Ruin Jam 2014
Oct. 2nd, 2014 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenluaIn the spirit of my previous writeup on the Fear of Twine exhibition, I decided to play every single game in Ruin Jam so you don't have to. Don't say I never did anything for y'all. (Okay, every single game that would run on an OSX system, because I was too damn lazy to boot my Windows machine. CLOSE ENOUGH.)
(Also, for those who missed the news leading up to this, the whole jam was loosely inspired by that "gamergate" thing, which I can't be assed to summarize, but which definitely led to a lot of dudes whining about how women/queer folk/etc etc are "ruining" video games, which led to some fabulous snark, and thusly, a game jam devoted to ruining video games.)
I do feel like it'd be not-in-the-spirit of Ruin Jam to call out games that I didn't "get", thought were incomplete, etc, since they, too, are fulfilling the criteria of ruining video games! So instead I'll only talk about the things that were especially lulz/amusing/excellent, and you can ask me my thoughts on any of the others if you're curious for some reason.
It Happened Again and Reprobate are both, uh, for lack of a better term, "issues" games. I don't mean that in a condescending way; if anyone can come up with a better term for "games that clearly want to show the difficulties/implications/etc of public policy/racism/sexism/etc for various groups," do tell me about it. Anyway! "It Happened Again" definitely impressed me as one of the polished/better games of the jam, dealing with racism and police violence and other topical Ferguson-related things. The title becomes a pretty effective/haunting tagline during the narrative, and the author seems to be planning to expand it for a post-jam release, which I'd be excited to see. "Reprobate" is also good, putting you in the role of a lawyer trying to get your clients back on probation, but unfortunately a little too short for me to get more than a taste of what it might become. This is another game the author seems to be planning to expand, so I'd keep an eye out for future installments and whatnot.
This Is A Real Thing That Happened was another one of my favorites of the jam. It is short and personal without being cheesy/mawkish, and it made me smile.
The maker of code(poem); describes their work as "a silly toy, but hopefully an interesting one," and I agree that it is both a toy and interesting! I'm biased because I just really like reading source code. At some later date I'd be curious to see if the author's released the source code anywhere, and if it could be easily tweaked to display other code bases (maybe some Linux kernel, some PostgreSQL, etc).
Composition in a Minor Key has like, old-school-style pixelated art, which is normally not a style I'm a fan of, but I like it a lot here! It also is more of a wandering-without-a-true-point game, which normally I'm not a fan of, but like a lot here! It feels like a brief travail into a melancholy picture book. It's neat.
All Tomorrow's Parties is a pretty striking personal-narrative-style thing about the author's explorations/struggles with gender identity.
YOUR ACTIONS DO NOT EFFECT THE ENDING has a cool approach to narrative structure that I hadn't seen in an interactive fiction game before! I'd like to see more people toy with this sort of thing.
Lots of games took the humorous/satirical approach! The ones that made me laugh were Gator's Secrets, Quing's Quest VII: The Death of Videogames!, and Tumblr the Game.
I didn't get a chance to try Love and Happiness in an Age of Ruin, because it is meant to be a card game played with other people, and alas, I couldn't find other people to try it with—but I think it's super-cool that a card game was submitted to the jam :) I should really give analog game development a try sometime; it seems fun.
A couple lighthearted/fun twine games: Lovely Little Onion Stand and Amity x Li.
And, phew, that is a WRAP. I had fun playing through all the games, even if it took more time than I thought it would, haha (over EIGHTY GAMES oh my goodness). I put "2014" in the title optimistically, because I think it'd be great to have a jam for ruining video games every year :D
(Also, for those who missed the news leading up to this, the whole jam was loosely inspired by that "gamergate" thing, which I can't be assed to summarize, but which definitely led to a lot of dudes whining about how women/queer folk/etc etc are "ruining" video games, which led to some fabulous snark, and thusly, a game jam devoted to ruining video games.)
I do feel like it'd be not-in-the-spirit of Ruin Jam to call out games that I didn't "get", thought were incomplete, etc, since they, too, are fulfilling the criteria of ruining video games! So instead I'll only talk about the things that were especially lulz/amusing/excellent, and you can ask me my thoughts on any of the others if you're curious for some reason.
It Happened Again and Reprobate are both, uh, for lack of a better term, "issues" games. I don't mean that in a condescending way; if anyone can come up with a better term for "games that clearly want to show the difficulties/implications/etc of public policy/racism/sexism/etc for various groups," do tell me about it. Anyway! "It Happened Again" definitely impressed me as one of the polished/better games of the jam, dealing with racism and police violence and other topical Ferguson-related things. The title becomes a pretty effective/haunting tagline during the narrative, and the author seems to be planning to expand it for a post-jam release, which I'd be excited to see. "Reprobate" is also good, putting you in the role of a lawyer trying to get your clients back on probation, but unfortunately a little too short for me to get more than a taste of what it might become. This is another game the author seems to be planning to expand, so I'd keep an eye out for future installments and whatnot.
This Is A Real Thing That Happened was another one of my favorites of the jam. It is short and personal without being cheesy/mawkish, and it made me smile.
The maker of code(poem); describes their work as "a silly toy, but hopefully an interesting one," and I agree that it is both a toy and interesting! I'm biased because I just really like reading source code. At some later date I'd be curious to see if the author's released the source code anywhere, and if it could be easily tweaked to display other code bases (maybe some Linux kernel, some PostgreSQL, etc).
Composition in a Minor Key has like, old-school-style pixelated art, which is normally not a style I'm a fan of, but I like it a lot here! It also is more of a wandering-without-a-true-point game, which normally I'm not a fan of, but like a lot here! It feels like a brief travail into a melancholy picture book. It's neat.
All Tomorrow's Parties is a pretty striking personal-narrative-style thing about the author's explorations/struggles with gender identity.
YOUR ACTIONS DO NOT EFFECT THE ENDING has a cool approach to narrative structure that I hadn't seen in an interactive fiction game before! I'd like to see more people toy with this sort of thing.
Lots of games took the humorous/satirical approach! The ones that made me laugh were Gator's Secrets, Quing's Quest VII: The Death of Videogames!, and Tumblr the Game.
I didn't get a chance to try Love and Happiness in an Age of Ruin, because it is meant to be a card game played with other people, and alas, I couldn't find other people to try it with—but I think it's super-cool that a card game was submitted to the jam :) I should really give analog game development a try sometime; it seems fun.
A couple lighthearted/fun twine games: Lovely Little Onion Stand and Amity x Li.
And, phew, that is a WRAP. I had fun playing through all the games, even if it took more time than I thought it would, haha (over EIGHTY GAMES oh my goodness). I put "2014" in the title optimistically, because I think it'd be great to have a jam for ruining video games every year :D
