New Flash Game Is Either Terribly Clever Or... Not

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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New Flash Game Is Either Terribly Clever Or... Not


I made this. You play this. We are enemies. Stop trying to get it.

Did that make sense to you? No? Then neither will Mininova [http://www.secrettechnology.com/madethis/enemy6.html] and others, and yes, that is its real name. The author describes it as "an artwork/game/digital poem/world of scribbles and ideas from the back of my brain, way-way back in a storage room for contextual whims."

Gameplay is fairly straightforward, although there is an annoying glitch at the beginning of level seven which can cause you to fall off the map entirely, forcing you to restart the game from the very beginning. Random snippets of videos, grating sounds and hand-drawn effects all feature large in the game's ten (or possibly 11) brief levels, with new bits making themselves visible as you progress through each screen. There are also ponies.

"There is conflict, an Appalachian-style battle between the game maker and the game player, the artist and those wanky enough to like art, the poet and those that sing-song themselves through bittery selfish sexual whatnots," Nelson wrote in the game's "documentation." "And remember 'figuring out' is for control centered hedonists and sharks with bees for hair, such fast stinging chomping machines. Play, READ and explore."

The whole thing has a whiff of cleverness and at first I thought I glimpsed some form of satirical commentary about consumerism in there, but the longer I played it the more I began to think that it's not clever so much as just random, a stream of consciousness approach to game design. Unfortunately, when I finally took the author's advice and stopped trying to figure it out, all that was left was a half-assed Flash game. Maybe figuring it out is important, after all. Can you?


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L.B. Jeffries

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Nov 29, 2007
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Nelson is a mixed media artist first and a game designer second. I interviewed him a while back when his first flash game had been cruising the interwebs and it's pretty similar to this one. It ended up being an interesting article in the sense that Nelson figured out a way to get people who would otherwise never pay attention to his art to engage with it by playing it as a game.

So the cleverness isn't necessarily coming from the game itself so much as the fact that he's getting you to check out an incredibly abstract piece of art that would otherwise go ignored.
 

xitel

Assume That I Hate You.
Aug 13, 2008
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So this is like, an artsy flash game? Sounds interesting.
 

Baby Tea

Just Ask Frankie
Sep 18, 2008
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You know what? I didn't like it.
As a game? Suck.
As art? I've seen better. Nothing to write home about, basically.
Although I'm not really a fan of abstract art anyways.
 

Lvl 64 Klutz

Crowsplosion!
Apr 8, 2008
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I felt less like I was playing a game or looking at art and more like I was being exposed to some brainwashing propaganda.
 

Sennz0r

New member
May 25, 2008
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Lvl 64 Klutz said:
I felt less like I was playing a game or looking at art and more like I was being exposed to some brainwashing propaganda.
Second.
 

xitel

Assume That I Hate You.
Aug 13, 2008
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fish food carl said:
xitel said:
So this is like, an artsy flash game? Sounds interesting.
Sarcasm? Or am I mistaken?
No, it really does sound interesting. Maybe not so much fun per se, but interesting.
 

Mstrswrd

Always playing Touhou. Always.
Mar 2, 2008
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...What? I don't get it.

That's the point.

Oh, great, now I'm talking to myself in forums as well as IRL.

Yup, you're screwed.

Great.

(Did this fit the context of the game itself? I think it did.)