This game definitely made me reflect on my life choices: namely, the choice of running it on my macbook without skimming the Control Notes first to learn about the F key. This soon gave way to a more frantic game of “how do I quit!?”, because command-tab, command-Q, escape, f8, f9, f11, etc did not work when the game was running. I eventually killed it by hitting the power key and accepting a system restart, then canceling it once the game was killed. Please add a more intuitive way to break fullscreen or quit the game!

That said, I really enjoyed the presentation in this game, and spent a while just walking around and observing how my sprite would drift to the right and age. I’d never seen that before, and got a little worried that the game might let me get stuck in land if I stood next to it too long . The blurry future sight effect and really narrow field of view really hilight our often narrow view of the present and fuzzy anticipation of the future.

I was a bit miffed that after passing up the girl near the beginning in order to go deeper into the maze, I didn’t encounter any other possible partners later in life. Not everyone has the same trade-offs, after all, and it would be interesting to see some choices in that aspect of the game as well. Perhaps a fickle partner who leaves you when you get old, or an unattainable one who drifts away faster than you can follow, would be interesting albeit saddening additions. Also, it would definitely be amusing to try to control a polygamist L-block!

The chest-codes eluded me when I played, but so did the chest animations. For some reason I never connected the blue stars with 100 points, but would instead watch my score as I walked over chests and notice that sometimes I got 100 points and sometimes I didn’t. I think adding a floating +100 or +0 to the chest-opening animations would establish this connection a lot quicker, and get people to pay more attention to the kinds of chests they were opening, maybe discovering the codes in the process. Since the game already updates the score constantly as you walk right, it’s hard to quickly see the chests’ effect on it. A lot of scored games have such hectic scores anyway that score-watching is far less effective than popping up significantly large numbers when the player does something good, so they can judge the goodness of what they just did.

Anyway, I applaud this very retro and inspiring game!

Of course, this seems to be the weakest aspect of my design, because no one seems to get it or even notice it.

And I feel that this is something to explore. If someone came up to Andy Warhol and said, “What’s with the soup? I don’t get it,” he wouldn’t consider himself a failure. He’d curse the heathen and walk away. Like you, my initial reaction is, “the player is always right, so if he didn’t get it, that’s my fault.” And iteratively, that attitude results in a better game. But for an Art Game, is this still a valid way to think?

All these mechanics together are meant to trick you into focusing on your score. The trick is that, in the end, you realize that your score is rather meaningless.

Well, my gripe with the score was that I didn’t wait ’til the end to judge my score meaningless. Wondering what the score is != wanting to explore the score’s functionality. We can always make game systems that are so obtuse, players don’t even try to learn them; the (generally accepted) trick is to make a game system that’s not too hard, but not too simple, so players want to learn, are excited about what they learn, and don’t give up learning.

Since you wanted the player to accept that the score was ultimately meaningless, that turns the above paragraph on its head (it seems to me), but you still got the job done.

I guess I could’ve put in a tutorial, but I think that it would have just gotten in the way.

I totally agree there. I’ve seen an Art Game that was about teaching the player as subtly as possible, and with zero text. In a game like yours, where one explores the game to explore oneself, an overt tutorial could damage the pure “freedom” of the game.

Anyway, after seeing others’ positive responses to the mechanics of your gameplay, I’m willing to accept that my feelings of confusion and futility were (for me) exactly what the artist intended, and therefore it’s better, and more Artful, than I first judged. If you’re interested in iterating on this game to make it better, I’d suggest emoticons; perhaps a quick smiley-face when you open a star chest. Also score flyoffs could help players understand how the score gets modified. Finally, perhaps sickness, as an added mechanic, might be worth exploring.

But there’s still value in pure simplicity…

That is to say, it’s not something I’d really thought about that much…not that I don’t love my wife.

The trade-offs that I’m talking about, in terms of game mechanics, are in their effect on the score. Chests that contain blue stars are worth 100 points, while empty chests (containing dust and moths) are worth zero points. The little colored pixels on the front of each chest are a code that indicates what the chest contains. The code is different in each new game, and it is meant to be a metaphor about learning which pursuits in life are worthwhile in which our waste of time. In other words, in a given game, it is possible to learn to recognize chests that contain blue stars and only spend time going after them. Of course, this seems to be the weakest aspect of my design, because no one seems to get it or even notice it. Many people, after playing the game for a while, understand that some chests contain stars and some do not, but that’s about it.

The trade-offs involved in taking a spouse are also in terms of their effect on score. With her by your side, it’s harder to go deep in the maze in pursuit of blue stars, but you get double points for adventuring further to the east.

All these mechanics together are meant to trick you into focusing on your score. The trick is that, in the end, you realize that your score is rather meaningless. There’s no leaderboard or anything like that. Perhaps my game partially fails, in your eyes, because you didn’t realize that you were supposed to be focusing on your score. I was trying to play with the notion of score that is present in so many video games. It’s a video game! Of course it has a score! But the notion of score seems kind of silly when it’s juxtaposed against the themes in this game. We have all sorts of ways that we try to measure success in real life (money, fame, charity, scientific contributions), but in the end, are any of them any more meaningful than score in a video game? Score in this game serves as a placeholder for whatever your current measure of life success is at the moment.

What you’re saying is that my game does not make any of this clear enough to the player. I guess I could’ve put in a tutorial, but I think that it would have just gotten in the way. I was intentionally building the game around pretty standard video game elements (a maze, treasure chests, score) so that it would feel familiar to people and so no tutorial would be necessary. You sort of know what you’re supposed to be doing in this game, but by the end of the game, all of that activity is suddenly given meaning. You reflect on why you were doing what you were doing; for example, why you were going after a high score. The answer seems to be, “It’s a game. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing.” But then think about your life, and why you are currently doing what you’re doing. If you ask the same question about your life, is the answer all that much different?

@ Patch: That’s awesome! I think you probably understood the game better than I.

Can you tell us more specifically what choices you made in the game that affected you so?

The game moved me (specifically, made me cry, goram it!), which, I think, is a strong argument for it being a work of art.

@ Techbear: I think that a significant part of my emotional reaction to the game was that I made some specific choices in-game which resembled some of the choices I find myself making in life. The music, which was kind of old Sierra adventure game “hero” music with a strong flavor of melancholy, didn’t hurt any. But it was the actual gameplay, I think, that made things work here.

~ Patch

I’m unimpressed. Yes, the presentation of the game is about Deep Meanings. But I’ve been studying Art recently, and I’m leaning towards the conclusion that we game designers still think in terms of kinetic sculpture, NOT games.

This game used interesting visuals and a poignant score to convey its message, but that’s what a movie does. What games have (that other art forms don’t have) is interaction and choice. Passage’s choice is mostly about exploring up and down, and finding “chests” to “open”. I DO find it kinda interesting that his X axis represents both space and time, to a certain degree.

If the author is trying to make a statement about futility and how nothing matters in the long run, he succeeded. If he wanted to make a game that is open to interpretation by making the UI sparse and obtuse, he succeeded. But his notes indicate that he simply wanted to make a game that would get you to reflect on the structure and choices of life.

I see two interesting things here.

1) Game “Art” should be about expressing things thru gameplay, not clever audio/visual components.

2) If the player doesn’t understand how to play and what the UI means, who’s fault is that? I’ve always assumed that it’s ALWAYS the developer’s fault, but a player can’t “interpret” the game his own way, if everything is already spelled out for him, right?