"Know that there are no "accidents" in this game design. Everything you notice about the game, and every subtle interaction that you experience, is intentionally packed with meaning."

Doubt it. There are almost always accidents in game design, it's just hard to avoid. In any case, I loved passage, so I'll definatly check this out.

You can try to love the girl, you can try to work hard save the world, but in the end you will just end up sad and alone.

That's what I got out of it.

I had no idea what was going on from the start, but I still thought that was great. It was sad at the end, alone collecting star only because I had nothing else to do...

Is there any possible way to "win" this game?

i'll keep playing em but it would be nice to have a less depressing one next.

it was cool how you could jump higher and higher and then .....i notice, where she go? :( BTW i recommend everyone to play passage, its a short but very interesting game

@EightBit: I don't believe you can.

@EightBit: "Nobody ever wins at this game. You just do a little better each time."

Personally, I got a few things out of Gravitation that I don't think I got out of Passage.

The first feeling I felt was selfishness through greed. I was playing with the girl(daughter?) in the beginning, and noticing how much fun she was having, and I soon left as soon as I found the exit. I saw stars, and began to push them down. Life seemed to be great, I was climbing higher and higher, until I noticed my jumps weren't as high and my view was getting smaller. All I could focus on was myself, and the music grew quiet and monotonous. I began my descent back down and found the girl, practically encased in the ice blocs that I sent. My own joy in retrieving stars imprisoned the girl in ice. My own quest for happiness resulted in isolating someone who just wanted to be friends. I felt horrible.

SPOILER AHEAD.

The second major point was when the girl disappeared. I didn't want to "spoil" something because it hld so much emotion for me to play through. After my first time "rescuing" the girl from the ice, I would leave for short trips, then come back, rescue, and play with the ball for a bit. I came back down one time and she was gone. By now, I had come back to her both to free her, and to be able to see and jump more when I couldn't anymore. Through my own actions of condemning the girl, I trapped myself alone and miserable. My vision was leaving me, and only one note remained in the music. I was alone, with the red ball that gave the one other person joy. After the vision and jumping came back, I was presented with another option. Leave and adventure on last time, or just stay? I chose to stay next to the ball, in the same spot.

Never before have I been so overcome by emotion during a game like this.

@EightBit:

yeh I beat it and got S rank

Wow, I totally agree with Apollo, never before a game made me feel so many things at the same time. I recommand this game to everyone, and when you play look around and try to understand what's happening.

The blonde "girl" is actually his son, Mez. Mez has long blonde hair, as shown in the creator's notes. :)

Ah, thanks. Totally missed the notes, I'll read em now.

Wow. That was interesting.

Sniff...

If you play ball with the kid the whole time then it stays there and fades away happy :)

Wow, amazing game!

Well first thing i understood from the beggining is, playing with his son made him so happy that he could reach the sky / stars.

Still, Apollo's descriptions was pretty complete, very interesting to see how other people see the differant things in the game.

Great game, i recommand it to everyone, i never had so many feelings playing a video game.

Jesus Christ. This is why nobvody likes "artistic" things - they're always incredibly depressing. Their sole purpose seems to be to remind you that you will die alone and unloved. What the hell?

You know what a great "artistic" game is? Katamari Damacy. At least it's uplifting and joyous. Can't something "artistic" convey a message of joy without crashing it back down into despair?

Well, regardless of the gender confusion, my comment still stands as is.

Wow. That was...unique. I didn't really get all emotional about it like you guys did though. I guess I'm just a cold-hearted bastard >_>

I ended up losing the kid while I was far away up top, colleting a big 4-star bounty. Without the power of love-propulsion, I started doing some experiments; I managed to set my hair on fire by standing directly in the oven for a while and headed upwards one last time, but couldn't find any stars in time; when I got back down, the fire in the oven looked like it was about to go out, leaving me with absolutely nothing.

..but then, near the end, my vision just started expanding on its own, and the winter receeded. It made me think the game was trying to say, "Don't worry about busting your ass working on collecting stars, or playing with the kid and his ball; the world will take care of itself, in the end."

If genius was currency Jason Rohrer would dine with kings and lunch with Bill Gates. Love these creations of his.

I got absolutely nothing out of this game. Not that there isn't anything to interpret... but I was playing it and like, uh... what do I do? Then I realized that if I bounce the ball back & forth my hair will eventually catch on fire, so I jumped and jumped and jumped and then I found blocks of ice and I started pushing them down and into the fire, and I repeated it, just trying to get to the top. I didn't get to the top, so I stopped playing...

Now that I read all your interpretations, I feel like I got more out of it. I wanted to reach the top and couldn't. Playing with the child was unimportant to me, I just used him to propel my adventure forward.

@Grumps:
I don't think they're depressing at all, in fact I think they're very cheerful and uplifting. They're just very frank.

Now, Rod Humble's artistic game, "The Marriage", THAT is depressing.

Wow. That was a powerful game. It taught me quite a few things about the value of family.

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.

@EightBit: Can you win life? Well, the boardgame, yes, but in this game and out there the concept of "winning" doesn't really apply.

@Kinsman: Yes, and then all the sudden at about 10 seconds left all the light faded and you're unable to jump, as if to say, "Aw crap!" Yeah, I saw the first expansion of light/power as the time of life after the kids go to college and you retire with enough to visit the islands or something. The 10 second mark is when you realize you're dying anyway and panic.

Unless you're Buddhist, in which case there may not be a light in the first place.

@radiomouse:
I don't actually remember seeing a sudden dimming at the 10 second mark. I wonder if we're doing things differently.

Am I the only one that didn't like Passage and got bored of this about halfway through?

If these games (The Marriage, Passage, etc.) are reinforcing what you believe about life, good for you.

If they are teaching you about life, for your sake and for others', spend less time playing video games and more time doing something else with other people.

Brilliant game. I enjoyed Passage, but this one felt much better.

I created my own story, my own message, as I played through it:

My sister helped me build up courage through playing ball to escape the confines of my prison/home. I'd leave to accomplish as many things as possible, only to relapse and close off to the world, knowing there was business to finish back home. I'd drop back down and realise that the time I'd spent chasing after more 'stars' left me with all the more work to do. I felt overwhelmed by the pile of bricks I had to get through. Slowly, but surely, I processed them all. Into the flames! My sister provided the necessary encouragment to face the world again.

One day when I came back, she had left. Probably off to her own adventure. I realized that I had better work up the courage on my own to face the outside world. Slowly I rebuilt my confidence. I felt stronger, kept jumping higher and higher, until finally I could leave my home/prison again. From there, if only the game's timer allowed, would I have truly won.

The thing about Rohrer's games is that they sap something out of me once I'm done. I didn't have the sharp emotional impact that I got out of Passage, but I think I got it without really thinking I had got it.

God that sounded pretentious. ANYWAY, what I guess I'm saying is that its amazingly well designed. Its giving you some wild visual and audio cues that put you in this feeling of "hey, I must be doing something right!", like being rewarded for actions.

Also, I didn't know how to jump, but once I realized i must be getting some sort of power up from being on fire, I tried to figure it out.

And yeah, definitely getting what he's saying about the creative process. Its kinda like that.

@oboreruhito:
Glad to hear others telling others how to process a piece of art. The same could be said for a Monet, "You don't get it? Spend some more time outside you goon.". Seriously the most pathetic internet comment I've read all day.

Gravitation was a joy to experience. I love Jason's approach to try and display feelings in small session games.

I liked the message of "Passage" better, but there was definitely more gameplay in "Gravitation." "Gravitation" just shows us what selfish jerks we can be if we ignore our children & use them just for our gain to get more power in a job, more money, etc. (able to jump higher, get more stars). These games look almost exactly the same, have 2 different stories, but both basically say that you'll die no matter what you do, so you might as well do the best you possibly can in life whether it's for people in your life or for God.

I follow God & believe that He gives me a purpose in life to impact other people's lives in a positive way. I think that you need to live for something; otherwise life becomes meaningless.

I never thought that simple games like these could provoke such powerful emotions. It makes me want to make great games 1000 times more!

At the end of the timer after leaving the ball to try and finish the adventure to avenge the death I got trapped after going for those stars :(

Then the screen faded away.

Quite strange...

"I ... consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control ... I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art." - Roger Ebert

)Preface: I credit Jason Rohrer for the epiphany that I have just had.)

Part of the reason why video games are in contention for a place amongst the myriad media of legitimate arts, rather than having already been proven worthy of the distinction, is that, unlike all other forms of art, most video games are designed to require effort on the part of the observer in order to experience the work from beginning to end. It is a traditionally active medium where all others are passive.

A novel can be wholly experienced merely by reading all of the words, no talent is required to accomplish this task. A film can be watched from beginning to end without any effort on the part of the observer. Anybody can reach the end simply by watching. All that is required is a sense sight, sense of hearing, and the passive choice not to stop observing. The same goes for music, which is the most basic form of art because it requires only a single sense to experience, and not only does it require no effort on the part of the observer to experience, it actually requires effort not to experience.

Now, a film like Citizen Kane is largely worthless without any effort being put into analyzing the piece. Be that as it may, anybody can reach the end of it. What makes it more than just a series of moving pictures and sound is the meaning that one can gather from it. It is no more viable as art than Jason Rohrer's game, Gravitation. The game, like any written piece, musical number, or film, has a distinct beginning and end that can be passively experienced in toto. The only requirement for experiencing the entire piece is that the observer not choose to stop observing.
It requires no talent to avoid death or discover a correct path to the ending. Like Citizen Kane, the game has authorial control. The author has laid out the scenario, and the player experiences it from beginning to end. He has no way of controlling what you gather from the work, just as Orson Welles has no way of controlling what you gather from his films. However, they both exercised control in explicitly defining what the observer may observe. How the work is approached is left entirely up to the player, in the case of the game, and the viewer in the case of the film.

If one is art, so is the other.

Just because a vast majority of games do not fit Mr. Ebert's criteria for being "art," does not mean that the medium is intrinsically incapable of delivering art, and I feel that this game is proof.

@baked ham: I think Ebert's statement is full of shit, but I don't think I can agree with yours.

Saying that Citizen Kane is useless without analysis--well, what do you mean by analysis? If you mean analysis of the story and characters, then I have to disagree. Citizen Kane can stand on its own simply for its cinematography and innovations in filmmaking. On the other hand, nearly anything can be analyzed, from arthouse films to beach novels. Of course, the story and subtext of Citizen Kane is rich as well, and it deserves all the accolades it has.

But even if no one watched Citizen Kane, its cinematography would still be fantastic. Even if no one analyzed Citizen Kane, its story would still be amazing.

Something can be "Great Art" for any number of reasons, from emotional to technical to aesthetical. And the feeling that most people get from playing Passage or Gravitation--catharsis--is not neccessary nor sufficient to be "Great Art." A person might experience catharsis from seeing a box of cereal, catching a whiff of perfume, or eating madeleines. That doesn't make any of them "Great Art."

Not ragging on Passage or Gravitation--I think they're fantastic--but the community has begun to hype them into something they're not. I'm not going to say whether they're art or not (that's a very, very involved question, really), but I feel that overanalysis is the real subject here.

And yes, my usage of Great Art is somewhat ironic.

@baked-ham: I don't think its the issue whether videogames CAN be considered an art-form; it already HAS. This game, Bioshock, Portal, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, No More Heroes, and many more are prime examples of how the gaming industry has matured artistically.

You are absolutely right in saying that gaming unlike, other forms of media, is not a passive experience and that would be exactly the reason why old fogies like Ebert or the Mainstream Media cannot appreciate it.

Ebert probably said the statement after watching his son play Mortal Kombat or something, but while Ebert could be considered the authority on films, he definitely isn't on gaming.

He seems to think that gaming is something new, something that is just for kids, something with big guns and macho personalities geared towards the mainstream expletive-loving 13 year-old. And that is precisely the image the MSM gives of Gaming, and until they start looking beyond incidents of violent game-inspired shootings, or the winners of the next World Cyber Games, and actually start establishing a proper National Gaming Organisation (NGO get it :P) like the Academy of Arts and Sciences, which hands out meaningful awards, and getting some positive publicity, the public perception of videogames will not change.

Roger Ebert should stick to movies.

@celery: Citizen Kane can stand on its own simply for its cinematography and innovations in filmmaking. As an observer, you will analyze. Your mind is not a stagnant thing. It automatically responds to stimuli. As such, when you look at Citizen Kane you are able to recognize the merits of it, you see what was accomplished. It is more than just light. It has a meaning. If a cat were to be in the presence of it, that cat would not be able to comprehend the notion that it was well-crafted or a piece of art. It requires that analysis. Humans have the ability to analyze, and it happens automatically, often against our will.

"Fantastic" and "Amazing" are subjective qualities that can only be attributed to something by choice. It requires a conscious decision which is arrived at some point after perception.

You have to find the qualities in cinematography, storytelling and character in order to be able to appreciate them. If you alienate those things into their barest matter, that is as waves of light and vibrations of sound, just generic sensory stimuli, then there is absolutely nothing revolutionary going on, there is no innovation in storytelling, and there is nothing inherently "good" about the cinematography. All of these things rely on thinking to arrive at the idea that they somehow belong to a higher order.

@User-name: We agree. I had just read that quote from Ebert, and decided that - for personal reasons - I wanted to attempt to formulate an argument that stood strong against his.

@celery: Oh, and I just felt the need to add that not all humans do "think" all the time. There are different breeds, so to speak. I have personally met people who found absolutely nothing redeeming about Citizen Kane. They did not have the historical context to place the film in, and therefore the cinematography did not appeal to them. They are used to big budget movies of the new millennium. They are used to color. They are used to fast paced action and profanity ridden language. They find Citizen Kane boring, and they don't see it as having any intrinsic qualities such as "fantastic cinematography" or an "amazing story." They don't even know what "cinematography" means. Do you see what I'm getting at? The qualities that you say exist in Citizen Kane no matter what don't really exist there at all unless a person decides to place those interpretations upon it.

@celery: Gah. And again, I disagree with you about "Great Art." It's a made up concept that you've got your own definition for, for one. You know, catharsis is not the only thing that can occur when playing Gravitation. It's almost an allegory. You can feel empty or fulfilled, it instills a sense of how love affects you, and how doing your own things affects your relationships and your happiness in general. It gives you feelings about "success" and "failure" and what those things are to you. There are a lot of insights that one can have while playing the game, a lot of feelings.

ca·thar·sis /kəˈθɑrsɪs/
-noun 1. the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art.

Right there, the dictionary says that catharsis is especially brought about by art. And you know, I contend that perfume and madeleines are art as well. Somebody had the idea to put specific scents together. The sense of smell is very powerful and ties in with the brain in myriad ways. Memories and feelings are strongly associated with smell. There is absolutely an art to crafting perfume scents. Somebody had the idea to create a pastry out of specific ingredients in a specific shape. It was a thoughtful, artistic creation designed to give a specific sense to the person who partakes of it. Madeleines are even traditionally shaped in artistic manner. They're not just a clump of ingredients, it was a creative process, just like any other piece of art. It's reproduced daily throughout the world. In fact, it is perhaps more artistic than most pieces of literature, most pieces of music. The madeleines is duplicated and experienced more each day throughout the world than any performance of Beethoven's music. I would say that more "copies" of that tiny cake have been created and consumed in the last 50 years than copies of George Orwell's "1984." It has been enjoyed by and given satisfaction to more people throughout its history than any artist could ever hope their work to accomplish. Why shouldn't these things be considered "art?"

@baked ham: @celery:

"She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…"
- Remembrance of Things Past, Volume 1: Swann's Way. Marcel Proust

If that is not the description of a person affected by art, then I don't know what is.

@baked ham:

Very nice. You should write a paper on how video games can be considered as art. Now the tough thing is which comment of yours to nominate for comment of the week :D.

@User-name: I only wish I had done a better job of proof-reading some of these :) Couple of glaring errors in spelling/grammar here and there. Oh well. Thanks for the kind words!