I Was in the War

By: Derek Yu

On: July 24th, 2008

I Was in the War (direct download) is a simple platformer by Bisse, made for the current Poppenkast 3-hour compo. The central mechanic in this game is that you can hit “A” to flip across the red line which acts as a two-sided platform (“S” to jump). Pretty awesome concept.

(Source: Tim, via the IndieGames.com blog)

TIGdb: Entry for I Was in the War

Poppenkast: 3 Hours to Fame

By: Derek Yu

On: July 14th, 2008

The Poppenkast have finished their second competition, called “3 Hours to Fame,” and put up a single download that includes all the entries. There are 15 games by 14 developers.

I probably don’t mention the Poppenkast enough. A collective of 33 developers; mostly experimental, mostly using Game Maker. Their ranks include the likes of cactus, messhof, darthlupi, and Radnom, to name a few. In my mind the group embodies a movement in game development and design that is typified by quick development, heavy abstraction of graphics and mechanics, and a focus on the sensory, rather than the narrative.

If I can get artsy-fartsy for a moment, they really remind me a lot of the Impressionists, both in spirit, style, and the way they are perceived by the gaming public – you either love them or you love to hate them (or you haven’t heard of them… yet). The criticisms are the same, too. Of Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (now widely considered a masterpiece), early critics derided it as sloppy and unfinished, “barely a sketch.” Sound familiar?

History obviously vindicated the Impressionists, and their fresh vision and spontaneous style became more or less universally accepted as invaluable to art as a whole. I think the same will be said of these lads, too. And anyone who ever made a game with this kind of spirit (B-Games included). But the context, of course, will be games, and not fine arts.

(Another parallel: it’s interesting to note that the Impressionists took advantage of a new invention in the art world – pre-mixed paint that came in lead tubes. This technique was introduced in the mid-19th century and allowed them to “work more spontaneously, both indoors and outdoors.” Are Game Maker and similar programs the 21st century equivalents?)