Gravitation: portrait of a bipolar world

April 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Gravitation is one of the games that we played in class, but I didn’t give it much thought until I attended a student’s presentation on the source code as a text of literature that can be read for meaning. The creator, Jason Rohrer, released a statement indicating his reasoning behind creating Gravitation: “I needed to make a game about this process that I was going through. About success, and creative leaps, and mania, and mood cycles, and the aftermath.”

This was fascinating to me. The game plays like a simple one, but there’s layers to it that I never considered until this presentation. The presentation was a fascinating one, delving into the different layers the create a game, everything from the code itself to the tools we use to play it, to the audio-visual components we refer to as the “game.” But that’s not all the game is.

Gravitation is not just a cute, pixellated game of ball and stars and ice cubes. It’s an autobiographical tale; but we wouldn’t know that unless we engaged more thoroughly with the creator. I’m sure that we could draw our own interpretations without ever looking at the author’s original (and very much stated) intent. When I first played the game, I thought that the blonde avatar was a  girl who left the boy avatar brokenheartedly after he ignored her for too long; the author reveals to those who seek out the information that the blonde character is the author’s own son Mez, who simply sneaks away from his father, presumably to entertain himself elsewhere.

The widening and closing view of the screen is another interesting point; the further the author gets from that which gives him joy (his family) the smaller his world seems to become. However, spending time with his child elevates his mood (following a complex mathematical set of rules, that were presented quite nicely by the student but which blew right over my head; English major for the win?) to the point that his head catches on fire and he rockets skyward. As someone who goes through my own manic and depressive states, knowing this tidbit about the game, revealed by the source code and the author himself, make the game so much more impactful when I play through it. (Is impactful a word? Well, it is now.)

I completely understand and empathise with the character who finds himself in a perplexing time of creativity but also sadness. He writes, “all of these life-changing events, hitting me at once, elevated my mood to the point of near mania, and I drank deeply of the conglomerate experience.” As we go through these confusing times, cloistering, suffocating sadness and wild throes of delight both attempt to sweep us off our feet. This game is a delightful, condensed portrait of not just the author, but sort of the world at large. And it’s all done in 8-bit. Kudos.

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Passage and Gravitation: Game Life = Real Life

March 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

After speaking in class about the deeper meaning in such games like Gravitation and Passage, I had an idea to change my analysis paper topic from glitch art to this deeper analysis. However, I went to speak with Dr. Whalen in his office and decided that instead of changing my paper topic and all of my research over to this I would instead cover it in my blog post for the next checkpoint assignment, hence the following post was born.

I know that one other student has already written a post about Gravitation and Passage and the deeper meaning behind both; however, this post is not only designed to focus on the deeper meaning behind these two games but their real life applications.

In the game Passage the player must move around a maze and find treasure that helps to add to the game score. As in most games, the goal is to reach the highest score you can before time runs out or, in this game, you die. However, unlike most games, Passage has various elements that are not only important to the game but represent real life elements as well. For instance, in the game when you come upon a lady, you fall in love and she is with you until the very end of the game. This extra player comes as both a companion and a hindrance. As the sprite, you are no longer alone for the rest of your journey and, conversely, you have a life companion. However, your companion will not leave you and you can no longer fit into some the spaces that you would have been able to had you not met your companion. Also once you find her you are no longer able to move as fast. This is very much symbolic of real life. When you find a partner in life, you are no longer able to do some of the things that you would have been able to do before hand. Also, typically, you will be with that special someone until you die.

Passage, not only, serves as a game but also as a life lesson. Love is eternal and your partner is their until death. I also think it is an interesting quandary that throughout this game you and your partner age gradually. Like in real life, no one lives forever and your life is set to a limited time that no 0ne knows for sure. You, as the sprite, are encouraged to move through the maze while you still can. I feel this massage is also applicable to life; you must live your life to the fullest while you still have life. No matter what you choose, whether you choose a life of solitude or a life partner, the game always ends in death, much like real life, no one lives forever.

Just as much can be said of the game Passage, so too can be said of Gravitation. Gravitation also serves life lessons. The object of the game Gravitiaotin is a bit different of that in Passage. In Gravitation you are faced with a discision early on in the game. You can choose to play ball with a child and gain an energy boost that you need to reach the higher levels. you then use that energy to jump up to these levels and retreve stars that eventually fall back down tot he first level of the game. When you run out of energy, you climb back down to the first level and push the stars, that have now turned into ice blocks, into the fire. Once you have accomplished this you can choose to play with the child again and the cycle repeats. 

Much like Passage, you, as the sprite, are bound to the implications of your choice. You can either play with the child or you can choose not to. If you play with the child you get and energy boost that allows you to jump higher and collect more stars but, if you choose not to, you lead a very dull life. Much like real life, if you choose not to interact with anyone else you will lead a very dull, uninteresting life and you will not go very far at all. I feel that Gravitation serves not only as a fun game but also as reminder of life’s choices. You are encouraged to interact with the child, whom I took to be your child, and reach your full potential. Family is an important part of life and you have to interact with your family and grow those close bonds in order to make it in this crazy life. Gravitation is designed around this core moral, strong relationships are the key to a successful life.

It is true what they say, the best stories games are often more true to life than fiction.

 

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Life Lesson’s Learned Within Minutes

March 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

When first playing the game Gravitation, it did not occur to me that there could have been any resemblances to real life. After the second time playing it however, I began getting curious about different aspects of the game. Many parts of the game do not make complete sense unless there were to be an explanation or a reason for them. Following my third attempt at playing Gravitation, I stopped and pondered about the different facets of the game and came to realize that there were three different life lessons tucked away in the game that stood out to me.

The first life lesson that I came to realize was in the game was what happened when you knocked the blue stars off of the ledges. When this happened, they became ice blocks at the bottom of the screen. If you then spend too much time getting the stars, and not moving the blocks away from your child at the bottom, you can eventually block yourself off from being able to interact with your child. This is a lesson in itself because if you spend too much time doing things that only help yourself, you will eventually loose touch with the people surrounding you who mean a lot to you. This shows that balancing your time is very important.

Another life lesson that I stumbled upon while playing Gravitation is the more available you make yourself to people you want to be around, the more they will want to be around you. I came across this idea because once you got close enough to your child, she would throw you the ball. Even though she was always looking at you, she would never go out of her way to interact with you unless you make yourself available. This concept goes to prove that if you don’t make yourself available to your family and friends, it becomes hard for them to maintain a relationship with you.

The final life lesson that I encountered when playing Gravitation is that even though it is good to make plans, you must follow through with them if you want anything to be accomplished. I saw this displayed in the game when I was playing and decided that it would be a good idea to knock down all of the stars possible, and then go cash them in for points at the end. However, when I went to do this, all of the ice boxes had lost the points they were worth earlier in the game. This went to prove that even though I planned ahead, I didn’t act on my plan quick enough; so I failed.

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Gravitation/Passage Analysis Paper

March 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I decided after class on Monday that I wanted to write my analysis paper on the games Gravitation and Passage.  The two games are very similar.  Both were created by Jason Rohrer.  I am thinking about using a compare and contrast approach for the paper.  In my paper, I’d like to identify and dive into some of the themes that are present in both works.  By examining these two works together, I hope to gather a deeper understanding of the underlying messages that Rohrer attempts to convey in his work.

One of the elements of Rohrer’s games I can examine is the way the screen changes.

In Passage, the character you control (and his wife if you choose to marry) start on the left side of the screen.  You have the ability to move the character up, down, left and right through a narrow passage.  Regardless of how much the charater moves around, his orientation in relation to the screen will always move from left to right.  So even if you don’t move your character at all, he will still end up on the right side of the screen.  This is a way Rohrer depicts time.  It gives the player the sense that death is eminent and whatever you manage to accomplish during the game is inconsequential.

In Gravitation, the screen is very small, focussed only on the character you control.  By playing with the child, you can cause the screen to expand, allowing you to view more of the playable surface.  Unlike Passage, the Gravitron map goes upward.  The further upward you go, the more screen visibility you lose.  By playing with the child you can gain back that screen visibility.  However, if you stand still, the visibility will fluctuate regardless of the amount of time spent with the child.  Also, when the screen is small, everything is snow-covered and wintery.  As the screen expands, the snow melts and everything begins to look like spring. Also, at the climax of spring, the character’s head catches fire and gives him the ability to jump higher.  I would like to see what meanings I can draw from these elements of Gravitation using scholarly essays.

  

Another element I can examine for my paper is the way family/companionship enables/limits your performance in the game.

In Passage, you have to chose (almost immediately) whether you’d like to marry or not.  If you chose not to marry, you are able to navigate your character through smaller openings to get stars.  If you get married, those stars are unobtainable because the passages are to slim for two people to fit through.  If you chose not to get married you have the benefit of being able to collect more stars, however, you will eventually die alone.  Rohrer made the game this way almost certainly to show the limitations as well as the benefits marriage and companionship can give an individual.

In Gravitation, the limitations/benefits are more obvious.  By building a relationship with the child, you are enabling more of the screen to be viewed as well as improving the weather and increasing jumping height.  However, by leaving the child and going upwards to collect stars, you lose the vision, weather and jumping power.  The relationship is simultaneously enabling the game to be played further as well as restricting it from progressing too far.

Those are just a couple of themes that I plan to dig into with the help of scholarly essays.  The only roadblock I can foresee is finding Scholarly works on these two games since they are both relatively recent (’07 & ’08).  My favorite thing about Rorher’s games is how simple they are.  He doesn’t try to wow you with mesmerizing graphics or fascinating game play.  He really cuts it down to the bare essentials and forces the player to think about the deeper meaning behind the game.  That’s what I enjoy most about Rohrer’s work and it’s why I chose to analyze it.

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