Jason Rohrer’s new art game: Gravitation
Gravitation is another art game. It’s good. It’s also easier for new players to “get” than Passage, which hopefully will help more people realize how interesting these games are.
If you’re not familiar with Jason’s previous game, Passage, you can get it here.
If you’re new to this whole Art Game thing, you may want to check out Rod Humble’s The Marriage and the more-difficult Stars over Half Moon Bay.
It’s great that Jason is managing to create such good games in such a short time period. It makes me wonder if I’ve been going the wrong way working 3 years on Braid.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I really like what he does with visibility and frame size.
I think there’s a special value to something that has been labored over for many hours, days and years, but working on quicker stuff is very attractive.
March 1st, 2008 at 4:34 am
I liked this and didnt like this at the same time, but I think that makes it good anyway ^_^
as for the whole quick made game vs putting lots of time in, in my experiance sometimes I can make something thats really polished in a weekend, sometimes it takes a year+.
in all honesty, spending ages making every part of a game shine will always show. but not everyone will appreciate it. you just have to find your own balance and the balance for the game in question, I’ve seen plenty of rapid development games that kick ass because they are so quickly made.
to summarize: its like comparing an orchestra to a jazz band, they both have soul, they both have style, but they tend to be for different people. just gotta decide what sort of person you are
March 1st, 2008 at 10:03 am
I’m having a harder time understanding this game than I did Passage. The play mechanics are a little more gamey, but the theme is somewhat more elusive. Maybe it’s just because I can’t go read a bazillion opinions on it and see whether my own opinions match or not.
I guess that’s kind of the whole point.
It’s interesting to play a game with the eye of a critic, but at the same time not trying to review it. Passage and Gravitation definitely conjure the same thoughtfulness and speculation as does browsing a good art exhibit.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:42 am
My friend’s term for that is “Cactus Envy”. Dude makes like a game every weekend.
March 1st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Just as there are different genres of literature, it seems that we are developing different genres of art games now. These short games remind me a little bit of haikus, this japanese short poetry style. Now we have something like “haiku games”. Gravitation really inspired me to try and make my current project a haiku too.
March 1st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
The only way to defeat Cactus Envy is to just realize that everyone has/is looking for their own style, and yours isn’t his.
That, or kill the prolific sod. But he’s too lovable for that.
March 1st, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Doesn’t work in Vista 64. I’ve emailed Jason to let him know.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Anyone who enjoys Jason’s games and programs is encouraged to look through the source… ideas like storing the game’s music as a TGA image, a sort of reverse visual sequencer output, are adorable and clever.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Well, if that game doesn’t make you want to avoid having children, I don’t know what will. You play ball with the adorable tyke for most of your life–catching it on the ground, jumping up to hit it in the air, thrilling to the way they love you–then you go get one measly little star and they leave. If that ain’t gratitude….
March 1st, 2008 at 6:12 pm
It’s funny. The ‘game’ aspects of this are much more clear than in Passage, but the theme is much more difficult to pin down. I have a feeling there is going to be a lot more debate about what exactly is going in this game then there ever was in Passage.
March 1st, 2008 at 9:14 pm
One nice emergent effect is that if you collect too many stars in a single trip, you will end up with a literal barrier between yourself and the child.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:38 am
Works for me in Vista 64.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
After playing Gravitiation for a while I prefer it to Passage. Its deeper and more personal in my view.
oh and
“It makes me wonder if I’ve been going the wrong way working 3 years on Braid.”
Dude you have made at least 3 other games/ works I know of during that time that are facinating. 8 Dots, EasyWrench, Rasberry. You are hardly lazy
besides Braid is a long form work and in my opinion brilliant. Not wasted years.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I find the theme of this game far more elusive than Passage. Passage’s theme was like a snowball, rolling larger and larger until it was impossible to not see it. Gravitation has a lot of elements that you need to search for and then give thought to all while moving against the clock and trying for several different objectives at the same time. You definitely need to invest more energy into understanding Gravitation than Passage.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:04 pm
hi, have you ever heard about a (rpgmaker 2003 japanese) indie game called Yume Nikki? is not finished yet so it doesn’t have a “game mechanics”, but is really awesome the feelings that can produce.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:18 am
I tried to download Yume Nikki but it won’t work except on Japanese versions of Windows, because of the file names. (Which is a problem of Windows, not of the game… Windows is annoying sometimes).
I watched a Youtube walkthrough of part of it and it didn’t really look like a game I wanted to play, but it’s often hard to tell from walkthroughs (just like Braid!)
August 24th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
yeah, in fact is very tedious, is like a “japanese videogame version” of William Kurelek’s painting ‘THE MAZE’.
March 19th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Having my interest in the indie game scene exponentially increased by releases such as Braid, I wanted very much to like this game. I had read several articles about the creator and his unique approach to designing games. I sat down with an open mind and gave it a shot. Then I played it again. Finally, I started for a third time.
My disappointment quickly turned to anger as I thought about all the respected game designers and reviewers who have given this game glowing reviews, even going as far as to say that this was the only game to make them cry or that this was a revolutionary step in gaming. Certainly, they weren’t talking about the same game I had just played.
Don’t get me wrong- as someone who studied art in college I see the elementary tricks used to brighten and dull the player’s mood. The sunny day fades to gray, the green grass ices over, the music becomes dreary, blackness envelopes your visual bubble and your character acts more sluggishly. Nothing revolutionary here, but so far so good.
So in the first couple of moments I find the child. I spend time playing catch and quickly grow tired of the only 3 states this child seems to show- heart, tears and nothing. I spend several minutes with the child, hoping that there will be some kind of development, that I can somehow nurture a relationship. Instead, I am punished with the awkward and monotonous task of bouncing the ball back while nothing happens. My efforts are meaningless.
So on my second run through, I use the child to grow strong enough to get to the stars above. Certainly there is something sinister in implication of needing to use the child to achieve other goals, but at this point it seems to be my only option. Eventually, my cycle of collecting stars further and further out of reach leads to the inability to play catch with the child and then the disappearance of the child altogether. When the child disappears, I am forced to sit alone while the world closes in and becomes dark.
I see a very basic and very forced moral at this point, but nothing even close to an emotional tingle. There is no way for me to develop in the game or create an attachment. It appears the only motivation for collecting stars is boredom after playing with a stagnant child who never changes. It is a cliche’ that has been done better in every medium, including games.
Even worse, the design of the game itself is bad. In an effort to make sure that I wasn’t missing some subtle nuance that would reveal the true brilliance of the game, I had my girlfriend sit down and play it. She quickly lost interest in the child, as I did, and attempted to collect stars. After about 3 minutes, she was cursing furiously as she struggled with the jump mechanism. Shortly thereafter, she stormed off. Any message the game was trying to convey was lost.
It seems to me that the game would have benefited greatly from a Contra or Metal Slug style of platform that allows the player to jump up through the bottom, taking away from the frustration of trying to work with a poorly modeled jump ability. This is all very basic stuff from a design standpoint.
I thought about all the RPGs with compelling stories that had moved me. I thought back on even old games like Final Fantasy 6 (3 in the US) that isolated you on a small island after the destruction of the world. The main character believed all of her friends were dead and her only companion was sick and dying. The game gives you the tools to nurture him back to health because if you leave him, he will die. You also have the ability to throw yourself off a cliff and commit suicide. Even this small fraction of the game had much more of an emotional impact than Gravitation.
In fact, there is more relationship development in Harvest Moon than in this. You are given a clear set of objectives with growing plants and tending to animals on a timed day and if you are able to finish early, you are given the option of pursuing a relationship via a dating sim minigame with one of the town’s villagers. Even the progression of that relationship is far more complicated than simply bouncing a ball back and forth. It is given more weight as you have to actively make time in your day and risk or sacrifice game objectives to do this.
I don’t think that there is a lack of potential for what Jason Rohrer was going after. There are countless opportunities to use the commonly accepted game language to these ends.
The original ending to “I Am Legend” was to imply that the monsters the hero had been killing were actually sentient, caring individuals who were actually trying to protect their families. In the end, *you* are the invader. *You* are the monster.
Although it would benefit greatly from an artist, I feel it would be fairly straight forward to put the player in a situation where they assume the point of the game is to kill monsters (who would naturally defend themselves) only to finish with a boss fight in an enclosed room where you realize that this boss you just defeated (as well as all the other monsters) were desperately trying to defend crying children who would now perish without anyone to provide for them.
You could go as far as to allow some of the children to be in the open where the player could kill them without thinking while others are protected behind glass before the player is forced to observe their behavior, their suffering before realizing what terrible atrocities the player had committed. The remainder of the game could be timed to give the player just enough time to feel a real sense of remorse and guilt while the monster children starved to death in their protective prisons.
Perhaps that isn’t the best way to go about it. All I know is that Gravitation certainly isn’t revolutionary in any sense and I’m offended at the idea that this in any way represents the future of gaming.