http://machinarium.net/demo/
I mean it. Now. It's stuff like this that makes me proud to be a gamer. I'm the type of guy who really wants to see games become a respected art form, and I love games like Mechanarium because they provide credible evidence to my otherwise empty theories (I don't care how many chainsaws your gun has, Gears isn't art!)
I couldn't help but think of 3N3MY the whole time on this. Both he and I have had gaming love affairs with 2 separate point and click puzzlers - The Neverhood and Myst, respectively, and had I no need to worry about funds in this expensive gaming November, this game would be a definite purchase. It takes so many gameplay and visual cues from those titles it's almost hard to ignore.
At the very least swing on by and give their demo a try. I'm convinced that small game makers and creative minds are gonna be the ones who dictate the direction the industry flows in the the future. It's rare that a game with so much integrity comes along - just imagine what minds like that could do with a budget like Gears of War...
Seriously though, make 30 minutes of your day to give this one a go.
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Demo was meh... but I'm not into puzzle games or games where you randomly click 100 times on the screen to figure out what to do...
ReplyDeleteWell if you aren't into puzzle/point and click games then yeah, you're probably not going to care for it. Totally does remind me of The Neverhood (a game held very close to my heart in my formative years of gaming) and Sanitarium...a crazy trip into the mind of a man trying to remember who he is. Looks like yet another game I'll be picking up before Christmas!
ReplyDeleteJR: I'm not sure if you noticed, but the cursor changes when something you can interact on is available. The only "guessing" you need to do is where you should place your character on the screen, as some items only become available when your character is in a certain position. If you don't like it, you don't like it, but I think it's unfair to judge the game if you didn't catch onto all the subtle game mechanics.
ReplyDeleteI love games like this because they demonstrate how game design can be used in a beautiful way that doesn't involve finding a cooler way to show someone's brains be splattered across the wall.
Amateria: While I do agree with you that the game is different than just clicking 100 times on the screen b/c you have to be in the proper area/height it is essentially just another point and click adventure. It may be better received as "art" b/c of it's style and lack of budget, but the genre is unchanged in this.
ReplyDeleteI guess that just raises the question of how do you define art in a game or a game as art??? If we are going to define this as art (which I think it def can be) b/c of it's charm and attention to detail then are we just "snobs" for calling it so? I'm reminded of a quote I read of Michael Bay saying that he's hurt by the reviews of Transformers 2. He basically said that he put in more blood, sweat and tears into making that movie than in other movies like "The Departed" or "Sideways" which were better received. Does this make him less of an artist or us snobs because he BLOWS STUFF UP WITH ROBOTS!!!!!
I guess Bioshock was a great example of a game with a big budget as art. I dunno. I'm just rambling now. Thoughts?
Games as Art is a whole conversation that could be had in another blog.
ReplyDeleteFor me, having had so much dabbling and education in various art fields, Art is art when the public accepts it as such. It's too easy to look at something pretty and call it art, as I'm tempted to do with Mechanarium. Besides, so many current art fields don't even adhere to classical artistic standards, so applying concepts of beauty and style in hopes of better defining the definition of Art as it applies to games is somewhat of a lost cause.
As far as I can see, if someone thinks something is art, it's art. I wish the definition ran deeper than that, but our culture has really limited our ability to expand it.
I'll probably post something sometime soon about this. It's a huge part of what I believe about art/games, and a comment on another post isn't the time to rant. Remind me to talk about Transformers 2 though, it will provide a good example.
Will do. I was thinking that we should just do another post about this and not in a comments section too, but oh well.
ReplyDeleteDon't rush me. I live for stuff like this... I'll post something later this week.
ReplyDeleteAmateria: A classic when it comes to online "find-and-click" games is Crimson Room. Here is a link to this and several others that have come after it. Crazy hard and very frustrating. I used to spend hours trying to figure it out just because it seemed like it should be so simple.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fasco-csc.com/index_e.php
Check it out sometime. But beware, they are frustrating and many will lose interest very quickly.
I think the awesome thing about point an click, is that as a series of cause and effect triggers, just about every point and click game has the same level of depth, but it's the context and world those triggers are put into which creates the games difficulty or challenge. (i.e. "Oh man, I didn't see that little knob before", or "I love to explore the puzzles of Myst")
ReplyDeleteThinking of it, I'm not sure any genre of game is exclusive to that principle. Are all shooters variances of a theme? Are we approaching a sort of higher level gaming as standard genre classifications are becoming a thing of the past? (i.e. Borderlands is a Role-Playing Shooter)
Thoughts on the progression I'm seeing? Or am I just making a simple principle more complicated than it really is?
Amateria: You're absolutely right that all games are a variation of a theme. Just like that saying that you can't tell a story that hasn't already been told.
ReplyDeleteA point and click is a point and click and a spade is a spade, but that doesn't mean you can't have a blue spade or a red spade and I think that's where Borderlands fits in. Or maybe it's a spork? It's essentially still a spoon/shooter, but it's got the ability to stab food as well/rpg.
Until we get to that point in Back to the Future II where playing games with you hands is for babies I don't really see how we can create an entirely new genre.
For those wondering why I am deleting comments I feel I need to explain.
ReplyDelete1. I am responding a lot from my phone and a lot of my comments are coming through incompletely or with massive ammounts of mistypes.
2. Because the last one I posted was a little too "bitchy" and felt it wasn't a good idea to leave it. And since there isnt any way to edit once you have posted, I've had to delete them completely. Sorry, I'm still learning, and will try to proofread more before I post.
My Bad.