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But is it art?February 16th, 2007 |
I recently got into a discussion on a mailing list over the question of whether a particular game was art or not.
So first, here’s the game, High Delivery, one of Ferry Halim’s games over at Orisinal.
OK, played it? All the way to the end? Good.
Breaking it down from a strict ludological sense, what we have here is a game of indirect control. You’re pushing an object around with a cursor; the cursor is pushing force outwards, and the closer to the fan, the greater the force exerted. A second level of indirection is added in that the object is actually a compound object in two parts: there’s the part you can push, and another part dangling dangling from it which swings a bit side to side.
Your objective to get the dangling part to collide with the objects that are moving from top to bottom of the screen. You have a fixed time limit in which to cause as many collisions as you can using the cursor’s indirect control.
From a strictly mechanical sense, this is not all that complicated. Perhaps its most notable feature is that it is so indirect — you can’t just use the cursor to capture the falling objects. In fact, you can’t even use the object you control to capture the objects. Instead, you operate at a twice-remove. In effect, from a strictly mechanical point of view, the game is about a lack of control.
The goal is captures; a pretty common goal. We can speak of a game being about capture instead of merely collision when a collision removes the token you collided with from the field. Pac-Man captures dots; chess pieces capture other chess pieces. In this case, you measure your success at indirect control based on how many tokens you capture in the time limit, despite your lack of control.
The game reinforces the fact that lack of control is a thematic premise via the simple fact that it is next to impossible to actually exert perfect control. Tokens appear at directly opposite ends of the playfield; without knowing the exact position in which they appear, it’s almost impossible to go fro one end of the playfield to the other in time to capture both tokens. A “perfect score” is thereby presented as something nigh-unattainable.
Now, that’s pretty much all the mechanics. Let’s talk about the dressing, the aesthetics. Like all of Halim’s games, the art is beautiful. So’s the music, actually. But to a degree, that’s ancillary. It’s not so much the actual visuals that make it compelling to me. It’s what I have called “the metaphor” in other posts here.
The metaphor is that you are sending a bouquet to heaven. You start earthbound, in an empty alley — pretty, old-fashioned and European — a place that feels, well, old. And it’s empty. You move up through the clouds in the sky, and your “finish line” is the pearly gates of Heaven. The tokens you collect are flowers, which as they are captured fill up a bouquet in a bottle — a crude sort of vase, the sort of vase you get because you can’t get a better one.
Your score is actually how many flowers you were able to deliver to someone who has died, someone who ought to be in that alley and isn’t anymore, someone who for whatever reason doesn’t get a real funeral bouquet. And suddenly, the lack of direct control you have resonates for me – it echoes the lack of control you feel when grieving. Of course you can never express it enough – not only can you not gather enough flowers mechanically, you can never gather enough flowers thematically.
To me, this is a great example of how the underlying meaning of mechanics (lack of control, impossibility of completing a task) can be reinforced and thematized by a well-chosen metaphor. This is a mechanic that games generally don’t go near. “Difficult controls” is seen as anathema to good gameplay usually (though some games, like Marble Blast Ultra and similar, are of course entirely driven by the challenge of mastering controls).
What’s more, the metaphor here is frankly audacious. Making a game about loss is highly unusual; evoking the feeling of frustration via gameplay and then reframing it as theme strikes me as a very neat trick to pull off. Had the controls been easy, direct control over the captures would actually have very much robbed the game of its ultimate meaning. Had it been a game of clicking on the flowers, or moving a basket at the bottom using the arrow keys, it would not have had the same meaning either. The marriage of mechanic and theme is dead-on.
Not all of the Orisinal games manage this; the one he recently posted for Christmas is charming, but lacks the subtle kick, the greater depth.
What do you think? Is it art? Many on the mailing list disagreed, but my bottom line was that High Delivery is a great marriage of mechanics to aesthetics, and a very simple package that conveys emotions that games rarely venture near – grief, melancholy, and, because the flowers are always received positively, even a sense of closure.
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High Delivery. Now, there’s no blood or guns, but play it to the end and the sentiment is very sweet — under the right conditions you may even shed a little tear. Raph Koster has a very New Yorker-style explanation on his website about the title. It’s not very often that we get to use a word like “subtle” to describe a game. Even other games given the “art” label like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are more “awe inspiring,” and there is nothing subtle about the
High Delivery. Now, there’s no blood or guns, but play it to the end and the sentiment is very sweet — under the right conditions you may even shed a little tear. Raph Koster has a very New Yorker-style explanation on his website about the title. It’s not very often that we get to use a word like “subtle” to describe a game. Even other games given the “art” label like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are more
High Delivery. Now, there’s no blood or guns, but play it to the end and the sentiment is very sweet — under the right conditions you may even shed a little tear. Raph Koster has a very New Yorker-style explanation on his website about the title. It’s not very often that we get to use a word like “subtle” to describe a game. Even other games given the “art” label like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are more “awe inspiring,” and there is nothing subtle about the
talks about the renaissance of board games. Good games are mentioned. The Boylston Chess Club Weblog is covering the latest in Chess player news, this time alleged sexual assault by a rather well-known Chess player and teacher in Nashua. Raph Koster finds art in an interestingly themed video game, High Delivery. And a report from the Board Game Speed Dating night in the UK. Yehuda
So, now I’m wondering: is it art? Raph Koster
Joystiq directed me over to Raph Koster’s blog where he is linking a free flash game that he believes is “art.” I hope that you, like me, are not impressed by anyone who links to a game that they believe is “art” because I hope that you are able to find games that are “art” as quickly as I am. It
High Delivery [via] Covers! [via] The Velvet Underground – The Norman Dolph Acetate “English sentences without overt grammatical subjects” Pitch ‘n putt with Joyce and Beckett [via] G.W. Bush operates heavy machinery, mayhem ensues
Free Multiplayer Games – Download and Play Free Games XAvenger | Marco Polo Games Charlotte’s Web: Word Rescue | Marco Polo Games Pigllionaire | Marco Polo Games Luxor Mah Jong | Marco Polo Games Ancient Mosaic | Marco Polo Games Raph’s Website » But is it art? Free Flash Games @ YOGAMES.NET spéculation personel sur les meilleurs productions du web Bolton University funds casual games in the UK
12:46pm: Awe http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/high.htm Главный теоретик поясняет все очень четко.
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[...] Raph’s Website > But is it art?…’s the game, High Delivery, one of Ferry Halim’s games over at Orisinal. http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/02/16/but-is-it-art... – – http://www.raphkoster.com [...]