{"id":875,"date":"2009-03-03T17:36:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-03T22:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=875"},"modified":"2009-03-03T17:36:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-03T22:36:00","slug":"at-long-last-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=875","title":{"rendered":"At long last"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hcsoftware.sourceforge.net\/passage\/screen.png\" onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/hcsoftware.sourceforge.net\/passage\/screen.png\" style=\"cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 106px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 613px;\" \/><\/a><br \/>Long-time B A Starters will remember <a href=\"http:\/\/bastart.blogspot.com\/2006\/08\/stupid-commercial.html\">the Great Debate<\/a> over whether or not videogames are art.  After <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=8860809&amp;postID=115500394449916370\">much discussion<\/a> and refining of definitions, my statement was &#8220;not yet&#8221;.  Maybe they can be, but no one&#8217;s come up with anything so far that makes me say &#8220;yes&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m pissed at myself for not knowing anything about <a href=\"http:\/\/hcsoftware.sourceforge.net\/jason-rohrer\/\">Jason Rohrer<\/a> until Alanna lent me December&#8217;s Esquire.  I read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esquire.com\/features\/best-and-brightest-2008\/future-of-video-game-design-1208\">the article<\/a> and played <a href=\"http:\/\/hcsoftware.sourceforge.net\/passage\/\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">Passage<\/a>, and now can quite firmly state that there&#8217;s at least one person out there making art in this format.  (The person who made <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kongregate.com\/games\/GregoryWeir\/the-majesty-of-colors\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">The Majesty of Colors<\/a> counts too &#8212; a post for a later date)<\/p>\n<p>Before you go any further, I recommend giving <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Passage <\/span>a play.  I read the summary in the Esquire article before I played it and wish I hadn&#8217;t.  Still, despite knowing the point before going into it, I still had an emotional reaction to the game.<\/p>\n<p>Passage provides you with choices.  Do I hunt for treasure chests, or do I explore the world?  Should I marry?  If I do, it becomes harder to get the treasure but more rewarding to explore.  But no matter what you choose, you will subtly age and die.  Unceremoniously, suddenly, irrevocably.<\/p>\n<p>For the first time in a lifetime of videogaming, I found myself reflecting.  I have had a lot of reason to consider my choices recently &#8212; career, personal, spiritual &#8212;  and this 5-minute game resonated with my meditations.  It&#8217;s an interactive Beethoven&#8217;s fifth; go ahead and make your silly little choices &#8212; fate will win and they will have done nothing to change that.  All you can influence is your own experience, and try to do as much with your 5 as possible.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be keeping an eye on what this gent produces.  If you find anyone else out there working to communicate emotion through the interactivity of videogames, do please throw a comment my way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long-time B A Starters will remember the Great Debate over whether or not videogames are art. After much discussion and refining of definitions, my statement was &#8220;not yet&#8221;. Maybe they can be, but no one&#8217;s come up with anything so far that makes me say &#8220;yes&#8221;. I&#8217;m pissed at myself for not knowing anything about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}