Passage was interesting and moving as well, but lacked the amount of interactivity to personalize the experience. I think Gravitation exposes an incredibly widespread problem of the human condition and does so with simple interaction.
This piece comments on life with actions, actions that you dictate, making the experience incredibly personal. It makes me want to quit everything, work a shit job and makes my own games like this. But then who would I play catch with?
This just gives more weight to the notion that an interactive experience of extreme simplicity and more or less archaic artistic representation can affect people much much more than many other forms of art TODAY. This is very important, because as a society, we humans are fickle, and to touch humans, they need to experience new things, such as the immaculate sculpture of the renaissance and baroque did. Other forms of art and expression are tired and lifeless, i.e. modernism, post-modernism etc. Nobody gives a shit about art gallery’s anymore. Humanity needs to feel something again, and they will feel it in interactive art.
It’s hilarious but that’s real life. 99% of people don’t realise that there is more to life than just walking right.
heheh, great observation Pnx :D
You remember in Mortal Kombat III when you’d uppercut someone and they’d fall through the floor, then the fight would continue on another level?
Let’s do that: http://playthisthing.com/gravitation
BigBossSNK said: blah blah blah blah i smell my own farts hurr
*BELCH*I give up, so I guess you win by default. Not because you’re right, mind you, but because I just remembered I have better things to do than argue with dimwits on the internet.
So congratulations. You win. Your prize is it sucks to be you.
How about we just look at making -FUN- games as an art form?
This game would be a lot better with a hi-score chart.
‘“So, you’ve moved from ‘this game isn’t art’ to ‘okay, maybe this game is art, but the message is WRONG anyway’” As I said before, a game is judged as art or not based on it’s message. Art ultimately elucidates, it doesn’t obfuscate. If the message is incorrect or near sighted, the game loses it’s art edge. You getting this?’ My point was your analysis of the message was your own. While we’re on the subject of naivety, I suggest you read up on postmodern theory.
‘“Furthermore, I’d highlight that all emotions elicited by things other than real life are ‘artificial’, given they exploit the capacity for emotion we have in order to interact in real life;” Sure, but that’s your own arbitrary distinction, with which no neuroscientist will agree. The same brain circuitry operates whether talking to someone you know, reading a letter from a lover or watching a movie.’
Try reading what I said again. That is exactly the point; the same circuitry operates as in experiencing real life, hence the declaration that a work ‘exploit’ or ‘manipulates’ the human mind can be applied to, uh, every work ever; your objection to deadeye’s explanation of his own experience is meaningless. Also, for what it’s worth, I study neuroscience.
‘“the presupposition that you alone can know what ‘really’ elicits emotion and what isn’t working hard enough is naive.” There is no formula to make a deterministic prediction for eliciting emotion, if that’s what you mean. But the distinction I’m making between Ico and Passage is that the first creates a world of believable emotional interactions, which is close to “everyone“‘s emotional circuitry, whereas the latter is more of a conduit for emotions for people who are so inclined whenever presented with specifics symbolisms (no game required).’ I fail to see how any of this blind assertion is valid if the work ultimately succeeds in eliciting emotion from people who aren’t bent on unclothing their imaginary emperor.
“blah blah blah blah i smell my own farts hurr BELCH” It’s interesting how faced with a superior logical point you resort to pettiness. Evidently, your frustration in coming up with a legitimate answer was greater than your willingness to win in a logical argument.
“My point was, your analysis of the message was your own” No. I talked about specific game elements and mechanics, physical facts, not interpretation of facts. Postmodernism has many facets. Not all of them are correct. Ultimately, science can be applied to game design. The end-user result will always pass through the statistical filter of social and biological programming, but that doesn’t make the end result random, only stochastic.
“your objection to deadeye’s explanation of his own experience is meaningless” If the subtleties of using game mechanics to create emotion on willing players eludes you, go ahead and call it meaningless. The fact remains, this is an underused tool.
“I fail to see how any of this blind assertion is valid if the work ultimately succeeds in eliciting emotion from people who aren’t bent on unclothing their imaginary emperor.” Same result, different success rates. Either way you are using preexisting emotional circuitry. But there’s a physical difference (on the amount of neurons and the connection they have between them) between actively building emotional connections through gameplay, and relying on gamers to have a predisposition for emotion through symbolism. Which basically means you’ll forget one game easier than the other, even if the intensity of emotion is the same while playing them.
Again, it’s blind assertion; you dislike the game, so you concoct ‘reasons’ to discredit it.
“I talked about specific game elements and mechanics, physical facts, not interpretation of facts.” No, you described the mechanics and then asserted they were ineffectual. If you can’t get over the delusion that your argument is based in logic, then I hardly see the point of continuing this discussion.
I like the games well enough but I also recognize that a BigBossSNK is right about the emotional reactions not being from the game itself, but rather what a person expects and what they associate it with.
Still, I think we should at least give the game credit for allowing people to bring in their own emotions and feel them, even if the game isn’t the source of those emotions. That itself is valuable, even if it’s just their expectancies and experience that’s causing it. There are plenty of games that do people do not extend their own emotional experiences onto and attribute it to the game.
But I do agree with BigBossSNK that those reactions are probably not due to the mechanics, they’re more likely due to the story, the situation, and the expectancies of the player. If people expected to be deeply touched by Metal Gear Solid 2 or something, they would be. I think a great deal, maybe even 90%, of how much people like something has to do with how much they expect to like it (or how much they expect to dislike it) rather than due to anything in the thing itself. And I’m not excepting myself from this, often I expect to like something and I do, and often I don’t expect to like something and I don’t. It’s hard to stop oneself from that.
(Also I think that ad hominem attack on BigBossSNK was pretty awful and it’s terrible to see this argument come down to ‘you’re an idiot and I have no time to discuss this with idiots’.)
I described the game mechanics and the extend to which they work. I also described the extend to which they don’t work. I gave reasons for why they didn’t work, and these reasons I didn’t “concoct” arbitrarily. They are applied psychology and neuroscience. If they don’t seem logical to you, that’s your problem.
You described the mechanics, asserted that they work in a particular way, explained the psychological mechanism by which this works in the case that the previous assertion was correct, and then further asserted that as a result the game is not ‘art’ and that people who claim to experience something are deluding themselves. There are two fundamental disconnects here.
This has gotten more heated than I intended. I can to a certain extent agree that initially projection is critical to the games working at all; it’s a direct consequence of the games’ brevity and simplicity. I cannot, however, agree that your own detachment is sufficient to denounce the things as meaningless; the context or receptiveness of the responder may be significant in determining their experience, but I don’t feel this diminishes it. What it comes down to is that art, hell, experience, is so subjective that I can’t help but feel anyone who seems to act as if they’re the final arbiter on these subjects is being a wanker. I respect your right to explain your own gripes, but stating categorically that something is emotionally ineffectual is just not rational. That is, had you framed your argument as the reasons why you disliked them, rather than as the definitive reason why they’re completely useless, I doubt half as many hackles would be raised as have now been.
“I think a great deal, maybe even 90%, of how much people like something has to do with how much they expect to like it (or how much they expect to dislike it) rather than due to anything in the thing itself.And I’m not excepting myself from this, often I expect to like something and I do, and often I don’t expect to like something and I don’t. It’s hard to stop oneself from that.”
Interesting idea, though this assumes that every time you make an expectation about something your expectation is made willy-nilly, which is hardly ever true. If I haven’t like the past 90 out of 100 horror movies I’ve seen, it’s reasonable to expect I probably won’t like the next one.
I think you are right about expectations coloring some part of a person’s view of a thing, but I think 90% is a huge overestimate. At least for, as I can only speak for myself. I am constantly surprised by what I like and don’t like.
“You asserted that people who claim to experience something from the Passagre are deluding themselves”
This “delusion about emotions” is something you added to the conversation, not me. I only said people are operating under emotional transference. If you don’t see a difference between the two, google it.
“What it comes down to is that art, hell, experience, is so subjective that I can’t help but feel anyone who seems to act as if they’re the final arbiter on these subjects is being a wanker”
Experience is subjective. I’m not talking about experience. I’m talking about the game as a physical manifestation. And using that physical manifestation as a basis for my argument before it passes from any distortion due to social programming filters. Whatever the case, a correct argument is based on facts.
“stating categorically that something is emotionally ineffectual is just not rational.”
I can see you can’t tell the difference between “emotionally ineffectual” and “emotionally evocative only to a certain group of people”. If you did, even the slightest hint of rhetorical prowess would inhibit you from confusing my claim for the former.
Hmmm? You have stated it fails in creating an emotional connection through its interactivity; that it is nothing in itself, hence emotionally ineffectual. I would also suggest “making arbitrary connections” fits very well with the concept of deluding oneself. As I have stated, there are two unsupported assertions in your argument and reiteration is doing little for it. I thank you for your opinion on the games, lord knows this place would be dull if we didn’t have any of those, but I cannot agree with it.
“You have stated it fails in creating an emotional connection through its interactivity; that it is nothing in itself, hence emotionally ineffectual”
There are ways to create emotion other than interactivity: music, graphics, symbolism etc. Not employing emotion through interactivity doesn’t mean not employing emotion at all. I was specific in my wording, yet you were not in your understanding.
“I would also suggest “making arbitrary connections” fits very well with the concept of deluding oneself.”
And you’d be wrong. Arbitrary claims aren’t necessarily false. They might still be true depending on the circumstances. Deluded claims on the other hand are always contrary to physical fact. Don’t confuse the two notion.
“As I have stated, there are two unsupported assertions in your argument”
And yet you don’t say what they are. You provide the bottle, but not the message.
There seems to be much debate over whether or not Passage and Gravitation are games. It’s my belief that they are, though that’s obviously not definitive. If they aren’t games, what are they? What do they not have that stops them from being classified as games? True, game isn’t a very fitting term for these creations… in fact I don’t think it’s a very fitting term for ‘games’ full stop.