This week there are two games to play, both by Stephen Levelle (increpare):
How do these games make you feel? How does the gameplay contribute to the feeling?
Missing made me feel quite lonely and sad. The story of a person looking for there son in a seemingly futile pursuit. You can walk around asking people the same question over and over with the same results, nothing. You can print out posters to hang them up which really do nothing. You keep playing because you know from experience you will always find the missing child in these games, but it doesn’t seem to happen. No matter where you go or who you ask nothing comes out of it. With every new person you see there is a glimmer of hope, this quickly dies when you receive the same response.
In home you play an elderly man who can only walk at a very slow speed and you are given 4 things to monitor; happiness, hunger, toileting and sleep. As the game progresses you eventually unable to monitor all 4 things at once and end up having to choose. failing at one of these tasks results in some very depressing and sad results; if you can’t feed yourself, you get a feeding tube, if you can’t go to the toilet, you get put in diapers. You are unable to manage all these things because you yourself are so slow.
The game play contributes to this feeling of futility by its slow controls, sombre 8-bit sound and incredibly plain, but iconic art. The repetition in the dialogue also helps enforce the idea that the pursuit is futile. In Home, the condescending tone every conversation has just makes you even more frustrated.
Consider the question: Are games art?
Art is incredibly subjective, what one person takes from a piece can be completely different from what another takes. In this vein of thinking, what one person sees as art, another may not. There are some incredibly brilliant and emotive games out there and I believe to enjoy and experience them you need to be immersed in that world, just like you would a painting. If art is “the product or process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses, emotions, and/or intellect” I believe we can count many titles as art, but few as inspirational.
It is true that there is no equivalent to the Mona Lisa in the games world, but we are progressing in some respects. I’d say we are defiantly beyond the realm of cave paintings in terms of complexity and meaning, but there is yet to be a gaming Renascence.
Posted on 12/10/2010
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