I contend that “game, game, game and again game” (also known as “terrible game”), upon further consideration, is, in fact, a game. While it is decidedly not among the more “conventional” games, such as Super Mario (as we discussed in class), it has a different set of objectives. There are multiple goals that game developers incorporate into their works, including but not limited to: story-telling, mimicking real life, allowing for an escape from real life, and then there is the category of games that exist for the sake of the player simply enjoying him or herself.
Clearly, “game, game, game and again game” does not fall into this last category; nonetheless, it presents obstacles which the gamer ostensibly wants to overcome due to natural instinct. For example, in the first segment of the game, the gamer must “fall” down a hole into a depiction of the sun in order to reach the door to enter the next level. Now, instinctively, the gamer would assume that, in order to reach safety and get to the door that he or she should use the space bar to jump over the hole. I, personally, performed this action several times before realizing that I merely needed to allow the black hairball avatar essentially “fall” down the hole to reach the door, which acted as a portal into the next level. I came to realize that the “point” or goal of the game, however trivial, appeared to be, primarily, getting from point A to point B.
Essentially, this game falls under the genre of games known as platformers, or platform games, such as Donkey Kong. Additionally, it was clear that the game was intended to act as a catalyst for reflection on religion and, more abstractly, morality and its ties with humanity in general. Throughout the game, we encounter various examples of these themes. There is the representation of a cross surrounded by fish, which is clearly representative of Christian symbols or imagery. Parodies of scriptures appear when the avatar hovers over these fish. What appear to be home videos evoke the concepts of memory and family values. In one of the levels, the images of trembling rockets with the background of various buildings seem to suggest humans, as well as evolution.
Interestingly, one of the text bubbles reads: “where walls hide the frameless, a community served as soft and temporary, they open windows to brick and still.” The idea of a community is deliberately brought to the gamer’s attention, even though the word itself is crossed out—the temporality of humanity becomes an idea at this point in the game. Intriguingly, however, no score is actually kept and it is impossible for the gamer’s avatar to “die”…instead, an ominous voiceover says, on each level, “Come on and meet your maker.” It is as though religion becomes its own entity, despite its ostensible links to humanity. On another level, a bubble of text reads: “Perception is cell death,” while the word, “cell,” is crossed out. Another text bubble in another level reads: “this happens to be life-threatening and pretty and religious, the mechanics of a railroad life within antibiotics.” Finally, we are told, in the last level, “your life is really the end.” Clear and distinctive themes of morality and humanity come into play as central focal points of this game–even as they are not “goals,” per se, but rather, meaningful components of the game.
While provocative and visually stimulating, “game, game, game and again game” is, ultimately, overly visually stimulating and only provocative if read into with an extremely open mind, to say the least. It raises an overwhelming number of questions, which are neither answered nor even articulate. In the interest of finding something to do the other night during a spell of boredom, I showed two friends, who are avid video gamers, “game, game, game and again game.” First, one of them said, “This game wouldn’t exist without the Internet, because no one would pay for this game.” The other responded that the game was “easy…stupid…but then again, I’m not a very artistic guy. I’m sure to someone, that’s a window to the infinite soul of beauty, but really, it’s just annoying.” I thought both of these to be astute observations.