How Far is Too Far?

[Solytus]

As we have been taught, one can have too much of a good thing, and I believe that this mantra is especially applicable to Art games. My primary line of inquiry is how abstract art games can get before they invalidate their own existence/message.

Take Braid for instance. The plot revolves around a fellow named Tim who's looking for a princess and can turn back time, with a dour twist at the end. Simple enough, right? Wrong. Upon reading various synopses, I learned that:

Spoiler

Apparently the whole plot was an abstract metaphor for regret, and that Tim is actually a scientist involved in the Manhattan project, with his ability to turn back time representing his wish to undo his actions in helping create the atomic bomb.

Now this chaps my ass. In my opinion, this breaches the division between "deep art game" and excessively abstract. Perhaps I'm just criminally unobservant, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how anyone managed to decipher Braid's nuclear subplot.

So the question is this. When a game hides its true meaning to the extent that Braid does, does it go too far and reserve the meaning of the game for a select few, thereby limiting its effectiveness?

Addendum: I'd just like to clarify that I'm not questioning whether an excessive understory affects the quality of the game more than the actual gameplay, I'm questioning whether or not this excessive depth detracts from the intention of the game, that is, delivering a message to a wide audience.

 

[Dragon_of_red]

Didn't in Braid

Spoiler

He like just go insane? because his girlfriend left him? i thought that was the reason

Not really, i find that if you have to dig around to make the games story more full and with minimal plot holes, like sidequests, or the internet, sidequests are better but the internet is an acceptable solution.

 

[Amnestic]

If they can pack a game with symbolism, abstract thoughts, philosophical and emotional implications and still deliver a quality game experience to those people who didn't get it, that's fecking ace.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Does everything need a secret backstory these days? I thought braid was fine and that backstory is really unecesary. Pretty soon we will have games for todlers with a picture of a circle with text saying "this was a triangle but through an emotionally draining experience and the murdering of alot of other shapes this triangle was forever cursed to be a circle."

Honestly not everything needs plot, although somes things need it in a hurry, like transformers 2.

 

[lenneth]

I beleive Manhunt 2 is the definition of Too Far

 

[ravensshade]

I beleive Manhunt 2 is the definition of Too Far

yeah but that's Too Far in a different way not the hidden meaning thing

 

[BlindMessiah94]

I think art is meant to be interpreted. The best bands and poets write lyrics and words that can be interpreted in many ways, words and phrases with double or multiple meanings, so the reader can create their own meaning.
I write a lot of poetry and music and whenever anyone asks me what a piece I wrote is about, I never answer. Sure, I know why I wrote it, but it really doesn't matter because I want other people to have it mean something specific to them.
So if Braid says "No, you're wrong, this game is about X not Y" then screw them because they can't go and make an abstract game and expect people not to make up their own minds about it.

 

[Cherry Cola]

I don't think you can go too far for it, but it will be a problem if the gameplay is for everybody but the story is for a select few.

Now, if you're trying to have subtle symbolism but aren't competent enough, that's another question.

 

[Jonny49]

Spoiler

Apparently the whole plot was an abstract metaphor for regret, and that Tim is actually a scientist involved in the Manhattan project, with his ability to turn back time representing his wish to undo his actions in helping create the atomic bomb.

That is what Braid is really about? I haven't played the game as of yet but...wow. That's a pretty dark revelation.

 

[Treefingers]

Braid's ending is totally open to interpretation.

Spoiler

Yes, there are a lot of hints at the nuclear thing, the "Now we are all sons of bitches" quote for example... but really in the end i don't think there is a single definite explanation, and that's the beauty of it IMO.

I don't think it went too far at all.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Does everything need a secret backstory these days? I thought braid was fine and that backstory is really unecesary. Pretty soon we will have games for todlers with a picture of a circle with text saying "this was a triangle but through an emotionally draining experience and the murdering of alot of other shapes this triangle was forever cursed to be a circle."

Honestly not everything needs plot, although somes things need it in a hurry, like transformers 2.

Transformers 2 needed less... well, it didn't need to exist.

And what is this "everything" you speak of? Last I checked there are tons of games that don't have symbolism.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

I write a lot of poetry and music and whenever anyone asks me what a piece I wrote is about, I never answer. Sure, I know why I wrote it, but it really doesn't matter because I want other people to have it mean something specific to them.

Do you publish them on deviantart? Not answering what you meant doesn't free someone else to come up with their own interpretation, it saves you from having to have one in mind. Don't be pretentious, say what you had in mind, but encourage reinterpretation.

No I don't publish them on Deviantart, I have some online, however.
And quite frankly, I know exactly what I have in mind when I write something. Otherwise I wouldn't write it in the first place. Sorry If that whole post before sounded pretentious, I wasn't meaning it to. When I write something it is usually some form of my experiences or emotions getting put into art form, so I can go through some kind of process of healing. I feel that if someone else is reading or hearing it and needs to go through the same thing, then me telling them what it's about only puts an idea into their mind of how they should think. Not saying what its about might free me from having to come up with what my work is about, if I was just spitting verbal diahreah onto a page. Hopefully that's not what I'm doing though

 

[Ekonk]

The sad thing about the Manhattan project is that even if America stopped it, Japan and Germany were all suspected of working on an atomic project of their own. Of course Germany was working on it too late in the war to be able to finish or use it(like most of their jet designs), but imagine how different the world would have been.

Anyway OT: I really like interpretive games; The Path is on my list of top 10 games right now.

You know what you should play? The Half-Life 2 mod Dear Esther. Or Korsakovia. Actually, both.

 

[Mr Wednesday]

I've never really understood the crowd who seem to resent games having a few layers to them.

It's akin to arguing that all films should be action films.

Braid was trying to challenge its audience. I think it failed, largely because to gain a sense of closure you have to find those stupid hidden endings, but I respected what it was trying. It is after all, about the most awful thing humanity has ever done to itself. It shouldn't be a fun-platform romp.

 

[Walden]

Having not played Braid, I can't speak to the particular. But don't you think that if you make a work needlessly deep, then you risk losing the message you want to put there? Way I see it, you can either tell a story with a message (where your goal is to tell the message), or you can write a story, and leave the message open to interpretation. Take Tolkien, for example. He never explained too much about LoTR, because he thought that too much explanation would detract from the experience of reading the book, and that it was best for the reader if they took their own interpretation away.

Then again, there is such a thing as reading too much into a book, as all of us who have been victims of a high school English class can attest to.

 

[orangebandguy]

Too far is when your audience can only look awkwardly at each other. That's where I usually place the line.

After that comes audience rage, and in extremely worst case situations suicide. But I like things with more to them than they seem, I guess that's why I love the film Donnie Darko.

 

[Souplex]

I like this interpretation:

Spoiler

 

[IICortezII]

It is likely that I'm wrong here, but I thought that they pointed it out better if you collected all the secret stars. I see it as more of a secret ending that you only get for being super cool and collecting all the stars, unless of course I'm wrong.

OT: I like having a game that's open to interpretation that doesn't have any diffinitive ending, it makes it so that you can have the best possible ending for you.

 

[Doug]

Spoiler

Apparently the whole plot was an abstract metaphor for regret, and that Tim is actually a scientist involved in the Manhattan project, with his ability to turn back time representing his wish to undo his actions in helping create the atomic bomb.

Erm, what? No, that might be one guy's interruptation of it...

Didn't in Braid

Spoiler

He like just go insane? because his girlfriend left him? i thought that was the reason

I found this more accurate, but from what I read in game, it was more a case of...

Spoiler

He was insane, his girlfriend left him, he over-idealisted her, chased after her - and maybe that 'knight in grey armour' in the final rescued her from him

 

[Axeli]

Pfft, that's still very valid level of abstract considering what kind of "art" passes for art in actual art exhibitions.

Anyway, having not played Braid, that still sounds a bit like an ass pull plot twist to make your plot seem deeper than it was. Let's take another game, Silent Hill 2. It actual builds around the surreal, and you are asking what the hell is going on long before the plot twists come. It's throwing you with images that can only interpretate yourself all the time.

Now, was the surrealism needed to tell James' tale? Hardly. Does it enchance the story and its message? I'd say so. The constant mental anguish and borderline insanity of the main character would have been difficult to express otherwise. And what a better way to use inner demons in a video game than make them the enemies?
With the plot inherently being about making the player interpret it themself, I don't think the complaint "it didn't need to be that convoluted to get the message across" applies here - although definitely valid in many other cases.

But I think a lot of how well it works depends on the author-audience trust: Is the writer throwing difficult to understand images at you with a hidden meaning or is he/she doing what the writers of Lost are doing? (For those who never watch it or haven't still caught on, that means constantly throwing impossible to understand twists at you without a having a fucking clue what they are trying to say themselves. This is also what I suspect many modern day artists are doing...)

That said, I don't think symbolism is ever a bad thing as a spice of the story. However, when it starts to seriously affect the plot, there's better be an actual damn meaning to it.