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[Glaiel-Gamer]

Pac Man (ignoring the level 256 bug):

On the surface, pac-man seems to be a game about eating pellets and avoiding ghosts. Sure, it's fun and addicting to play around with and try to get the highest score. But then again, why? Is it not futile to try to win in a game like this where inevitably you will lose? No matter how hard you try, there will be a level where the game's difficulty just overwhelms your ability to conquer it. And for what? A meaningless number that says "hey I'm better than you because I have more points!". What can you do with points anyway?

And thus is the metaphor for life itself. In pac-man, you spend life trying to avoid conflict (the ghosts) and earn money (the pellets). Occasionally, you are forced to face the conflict and can either overcome it (eating a blue ghost) or succumb to it (die). As the conflict and challenges in life get more difficult, they become harder and harder to overcome, to the point where you have no choice but to simply run from them. The more money (points, pellets) you have, the more problems. Then you die. Sure, you have the fruits of your labor to look back on when your life ends, but whats the real point when you're rotting in the ground? You just spent your entire life trying to earn money and conquer the competition, but are you HAPPY? No! You can't use your money when you're dead anyway.

The way pac-man dies by collapsing in on himself is a metaphor for collapsing under the weight of the stress you brought on yourself by only caring about the abstract concept of money.

And thus is pac-man.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

super mario bros.: it's about the common working man (mario, a plumber) and the power of the proletariat: he has to save the princess (the aristocracy) by defeating bowser (green, like money, and huge, like imperialism)

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Oh and the artistic statement of this thread is that any game can be arty and meaningful with the right artistic statement attached to it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think there's a difference between being meaningful and being aesthetic. they're often grouped together, but there's a big difference between things like passage and seiklus: passage has meaning but isn't aesthetic, whereas seiklus is aesthetic but doesn't have any particular meaning. so i think that any game can be meaningful if it's interpreted in that way, sure, but aesthetic is harder to come by, you can't just make a game aesthetically satisfying by adding a statement to it.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

i think there's a difference between being meaningful and being aesthetic. they're often grouped together, but there's a big difference between things like passage and seiklus: passage has meaning but isn't aesthetic, whereas seiklus is aesthetic but doesn't have any particular meaning. so i think that any game can be meaningful if it's interpreted in that way, sure, but aesthetic is harder to come by, you can't just make a game aesthetically satisfying by adding a statement to it.

ya don't take this thread too seriously though its mostly a joke and an exercise in being pretentious since if you can write pretentious sounding stuff you could be the next big art game guru.*


*i'm not calling all art games pretentious

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i guess, but i like to think that people who are into this kind of stuff (like rohrer's secret art game mailing list) can tell the difference between someone just making it up as they go along and someone who knows what they're talking about.

anyway, second try:

tetris is about soviet oppression: forcing unique individual blocks with their own idiosyncratic shapes into ordered lines. people of all shapes and sizes? no! order them into a single line. the one thing the soviet system can't stand is imperfections, like holes in its neatly ordered lines, and those holes -- will those holes eventually topple even the soviet empire itself!?

[hugoCarnavale]

Tetris:
   Within Tetris  we see the delicate balance of ecological life. Each descending block represents new life entering the ecosystem, and we the player function as the autonomous system of competition and equilibrium. By forming solid rows and deleting those blocks we destroy life but also provide more room in the ecosystem for new life to enter. By maintaining balance this way, we see death as necessary part of life as a whole; a requirement for life to continue to exist. If we fail to maintain this life-death balance and continue to introduce new life to the system without taking any out, we fill up the screen, we fill up the ecosystem and it collapses, and then we lose. Ultimately, Tetris is a message about the reliance of inter-species predation in maintaining a stable ecosystem.


Gears of War:
   In Gears of War one of the primary things that stand out is the hyper-masculinity that is represented by the characters, in both their appearance and their demeanor. This is no accident since this is the driving force behind the ocerarching metaphor of Gears of War. At first glance we are shown the value and strength of the war mongering and hyper-machoism of the main characters. But, then we are shown their enemies. The Locusts are exactly the same as the heroes; they are just as macho, tough, and violent, to the point that they even look similar and are sometimes difficult to distinguish from each other in multiplayer. And these mirror-men are emerging from beneath the ground, where they are carving the planet hollow. This is a clear representation of how the main characters are actually being devoured by their own hyper-masculinity; their own machoism is destroying them from the inside out. The leader of the Locusts is a queen and so we are shown that deep down, at the root of the self-destructive masculinity, lies a fear of the feminine. The heroes' fear of femininity causes them to become hyper-masculine but this in turn is now hollowing them out, making them empty, and threatening their very lives.
   But there is a glimmer of hope. We see the increasing intrusion of femininity into these men's lives during the course of the game (ex.: Dom's dreams about his wife) and it is the acceptance of this femininity that will provide balance and ultimately salvation/redemption to these machoistic men, but only if they choose to accept it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i just did tetris!!! ;_;

[hugoCarnavale]

i just did tetris!!! ;_;

I apologize, I was still writing while you were posting it.

i guess, but i like to think that people who are into this kind of stuff... can tell the difference between someone just making it up as they go along and someone who knows what they're talking about

I'm disagreeing. Talk to any art or literary criticism Grad Student for an hour and listen to them talk about the dehumanizing sexism in Where the Wild Things Are or the solipsistic socialist subtext to Garfield (both president and cartoon) or discuss the Dadaist references in the foam of a venti latte, and you'll see that there is no difference between someone making it up as they go along and someone who knows what they're talking about.

[Melly]

I approve of this thread.

[Bree]

I want to hear about how Where the Wild Things Are is dehumanizingly sexist. No, really, I'm curious as hell now.

[cactus]

Yeah, I think it is widely acknowledged that a lot of the artistic attributes of art should be credited to those who analyze the art and not the art in itself or the artist. This doesn't mean that you can bullshit any art freak with something insane, just that sometimes people see things that weren't necessarily supposed to be there.

I've had some people try to analyze my games and sometimes they discover depth that was completely unintentional on my part.

I usually don't like artsy things because of the deep meaning behind them, but rather that often as a biproduct they sometimes create these incredibly weird and incomprehensible ideas that you can tell aren't just random crap thrown together, but that there is some kind of logic at work that you're just unable to understand. It's a bit like experiencing something from another planet, which imo makes it an amazing experience.

Sorry for going off topic. I'm unable to write an artistic statement myself

[Noyb]

The Marriage is a game about war. The squares represent two warring civilizations. Their size represents their economic strength, and their opacity represents their willingness to fight. The circles are resources. Over time, a nation's economy collapses without an influx of new resources, and their will to fight also decreases as their people starve. Your mouse is the hand of Fate, removing resources and compelling the nations to attack each other. Pink is a stronger military nation than Blue, so each fight ends up strengthening Pink and hurting Blue. After each fight, both nations see their will to fight reinvigorated. Once a nation either runs out of resources or loses the will to fight, the remainders of the two groups are assimilated, as in the final scene with tiny blues and pinks (individual people from each group) living in harmony.

[AdamAtomic]

Yeah, I think it is widely acknowledged that a lot of the artistic attributes of art should be credited to those who analyze the art and not the art in itself or the artist. This doesn't mean that you can bullshit any art freak with something insane, just that sometimes people see things that weren't necessarily supposed to be there.

I've had some people try to analyze my games and sometimes they discover depth that was completely unintentional on my part.

I usually don't like artsy things because of the deep meaning behind them, but rather that often as a biproduct they sometimes create these incredibly weird and incomprehensible ideas that you can tell aren't just random crap thrown together, but that there is some kind of logic at work that you're just unable to understand. It's a bit like experiencing something from another planet, which imo makes it an amazing experience.

Sorry for going off topic. I'm unable to write an artistic statement myself

i love you cactus

[Chris Z]

Nothing represents the constant conflict in a human relationship better than Pong.  Arguments are tossed back and forth, and rather than engaging in listening and understanding, the other side just prepares their counterpoint.  The monochrome color scheme only further emphasizes the lack of compromise and polarizing viewpoints.  Eventually one side is caught off guard and the other side wins, but to what means?  Another argument just comes up again and the fighting continues.   The winner is left feeling desperate and alone in their supposed victory.

[Ivan]

Pong.

Pong is game about relationships. The two partners are engaged in an endless back and forth argument, passing their bottled up resentment over the dotted line they can never really cross. Who's right? Who's wrong? The subjectivity of these questions becomes apparent with no reference point other than the two sides themselves. There is no resolution, only the score is kept, relaying to memory every bitter jab that finally gets past their emotional defenses until one of them has had enough and the game is over.

[Ivan]

Nothing represents the constant conflict in a human relationship better than Pong.  Arguments are tossed back and forth, and rather than engaging in listening and understanding, the other side just prepares their counterpoint.  The monochrome color scheme only further emphasizes the lack of compromise and polarizing viewpoints.  Eventually one side is caught off guard and the other side wins, but to what means?  Another argument just comes up again and the fighting continues.   The winner is left feeling desperate and alone in their supposed victory.

Wow! We posted that at the same time!

I guess Pong's message is pretty clear.

[rob]

Muslim Massacre is a metaphor for the mistreatment of water bears.

[raiten]

super mario bros.: it's about the common working man (mario, a plumber) and the power of the proletariat: he has to save the princess (the aristocracy) by defeating bowser (green, like money, and huge, like imperialism)

But since when is communism about saving the aristocracy? In Marxist theory, the aristocracy are the rulers in the feudalistic stage of society, the stage before capitalism (where the capitalists/bourgeoisie are the rulers). Here's a more Marxist AND more sexist attempt: Princess Peach represents the fruits of production (to a man, she's a reward). Bowser, the capitalist, usurps these fruits from those who produce it and have a righteous claim towards it, the workers (a woman belongs to her man). Mario Bros. represents the awakening of the working classes and their path to establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Super Joe]

youre not very good at this