Happy New Year! We’re back and set for our biggest year yet.

As a really interesting start to the year, I thought it would be worthwhile sharing an experience quite unlike anything I’ve seen before.

The following link is to a game called Passage. Before you read the rest of this post, play the game, and make sure you read the developers guidelines on how to play it before loading it up.

Passage: a video game by Jason Rohrer

... played it? ... Okay good, pretty interesting huh?

There’s been a huge amount of commentary about this round the net (which is all linked to from Jason’s site), so I won’t go in too deep, but I will say one thing slightly profound: This is the first game that I have ever felt comfortable calling art. While thousands of years have still not provided a literal definition of what art is exactly, I think we all have a feel for what we individually see as art. While some would argue that all games are art, I’m personally in the camp which says that most games are shallow as the paddling pools in drought stricken Australia. I got the same feeling playing this game as I did when I first walked into a display of modern art. It challenges you, it’s not immediate, you have to work your head around, try opening up to what it has to say.

And then when suddenly you get it, the emotion present in this game is quite intense. I personally wanted to undo all the stupid things I’d done having not read the instructions. It’s weird that something so simple, so quaint, could be some disturbing.

This definitely qualifies as Meaningful Play. In fact I think it’s the epitome of the Perspectives level. We really need more of these things coming out. Maybe if our government funded creative agencies would actually start classifying games in the same category as Short Film and Sculpture, then we might get some more traction.

P.S. Reading more about Jason is quite insightful in terms of “getting” the mind that made the game. We need more of these people pumping out sprites.

P.P.S This game could have been made on the NES. So why did it take us 20 years to even start realising the potential of that pixilated medium!