Knot-Pharmacard Subcondition J

By: Guest Reviewer

On: March 31st, 2010

[This is a guest review by Stephen Lavelle. If youâ€™re interested in writing an article for TIGSource, please go here.]

Knot-Pharmacard Subcondition J, by Michael Brough (epilepsy warning!).

I would recommend playing the game before reading on…

There is something very beautiful about the nature of the delicate and tentative interactions that can occur when encountering an unfamiliar system for the first time. Glum Buster is probably the canonical example for me. However, in this case the experience for me is one of interaction without surety of the nature of the effect – even after the fact: “I am doing something, but I am not sure what and I am not sure what effect it is having – nonetheless, it feels meaningful”.

Michael’s description, which I think deserves inclusion, reads:

The idea behind this came from the theme “bricolage”, meaning “a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things”. I went through a bunch of unfinished prototypes I had lying around, foetal games that will never see birth, and copied chunks of code out of each of them, pasted them into one file, and stuck some arbitrary interactions between them. There is a victory condition; it doesn’t make much sense, but it is possible to reach a “you win” screen. Don’t feel compelled to aim for this though, just do whatever.

The towlr games are not far removed from KPSJ experientially – they present situations with unknown mechanics – though I think they tend to be far more targeted at understanding (though I enjoy not understanding them as much as I enjoy understanding them). Pandora’s Gearbox comes to mind as well, though I think this is crucially different from all the other games mentioned because, in spite of hiding things, it allows for physical intuition, and relies on such reasoning.

One might say that KPSJ, Glum Buster, and the towlr games rely on a certain sort of ludic knowledge and intuition of their own, though I think the nature of this familiarity is very different to mechanical knowledge.

If one departs from systems that involve logical deduction, one can end up in a situation where exploration takes the form of an exhaustive search of a set range of interactions. This happened in GB sometimes, though I didn’t find it too much of an issue there. This happens when I play towlr games, though usually none of them work and it’s more a piece-of-mind exercise while I try to formulate other possible effective interactions and test the water. This doesn’t happen for me in KPSJ – I generally found myself overwhelmed by effect.

Some of Michael’s other games can be found here.

Posted in Abstract, Freeware, Unique / Bizarre, Windows | Tags: MichaelBrough, ReviewedByIncrepare

Derek

Ha! I like the idea of Frankensteining old, unfinished games together.
undertech

I am keeping this game around. The next time I am inebriated, I am firing this up again.
allen

When I first played it, I kinda thought of it as like a unintentional towlr. I guess that’s what happens when you copy/paste random code and try to assemble it into a game.

It did take me about 15 minutes or more to beat it. The cool part is I have no idea how I beat it, or what the ending was. I wasn’t even trying to beat it, just trying to experience it and the ending just happened.
rod humble

I love this. Thanks for posting it!
judgespear

The zip file for the game gives me a CRC error. I can’t play the game as nothing will extract from it.
increpare

Hmm. Have you tried re-downloading?
http://nuclearheart.com/ !CE-9

Great post!

1, brog’s games are awe-inspiring.

2, It’s always nice / fascinating / mind-expanding to see how much can be fit in the game genre and how many layers there are to it; the question of genres, where they begin and end etc.</ramble>

3, I can’t say I have enjoyed this KPSJ or see myself going back to it to further explore, however this approach to bricolage is, again, awe-inspiring.

4, TheGamesCollective.org deserves more exposure (also, I should probably start participating too).

@rod humble: nice one.=)
brog

I’ve fixed the problem with the zip file. The corrupt files were non-essential, but I guess some unzip tools are more sensitive than others.

And thanks; it’s cool to see anyone actually reaching the ending – I didn’t know how achievable that would be.
0rel

Like it.
jph

Very fine work,. interesting visuals, plesent sounds,. strange interactivity. No idea what to do, but do stuff anyway, just to see what happens. I like it.
seraph

This reviewer talks funny.
deadeye

The last boss is too hard :(.

Actually, I did find this to be rather interesting. I was hard pressed to find any interactivity other than clicking, except close to the end when I thought maybe the up and down arrows did something… maybe? I did get the “win” screen though.

It did remind be a bit of the towlr games, but unlike most of the towlr games I didn’t feel like an idiot for not figuring out exactly what was going on and giving up in frustration.

Anyway I’m off to have a seizure now, peace out.
judgespear

Trying to download the file now takes me to a Google page saying “General Attachment Error.”

I guess I have bad luck or something.
phnord

“Bandwidth Limit Exceeded”

Anyone up for mirroring it on MediaFire / MegaUpload / Etc.?
Hypersapien

It’s like someone wrote a genetic algorithm to generate an arcade game, and this is the result of the first few generations.

Nevertheless, pretty cool.
judgespear

Okay, it seems to be downloading now. Maybe now I can actually play it.
brog

@phnord: I’ve moved it to mediafire. (I’ve never had a game frontpaged before so I hadn’t bothered to find where was good free filehosting.)

@judgespear: I hope you actually enjoy it (or find it interesting) after this!
http://www.playthisthing.com Patrick

Where is the weed at?
http://www.ponged.com/ Luke Alexander

I like this kind of game. Cool! Like pandora’s box, you wouldn’t know what’s going to come out.