Gameplay Journal Entry #9
For this weeks journal entry, I played Passage, a video game created by Jason Rohrer. My first impression was that the game had very basic artwork, was extremely pixelated and basic, and had no clear objective from the start. As I began to play by moving my character around objectives and through scenes, I noticed the characters begin to get older. I continued to move through, and noticed without lack of detail that the characters began to age. The further you progress through the game, the older they get. Once you meet up with the woman in the game, it becomes objectively harder to move through and around obstructions and make it to the end.
Critical game play as described by Mary Flanagan can mean subverting set norms and exploring the boundaries of what is, and is not, permissible (Flanagan 60). After spending some time playing this game, I learned that there is really no “winning” this game. Does the lack of a final objective even make this a game? Critical play theory disputes this, and many players critique the ending of this game. However, there is a powerful message within the aesthetic of this game, and it is that life is short, and the total time to play is an abstract representation of life.
References
College, M., Flanagan, M., College, H., University, H., Nissenbaum, H., University, N., . . . Authors: Mary Flanagan Hunter College. (2007, April 01). A game design methodology to incorporate social activist themes. Retrieved March 24, 2021, from https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1240624.1240654
