It’s nothing new for me to be confused. In fact, you might say that I blunder around my daily life in a constant state of mild confusion; but when it comes to games I generally know where I’m at. Yeah, I might get baffled by a puzzle or a bit overwhelmed with an RTS but I know generally what’s going on. I know I have something to solve or an army to defeat, but right now I am utterly confused by what I have just experienced.
The Graveyard is a commercially available game (via steam) which has a demo that contains the full experience with the exception that you can’t die. While this may summon a tribal “uh?” and strike you as just having ‘god mode’ un-optionally on, it’s not like that nor is it this that is confusing me. Allow me to try to explain.
The Graveyard sees you play as an old lady. The objective of the game is simple and laid out for you: go to the back of the graveyard and sit on the bench in front of the church. When you are ready to stand back up do so then leave the way you came out from. That’s all there is to it. The path you walk is 100% straight – you can’t deviate off it. You walk at the pace of a little old lady with a limp. There are no hidden surprises as such – nothing jumps up and scares you, no plot gets injected and at no point are you an armed little old lady holding off hordes of undead from the church.
Now that we are quite probably siblings in confusion let me emphasise that this is the entire game. Nothing else happens. So why shoudl you be interested? Well, to get something out of this, what you have to do is re-evaluate the concept of ‘game’. The Graveyard is barely ‘game’ in the way we know it; it’s often likened to an interactive painting more than anything else – and like any good painting it is certainly beautiful and completely unlike anything I have experienced before. It also stirred up some emotion and thinkelings – mostly about lifes’ inevitabilities and unfortunates. This is a way of getting something (what I’m not quite sure) across that only ‘games’ can do, and while this is great The Graveyard has still just left me…confused.
The confusion I am experiencing is mainly at how much I actually enjoyed or cared about the experience. Basically – I never, and while it is ‘something new’ the ‘marmite, ketchup, raw onion and guinea pig sandwich’ is something new but not particularly in a good way. I mean, yeah, The Graveyard is very well executed, very pretty and certainly tasteful in it’s message, but from playing the demo once I have no intention of experiencing it ever again – yet alone paying the £3.50 for the ability to watch a death animation that is (rather unfortunately I suppose) readily available on YouTube. It’s a very pretty and unique painting, but at the end of the day, not one I would want to hang on my wall.
I recommend anyone to play the demo, just to see how far the concept of ‘game’ can be pushed, but to buy the full version is just a push to far. If you really are impressed and want to congratulate/support the developers for this arty experiment then go ahead but I think there are better things to spend your money on.
I agree with you here WM, novelty value is ok but only once. Games arent ment to be for artistic purposes.. it’s nice, sure – but a game is just that – a devices to garner fun from, relieve stress and some times gain a learning. However games are not a media for displaying art (other than concept) etc.
Why anybody would want to play a game like this over and over is beyond me – it looks good and I will try the demo, however – other than to “check it out” there is no point to it. There is more powerfull media that does what this game is trying to do, a book for exampe allows you to paint the picture in your mind, a film allows you to see other poeple interpret the script, in a picture you get to see the stokes of the brush and see how the artest “felt” whilst painting.
Here you just see some graphics, and it makes you think – but I cannot see or get the impression of emotion. However this might change when I play the game…
The problem here is that we are stepping into something hopelessly vague and that to say “Games can’t do art” depends on your perception of art. google defines art as “the products of human creativity” or “the creation of beautiful or significant things” and on this basis every game, film, book and piece of music ever made is classed as art.
However, yes, I know exactly what you are saying, and you are right – and I think that while games can still be beautiful pieces of art they utterly fail when they try to be “arty” because in the end we set out to enjoy a game, and if it’s too busy being “art” rather than being enjoyable it fails in it’s base values. The best way I think I can sum this up, using The Graveyard as an example, is to say that they have done a drawing in wax crayons and called it a painting, it’s not a painting – but it is something similar, and while it is art, it’s not particularly good art because wax crayons are rubbish.
If that makes any sort of sense I should have put that in the original post. If it doesn’t…well I’m not surprised.
Let us know what you think when you have played it anyway.
You could buy defense grid. I mean, I’m all for the kind of thing Tale of Tales are doing, but I think games ultimately have to offer challenge; it’s clever to subvert the user’s control and habits (WTF NO BUNNYHOPPING?!) but I’m not sure what the point is of this. I mean yeah, it’s sad when you get old and you can’t move as fast, but you don’t see me making a game where you sit in a gas station all night while people call you stupid and ugly at the end of their drunken nights out.
If I made that game, you’d have a gradually lowering ceiling/door lock button. Or a chainsaw.
Calling something an interactive painting, it… well it paints a strange picture, really; I think Braid is an interactive painting in parts; imagine walking around the Mona Lisa as rendered in real time by Da Vinci’s hand? Something gorgeous, something chilling – they could have taken the quests and “game” out of Oblivion and made it an interactive painting full of setpieces and things, and have the Oblivion gates gradually show up. This old lady business… it just sounds like an amputated limb from an adventure game. Hmm.
I shall investigate, though.
You’ll see what they mean more about interactive painting when/if you play it.
I already bought defence grid last night – along with plants vs zombies actually. Tower Defence overload – but in a good way.
Please make the game of working in a gas station. You could collect points by addding on snacks to peoples petrol purchases then spend your accumulated points on weapons/heavy duty landscaping equipment.
ok I played the game (working from home) and am disappointed.. It is completely pointless in my opinion. it is dull, the graphics are far from spectacular (might have something to do with the spites which were used for trees)
there was no sense of emotion, other than the fact of you think about death due to the song.. I really do feel like it was a waste.. I have seen prettier games, more meaningful games, and pint glasses with more personality…
im meant sprite not spites