4:32, my conceptual Game from the Global Game Jam
The 2010 Global Game Jam took place this weekend at over 100 locations around the world.
I made a small conceptual game called 4:32.
The theme of the Global Game Jam 2010 was deception, and the constraint for the time zone of the NYU Game Jam was “Rain, Spain or Plain”. This game furthermore fulfills the achievement “instant gratification” by being playable in the browser.
Without giving too much away, 4:32 is a response to Petri Purho’s game 4:33, which in itself is a response to John Cage’s silent composition 4:33.
4:32 won the vote for “most innovative game” at the NYU game jam.
Update February 21, 2010: I have changed the game a little to prevent some of the more obvious ways of cheating. (Linking to the final page, for example.)
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:10
Hey, very interesting idea. Glad to see it as the games made here in Cologne hardly used deception in the interaction, but more for narrative aspects.
I wanted to see how far it goes but the Flash uninstall was too cumbersome for me.
Is there a resolution after that which makes the inconvenience worth while? I mean something that goes beyond ‘getting the concept’?
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:24
There is a resolution to the game. You are pretty close.
I was thinking about adding a high score table. Would that be an added incentive?
February 2nd, 2010 at 15:07
The game is a nice homage to all those hours I’ve stayed up to make something work with a game or some other aspect of digital living. Being totally self-referential, without any external component of reference or even a clear exit, it becomes a statement of identity of the player, or rather non-identity. It reminds me about of Kimura Kyuho in “On the Mysteries of Swordsmanship” (1768):
- [...] But as long as we are preocupied with symbols, theories and opinions, we will fail to reach the principle.
- But when we give up symbols and opinions, aren’t we left in the utter nothingness of being?
- Yes.
February 2nd, 2010 at 18:04
Very interesting concept. This is one of those things that look great on paper (because they are great), but the implementation is a pain in the ass for the audience.
February 3rd, 2010 at 03:18
Great food for thought. Reminds me of the hours I’ve spent tinkering with addons for Fallout 3 and Oblivion, only to finally get the addons fully functioning and then lose the desire to actually play the game.
February 3rd, 2010 at 05:02
Very good concept !
But players definitively need to read the (short) introduction in order to get the idea behind the game.
To emphasize the “silent game” idea I think it would be interesting to push it further: for example, you could add some kind of “losing condition” or a score system :)
BTW, i like how you can “cheat”, adding to the “gameness” of this game. However, I honestly thinks that a game which requires software modification to be played tends to “break the magic circle”, much like Zach Gage’s “Lose/Lose” experiment (http://www.stfj.net/art/2009/loselose/)
Anyway, thanks for this interesting art game !
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:33
OK I went and finished it. Didn’t realize one could disable instead of actually uninstall (thanks for the hint on ‘cheating’!).
> I was thinking about adding a high score table. Would that be an added incentive?
What would you be scoring?
I suspect it wouldn’t make sense in principle because:
In-game score display would give away the deception right away, and post-game score wouldn’t lead to a replay either because you already know the truth.
Unless, on the second run, players are to deceive the system back. Maybe I just missed it: Is it actually possible to bluff your way through the entire game?
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:49
Pepperoni: Yes, it’s not a “fun” game, it’s really the idea that’s the interesting thing about it.
DDams: Cheating – is that disabling Flash rather than uninstalling it?
February 4th, 2010 at 13:07
@Jesper: Actually I went a step further into cheating : if you read source html from the page before it loads the next “level”, you can see the url for the next page. It saved me from installing silverlight and removing Flash :)
As I said earlier, i can understand that you have to install addtional components, but I think that asking players to remove stuff to play is a step too far.
Tough, It’ll be quite funny to see something like an EA game asking you to remove a previouly installed Activision game in order to play.
February 4th, 2010 at 23:44
Jesper, I have to admit I have not gone all the way through but have very much enjoyed what I’ve seen so far. I used to be really into PC building, overclocking, etc., but eventually gave up on it for precisely these reasons. I am now enjoying getting my friends to play this and promising them it’s awesome.
DDams: I don’t think asking people to remove stuff is actually that far off. I myself have run into situations where I have downgraded video drivers, uninstalled software, and even swapped GPUs just to get games to run.
February 4th, 2010 at 23:44
d’oh, that previous comment was me, got a bit confused there …. :-/
February 5th, 2010 at 10:38
This is really cool. I was totally fooled. :p
It’s true we are always playing this kind of “game” before playing any game/software we just bought.(and we are willing to do so!)
We feel so happy when all problems solved.
I tried 4:32 with both windows and mac, but unfortunately the PC I used
has graphic problem so the game stuck at the resolution adjustment.
Finally, I found is this game fits your classic game model except the
“negotiable consequences”…..I’ve to reinstall my flash player.
February 5th, 2010 at 13:44
DDams, Jason and Shao-hui,
I think you are all touching on the weirdness that we fully expect to have to configure our machines in order to be able to play a game, but that we just don’t considered it part of the game, and we don’t expect a game to ask us to do this frivolously.
But then, for some games, the installation is the most satisfying part anyway. I can’t believe that nobody ever made a build-your-own-pc-to-run-Crysis game.
February 9th, 2010 at 14:14
I just played this and thought it was brilliant. I would say your analogy to Cage’s work is spot-on, but as an avid video gamer I found your work much more interesting, haha! In a way your statement is much more relatable than Cage’s about length being the basic component of music.
I think that’s because not many people have composed music, but almost any PC gamer has had to screw around with installation and settings at some point. We’ve listened to music, yes, but we are not often part of the “creative process” the way that computer games demand we participate in the alchemy of getting them to run properly.
February 9th, 2010 at 15:04
Scott,
I used to build my own PCs too …
February 11th, 2010 at 11:47
I started to suspect the “twist” at the 3rd step cause a game that need both Unity and Silverlight should be a really strange game. Then, languages : “Are you kidding me ?”. And I stopped at the screen resolution cause it was just too much ;)
February 11th, 2010 at 11:47
Hey, I totally forgot : congrats :) Love it
February 11th, 2010 at 14:31
William,
I guess it would be a fascinating exercise to make a game that actually used all of those technologies together (though I would prefer to outsource the development to someone else).
February 11th, 2010 at 14:49
Hm. Interesting game. The first 10 screens or so were fairly entertaining to play, although I must admit that I didn’t get the whole way through it; I did eventually stop at the section with the three sets of spikes. After dying about 500 times I decided, “screw this! I’m seeing what the twist is.”
(My computer had twist number 11, though, so that’s probably why; I had thought it was just fiddly platforming, at first.)
Anyway. Bravo, sir!
February 11th, 2010 at 23:47
I can’t get past the Language section for some reason
February 12th, 2010 at 00:20
The game jam sight says that this game works for Linux. There is no Unity plugin for Linux though, so you can’t play the game “straight”. You can still progress through the screens to the end by Harvard hacking, but it’s not at all the same experience.
February 12th, 2010 at 05:20
@Alex, You have to set not just to Spanish, but Spanish from Spain. Is that the problem?
@ZZ9ZZZA, You are right. I unticked Linux on the game jam profile.
February 12th, 2010 at 07:35
I like. This could easily be modified to finish like (and is a similar principle to) those trick games where you go through a maze and a scary image pops up.
February 13th, 2010 at 23:21
That was the most satisfying game I’ve ever played.
February 14th, 2010 at 22:52
Art often makes you reflect upon the medium itself, I’ve never actually felt any art game do that until this one. Thanks for taking games one step further, Jesper. :)
February 16th, 2010 at 15:25
Thanks all. Someone compared the game to rickrolling, and I think it is being used as such now, with people trying to trick their friends into playing it.
February 21st, 2010 at 09:47
um. i sort of guessed I was already “in” the game by the time of Silverlight, and gave up after seeing the removing Flash plugin. had to admit changing resolution was sort of the last straw =D am I right?
i was also contemplating whether anyone would have been bothered to “play” it at all if the creator was not a big name such as Juul.
i must say it’s a very well-thought out concept of deception. it really got me frustrated =D
February 21st, 2010 at 11:00
Ben, I think that outside academia, the game has been spreading as a kind of practical joke where people would tell their friends to play this “amazing game”.
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:59
ah, yes… the devillish part of it. everyone seems to be very assuring of how worthwhile it is to “get the game started” =D
may i ask if it would help as well, to make the start page not include a link to this discussion page, where… if stumbled upon, the joke might be spoilt?
February 22nd, 2010 at 13:08
Great question. I decided that part of the beauty of this game is its concept rather than it being a practical joke. Hence the link to the discussion page.
February 24th, 2010 at 20:38
having not played the game due to my preference of browser, i can confidently say this game sucks. 1/5
February 25th, 2010 at 10:56
kongster,
Well, perhaps you are already playing the game!
March 4th, 2010 at 08:34
Actually, perhaps kongster should get the high score… :)
May 20th, 2010 at 10:42
i refuse to start firefox for this. i’m upset.
May 20th, 2010 at 11:44
@ohmigosh
Nobody said it was easy!