The Mirror
The Global Game Jam ended yesterday. So far I’ve seen few really interesting games surface from the what was probably the biggest Game Jam ever.
I participated the Nordic Game Jam again, second year in a row. There were a decent number of indie friends there and we had a blast. This year was way more stress free than the last one. Most of us took things a bit less seriously this time around. Which was a good thing. Here’s a photo from our cubicle in the sky:
We tagged the white board and claimed the cubicle with drawings of us and male reproductive organs.
One of the reasons why my output of prototypes last year was so slow was that I’ve become somewhat scared of publishing my games here on this blog. After releasing Crayon Physics Deluxe I realized that a lot of people where reading my blog. Lot more than before. When I started out making prototypes there was literally no one downloading my games. I felt more liberated and creative. I had the license to suck, I could swear, do games about any subject I wanted to without worrying that there is some mom who wanted to buy Crayon Physics Deluxe clicked on the blog only to be surrounded by profanity.
So to give you all the metaphorical finger here’s the game me Jonatan “cactus” Söderström did during the Nordic Game Jam.
I was responsible for the graphics and Jonatan did the coding. Our game turned out to be an “interesting” one. To be honest it’s pretty bad as a game. But the concept behind it was somewhat interesting and the execution is certainly disturbing. I’m kinda glad we decided to go all the way with the game. Literally.
You can go and download the game from GlobalGameJam website. BE WARNED THE GAME IS SOMEWHAT NSFW (there’s a penis in the game). Here’s link to the game
The theme of the jam was to make games about deception. We decided to experiment again with what defines a game and ended up with an interesting experimentation.
I recommend that if you’re interested you try to the game and don’t read the spoilers hidden underneath:
So our idea was to do game that didn’t really have any real rules or a goal. It’s all deception. You can interact with the game and you’ll get points randomly from doing things. There are no real rules to the game. It ends at a random point. The game is open to any interpretation and we’d love to hear yours.
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:34 am
Well, as you want to have interpretations, here’s mine.
The spots on this caricature of the human face could symbolize the different religions humans believe in around the world. That would mean you consider religions as something detrimental, disruptive and fast-growing (since as soon as you burst them, they re-appear elsewhere).
Yet, since the game is called “Mirror”, this caricatured human face is in fact ours as we are looking into a mirror. That would mean that despite its flaws, religion is part of us but we can only see it when we are looking at ourselves, as if we were “spotting” our flaws.
And if we close our eyes, then we can’t see them any more and therefore are unable to burst them. Nevertheless, we can move them wherever we want on our face. Which could be interpreted as a way of saying that it’s not by getting rid of religions that we will improve the human being but by using them in order to make something good.
Well well, that’s just one interpretation of course (which took me just a few minutes to word).
Anyone else?
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:42 am
I think I speak for a LOT of your fans when I say I really miss your (sometimes) monthly game ideas. You have an amazing ability to think outside the box, Petri, and I can’t think of a single experiment of yours that I haven’t enjoyed exploring. (And yes, I FINALLY beat “4′33″”)
If a random mother-of-young-tots gets an eyeful on your blog, then it’s just one more personal paradigm-shift that you’ve had a hand in. Don’t stress about it.
(I’d be FAR more concerned about the b*st*rds who steal your game ideas and churn out sub-par flash versions by the truckload. Grrr.)
February 5th, 2010 at 6:11 am
Well the game wasnt much fun but its original and the art is great.
Petri should learn Flash and port all his games.
They are all little games that you can play in 10 minutes, perfect for the casual market.
April 16th, 2010 at 8:47 am
Well the game wasnt much fun but its original and the art is great.