Enough

Posted by Kerry Turner on May 6, 2010
Filed under: Games
Tags: , , , ,

Dirty, disgusting, filthy, lice-ridden birds.I decided to have a go with Flixel this weekend. Here’s what I made.

Play Enough (requires Flash Player 9)

2 comments on “Enough”

  • jon Says:
    June 2nd, 2010 at 8:55 am

    So hey, as you’ve already seen my blog, and my impressions of the game, I was just wondering about what you actually intended for the game to be “about”. I was just wondering if i was close at all in how I saw the game. Also, what idea or concept set you about making the game to begin with?

  • Kerry Says:
    June 2nd, 2010 at 9:51 am

    (To clarify, I tweeted that I was amused by this chap’s comparison of my game to the film Funny Games.)

    First of all, thanks very much for the review! And – just in case it looked that way – I wasn’t laughing at you, just amused by how depressing people are finding my work. I’m a pretty chipper person in person, see.

    The game is indeed intended to be about the nature of winning, about the relationship between player and player-character and about the relationship between controls and what you can actually do with them. I hadn’t really thought about terminology, but “anti-game” seems to fit nicely.

    This began as a technical decision – it was the first time I’d used Flixel, and wanted to make a short, achievable project in a weekend. I decided to remove as much interaction from the standard platform game as possible, which led me to think about what to keep.

    I decided to make death – via repeated self-injury, or giving up – the only meaningful interaction, as I felt it was the only one I couldn’t remove (although now that I think about that decision, I realise that there’s potential for something interesting there…). The cheery dialogue, sound effects and background followed. As soon as I added the dialogue, the disconnect between the motivations of the player and the player-character became apparent. I liked that, and decided to emphasise it – which is I suppose where the Funny Games comparison comes in.

    With regard to tone, my intention was to create an ambiguous atmosphere where it wasn’t clear if the game was meant to be depressing, or whether it was meant to be so depressing that it went out the other side into quite funny. I’m not sure if I managed that.

    Interesting (and very flattering!) that you mention Shadow of the Colossus – that game was very influential on my thinking when I first played it, and was the first game that I remember playing that really made me think about whether games should be fun to play, and about how they can play with the player.

    PS: You are the only reviewer so far to realise that they’re crows. You get a gold star for that alone.

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