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Isolated Games
By Corvus | April 22, 2008
One is the loneliest, number one is the loneliest
Number one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
One is the loneliest, one is the loneliest
One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
It was brought to my attention that there are, in point of fact, games exploring themes of isolation. Four of them at the very least and all available from Deirdra Kiai Productions. I’m generally willing to have my pessimism proven wrong, so I dashed over to the site and downloaded three of the four games in question. The fourth game is playable on the site, so I started with that.
In When We Were Kids you play a young girl named Child of the Warriors. A bully named Morgan steals your GameBot (don’t click anywhere until she does, or you’ll find a bug) and the remainder of this short game is spent trying to get it back. Deirdra contends that learning adults won’t always help you out is about isolation. I’m not entirely certain I agree with that assessment, but I have a feeling that much of Deridra’s game design is deeply personal–which thrills me to no end, actually. But the themes I found here have more to do with self reliance and conflict management than with isolation. The first solution I found to this game’s single puzzle was through talking to Morgan and taking a sympathetic conversational approach. Of course, Morgan is unwilling to accept the offer of friendship and storms off, leaving you with the GameBot. So, even though I don’t find a theme of isolation where Deirdra does, I do in Morgan’s impenetrable bullying.
The next game I played was Pigeons in the Park. Of all the games, I find this one to be the least game-like and by far the most interesting. Two adults, each with their own feelings of isolation, share a park bench. The entire game consists of a conversation between these strangers. The character you don’t control is named… Child of the Warriors. I suspect there’s an auto-biographical trend here and I will look forward to any further games featuring this character. If you ignore everything else in this post, don’t ignore this one. Go download it and play it a few times. It isn’t the most fun of the four games, but I find it to be the most… um, honest of them all.
The third and fourth games are clever and I haven’t played enough of either of them to comment fully. The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship is pretty self explanatory and I certainly can’t think of anything more isolating than going on a cruise without a significant other. Chivalry is Not Dead casts you in the role of a horribly ugly assassin and contains more depth than you might expect (and a character I wanted to stab over and over and over… in the head. repeatedly).
These games were all (with the possible exception of the online one) done with the Wintermute engine, a free adventure game dev kit, and illustrated in a simple cartoon style. Much to my surprise and delight they all run under WINE, so I get to play them without going to that place.
I’m very pleased to find games which so strongly reflect their designer’s personality and thought processes. All of these games are, as far as I’m concerned, art as they seem more intent on communicating something to the audience than being mere games. I may have more to say about each title as I play them more, but for now I wanted to call your attention to Deirdra and encourage you to download and play her games for youself.
Tagged:adventure-games, deirdra kiai, isolation, theme. | 7 Comments »
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Not sure how or why the comments got turned off for this post, but they’re back now!
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Yay, I can comment!
I’ve only played Chivalry is Not Dead, and it was quite fun – isolation sure is a theme, no doubt. Make sure to save often, but certainly it’s short so worth playing (I am sure it took me less then two hours to finish, then go back and finish it in many of the different endings – you can use your items on just about anything!).
I’ll check out some of the others you mentioned (I never did think to check the site once I had played Chivalry is Not Dead), once I get some time
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Great to read your comments, and I’m glad you managed to get some enjoyment out of my games.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:15 am
I find them quite inspiring. Thanks for making them!
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:53 am
Ahhh, I thought the closed comments was an ironicly artistic statement about the post topic.
Isolated, indeed!
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:55 pm
***But the themes I found here have more to do with self reliance and conflict management than with isolation. ***
Well, the idea that no one is coming to rescue you sounds like abandonment. It’s isolating if you expect that someone else is taking responsibility for your life, but when you realize that you can take responsibility for yourself…well, you’re still alone, but you know that you’re enough.
I haven’t played the game yet, so maybe when I do I will see a definite lack of focus on the isolation part, but that’s my take on how the two themes can relate.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
@GBGames I can see that’s the case for many people (I think my abandonment issues came about at such a young age that I didn’t realize they weren’t just SOP), but I don’t think that angle is expressed clearly within the context of the game itself.