Arthouse Games
"We can push the limits of what an Adventure is..."
I met a cur the other day, a philistine of the highest degree and a brute so uncultured that to have him in my presence was a blight upon my world. He accosted me as I left the dark den of my brethren below the street level in our artists quarter. He tore my berét from my head, broke my dark glasses and mocked my turtleneck with his heavy coarse laughter. All this I was prepared I was prepared until, with a smirk playing on his filthy lips, he uttered the ultimate insult to me.
He called me an Amateur Developer.
Needless to say the man will not show his face (now mutilated beyond recognition) in our village again. But why my anger?
I will tell you why. I am not an amateur! I am an Artiste!
Sure, there are those among us who wish to play the dog at the heels of the Man. They writhe expectantly at his feet in a futile attempt to imitate what he once was. But there are those of us who won't be a part of Squaresville, we can push the limits of what an Adventure is, we can use them to enrich Humanity and expand her consciousness. Adventures can become art!
Although Arte de Aventura is a small movement now I can envisage the time when it will take its place among the great artistic movements of the past. I have gathered a small collection of my brothers' games to give but a glimpse of what can, and will, be.
There are times where the strength of a belief will break out no matter what the context. Some might say that the confines and light heartedness of a MAGS competition would choke an artist's an expression, but Spyros31's Wet. Here we find an imprisoned fish whose persona we adopt immediately by the superb use of the second person. Together we escape our crystal cell and flee the bathroom to a better life in the sea. We struggle and suffer together and we find the eventual prize of freedom....
But all for naught. We return to our initial predicament. The struggle is for naught and we are locked in a perpetual cycle. The entire poignant piece is a captivating representation of Buddhist dogma. The fish, focused entirely on the petty issues of mortal life is thus cemented into a vicious cycle of birth and rebirth, unable to accept that all life is misery and thus embark on the path to Enlightenment.
The game may bear Spyros' name, but surely it is from Siddhartha Gautama that he draws his inspiration.
Another of my brethren concerned with the futility of the mortal coil is the honorable Telemachus "Helm" Stavropoulos. It is this visionary who produced the sublime tragedy of Snail Quest. The hero although small is endeared to us. We wish only to follow the snail on his grand adventure. He departs the tree eagerly and eagerly we follow as he prepares to depart his small world and all that he knows and holds dear to him.
But no sooner does he extend an eye on a stalk out into the greater universe he is destroyed by forces he has not foreseen and that he cannot comprehend. His dream is crushed (both figuratively and literally) by a cold and uncaring universe.
Does this hold a vital message for humanity? In these new dawns, as we raise our hearts and minds towards to stars and prepare to spread our fingers throughout the galaxy should we be wary? The powers that be do not care for things as insignificant as we must be in the grand scheme of things. When we venture off our blue marble, what forces will be waiting to crush us?
Stavropoulos has provided us with a dire warning, and one for the sake of our species must be heeded.
Both of these examples are simple enough to be grasped by the layman. Although he may not grasp them in their wondrous entirety he may recognize something great and absorb at least something of their beauty. But occasionally there arises an Adventure so bold in it's vision, daring in it's presentation and shocking in it's honesty that the Philistines show themselves are flaunt their ignorance in front of the artistic community with their howls of outrage. Such an adventure is Captain Mostly's Davy C'est Mort.
I cannot recall another game that has had the controversy and media circus such as that which greeted the good Captain's masterpiece. Critics were divided fiercely between those whose recognized its brilliance and the poor fools whose cerebral capacity could simply not allow them to comprehend it.
Whether one considers is a classic or tripe, its impact can not be denied.
The duration of the piece is in stark black and white, a dualistic fantasy world of light and dark with no interweaving shades of grey. We take on the persona of the perennially troubled lad Davy Jones, finally fallen victim to his dealings in the occult. We discover him locked in a limbo world between life and death, struggling to understand. Has he found his purgatory under the cacophony of Popcorn? He has no choice but to explore and eventually face the dark secrets of his subconscious is the final, shocking scene.
Davy C'est Mort is provocative, it is disturbing and above all, it is a masterpiece of the genre.
For the first time now I depart from the ranks of Adventure Game Studio retrieve a treasure wrought by lone developers in the wilderness. It was in these wastelands that I found Sam Gabrielsson's Classic. It lives up to its title. We are abandoned in a bleak future, a depopulated Earth, an empty city and an atmosphere drowned in a relentless downpour. Our protagonist is a detective at a lack for clients brooding in his dusty office. Cliché? No. Classic? Yes.
The superb recontextualization of established noir institutions into a bleak "Dickish" future is inspired as well as intriguing. We find ourselves re-evaluating that which we held to be cliché and absorbed by the finely constructed atmosphere, especially in the realms of the aural senses. Although the plot is swiftly solved and game play over, Classic is a piece that will stay with you for much longer. As you walk away, you will no doubt be accompanied by the steady beat of rain.
I come now to my own humble effort, the flawed magnum opus that is Novo Mestro. My protagonist faces a dilemma of epic proportions, the world has ended but he remains still as a separate conscious entity although one who's tenuous grip on physical form is fading. We join Novo as he discusses life, the universe and everything with his comrades Jesenice and Maribor. They question the necessity of form, the nature of time and the fragility of intellectualism. Finally they must face the ultimate question of retaining one's ego at the expense of combining with the ether, becoming one with the universe and taking one's place in a truly great group consciousness. Novo Mestro attempts to question the necessity of self, the very basis of western civilization.
But my vision remains unfulfilled. I lack the strong conviction to answer the questions I rise and the piece ends abruptly with Novo's fate undecided. A visionary I may be, but a great one I am not. I am not a Mostly, nor a Stavropoulos or a Spyros, yet Novo Mestro remains an indicator of what Adventures may become. It is lacking, but it is a start, the start of a revolution my friends.
The movement has begun.
Richard Green-Las Naranjas lasnaranjas@kooee.com.au
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