There is a game which caught my attention on the topic “art games”. The size of the game is only 1.8MB (extracted, SDL.dll and Readme.txt inclusive) and it’s called “Passage” by Jason Rohrer. You could think that I’m talking about one of those 64k demos from the demo scene showing mind blowing polygon- and light acrobaticts.

I’m talking about something totally different.

Passage has a resolution of 16×100 so the graphics are humble but fitting. And a nice midi score is playing in the background.

But firstly: what is an “art game”? Art Games are not a specific games genre. The term is as controversial and subjective as the term “art” itself. That’s why I’m not going to disambiguate this any further. I’d rather want to introduce this topic with the above mentioned example “Passage”. But before you read on, you should play the game yourself first. I promise you, it won’t take long. You’ll have “made it” in five minutes.

Played through?

Fine, so I can’t spoil the first impression by writing down my thoughts on this game (at least, I warned everybody who reads this now).

Most people will ask questionts like: “What’s so special about it? It’s just moving around in a pixelated world! Where is the fun part?”

Most people think, games are supposed to be fun. Sure, games have to be fun, otherwise they would not be games, would they? Fun is the major purpose of games. Games are defined by Fun.

Now let’s look at humor. Jokes for example. They are supposed to make people laugh. But each joke is funny for a different reason. There are dirty jokes, intelligent jokes, dry jokes, nonsense jokes etc. and some jokes are very difficult to understand. In some cases jokes require a special knowledge to be funny. The sudden understanding of such a special joke amplifies the humor.

The same principle is used in games. The learning and understanding effect of things that are happening in a game world causes fun. For example: why do so many people like to solve puzzles. These achievements seem to satisfy a lot of people.

In Passage this achievment is not done by simply playing through the game. In some ways it’s more outside the game, in the head of the player. The satifaying achievment part happens (as soon as it happens) on a much higher level: by understanding the “punchline” of the game. And this doesn’t need to happen during game time.

The game tries to express something, something like an idea or a particular emotion, a message.

Simply speaking, it’s a metaphor about the progress of life.

You start your life and you see so much future in front of you. At first, maybe you think you can move only in one direction, but you’re wrong. Maybe you meet a special person, maybe you choose not to. Maybe you go with her the rest of your life or maybe you want to be alone and free to go anywhere you want. You encounter big chances (treasures chests) during your way of life. And sometimes you have to go back to be able to move on. You’re getting older and life changes. You see so much past back there in your fading memories.

In the end you lose your loved one.

And when you die, you ask yourself: “What’s the point of all this? Where was the fun part?”

All these impressions, transported in a 16×100 pixel screen, not only through graphics, sound or animation, but mainly through game mechanics!

Never before a game has triggered so many thoughts and emotions in my head.

Understanding this game was a sense of achievement.