Passage (2007)
Jason Rohrer
“His games marry old school simplicity with boundary-pushing design philosophy
to create some of the more thoughtful (and thought-provoking) games out there.”
- Leigh H (Gamearena)
“[Simplified visuals] take the focus off of the graphics and get people … to think
about what they’re doing and why the designer created this particular set of interactions
and what they might mean.”
- Jason Rohrer
“You start on one side and walk to the other and then you die. But along the way as you’re playing Passage you meet a woman who ages alongside you….People are trying to make those relationships feel more real; to make those interactions feel more real.”
- Leigh Alexander
to create some of the more thoughtful (and thought-provoking) games out there.”
- Leigh H (Gamearena)
“[Simplified visuals] take the focus off of the graphics and get people … to think
about what they’re doing and why the designer created this particular set of interactions
and what they might mean.”
- Jason Rohrer
“You start on one side and walk to the other and then you die. But along the way as you’re playing Passage you meet a woman who ages alongside you….People are trying to make those relationships feel more real; to make those interactions feel more real.”
- Leigh Alexander
Jason Rohrer's inspiration for the visual compression mechanic
Gustav Klimt Death and Life (1910)
Oil on canvas 2005 x 1805 cm Leopold Museum, Vienna. Suggested Questions
- Describe why Rohrer may have chosen to work in the interactive medium of video game. - Using visual analysis, analyse the game Passage and identify the dominant art elements and principles Suggested Activity - Get students to play Passage and then describe and discuss their thoughts and experiences. - Research Gustav Klimt’s Death and Life (1910) in terms of its meanings and messages, and Klimt’s inspirations. Compare and contrast these findings with Jason Rohrer’s Journey. |
Passage explores the realisations of life, mortality and relationships in life, such as the costs and benefits of marriage. Jason Rohrer’s free indie game Passage is a pixel-art maze game. While you can head in several directions, there’s only one ultimate destination – and that’s the character’s death. The game lasts for five minutes, and as you move forwards, two things happen: Your character ages – his blonde hair greys and then goes bald; he gradually hunches, and eventually slows down, until he stops. The other thing that occurs is that the character sprite position on screen moves further towards the right. The pace of Passage through its music and movement seems to inherently encourage the player to reflect on their experience of the game.
At the beginning of Passage, you encounter a woman that you have the choice to fall in love with or avoid. If you choose to fall in love with her then she attaches herself to you and now wherever you move your character she goes too. Along the journey she ages with you. One of the first things to notice about the appearance of the game is the narrow game window. At an aspect ratio of 25:4, it emphasises the concept of time; futures and pasts. The visual compression technique which Rohrer uses to show both the far future and the distant past at once emphasises this concept of time and personal reflection. Rohrer’s core idea for the visual compression mechanism came from a drawing that appeared on the cover of The New Yorker which is called The New Yorker's View of the World where New York City is the biggest thing on the map, then the rest of the US is relatively small with Europe as a little dot. The manipulation of time into space can be seen as visual representations of the way the concept of time is viewed at various stages in life. For example, at the early stages of the game, and life, character has his whole life ahead of him and the future is a blur; a squashed together concept. What matters is the moment. However, in the later stage of the game, and life, the past and its memories become more important. In regards to the visual style of Passage, Rohrer states that simplified graphics takes the focus off of visual spectacle and gets the players to question instead why the designer created this particular set of interactions and what they might mean. “I wanted to deal dynamically with how perception changes.” Rohrer explains. “As this young man, or a young kid even, you don't really have any past, so you don't really tell a lot of stories. But then at the end of your life, you don't really have a future. Like no one ever asks an old man 'So, what do you think you're going to be doing in 25 years?' But then you ask the old person about what life was like when they were young. What happened to them? So your life sort of becomes all about 'when I was a boy' sort of stuff. At the end of your life, it's all about your stories, it's all about your past, and at the beginning of your life it's all about your future.” As Rohrer was programming Passage, he watched a neighbour die of cancer. This was the starting idea for the game, Rohrer made a game about the inevitability of death. "Yes, you could spend your five minutes trying to accumulate as many points as possible," he wrote in a twelve-hundred-word creator's statement, "but in the end, death is still coming for you." Further Reading Esquire magazine http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/future-of-video-game-design-1208-2 Artist's statement http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/statement.html |