the gutter is a game about steering a wobbly drunk into an alley to find a place to pass out. it’s also an obvious parody of the graveyard by tale of tales (half of which is seen here looking bewildered by the notion of a game in which players press buttons to cause things to happen) – a game about an old woman who visits a graveyard, sits on a bench, watches a short music video, and goes home. the gutter, it turns out, is nothing like the graveyard parody i was planning at one point, which was to have just been a movie.
before i get into my critique of the graveyard, allow me to clarify that my criticism is not of the game’s content. it’s been my experience, unfortunately, to have seen tale of tales react to criticism as though the criticism was of the content when in fact it wasn’t. i want to play games about grandmothers and graveyards; i want stories about real people and mundane events.
my criticism of the graveyard is that it disregards player input. what do i mean? well, a few feet into the graveyard, the path becomes a crossroads. the first thing i did upon playing the game was to turn the old woman and walk to the left. the camera didn’t move and she shuffled off the screen and out of view. the old woman is steered like the spaceship in asteroids: turn her with the left and right arrow keys, use the up key to move her forward. because i couldn’t see where she was facing, i couldn’t get her back onto the screen, and had to quit the game.
though there are clear, unobstructed paths leading to the left and right of the graveyard, the game does nothing to acknowledge the action of a player who walks down these paths. there isn’t even negative feedback: a dead end, a path circling back to where i started, a curt refusal on the part of the protagonist. the problem’s not the lack of choice – there are many games, maybe most games, where the player isn’t given a choice in what events transpire. the problem is that the game ignores player input entirely. none of the actions the player can take – the player’s “verbs,” i usually call them, which here are simply moving the protagonist around – receive a tangible response from the game to characterize the relationship between the player and the verb.
when the old woman is placed in the vicinity of a bench at the path’s end, she sits of her own volition – what ought to be an action of the player’s is instead an action of the character’s. (playing the gutter, you’ll notice that events which move the story toward its conclusion only occur when the player isn’t touching the keyboard.) the ensuing movie, in which the camera closes on the woman while she nods her head to a song, therefore has no relation to the player or her actions. a donation of five dollars purchases the full version of the game, which adds the chance that the protagonist will die: presumably, this is in fact the product of chance and again has no relation to the player.
in counterpoint to the graveyard, heart is a game that was created by friend agj for last month’s ludum dare. (and you should play it if you havn’t before i go ahead and spoil it.) it is a game in which the player guides a character in a suit along a straight path until he is overtaken by darkness. there is no other route and no way to avoid this conclusion save to quit the game or to stop moving. and yet i feel that heart succeeds where the graveyard fails.
the reason is this: in heart, when the player holds the right arrow key, moving the protagonist forward on the only path he can travel, the camera tilts steadily leftward and zooms slowly out; when the player does not hold the right arrow key, the camera does not move. a relationship is established between the player’s action and the game’s state. what’s more, when the player presses the left key instead, the protagonist turns to look helplessly at the impenetrable darkness following him, and a text card appears insisting, in the character’s voice, that he can’t go back. rather than happening in spite of the player, all action in heart is driven by the player, and it’s the player, not chance, that guides the protagonist to his end.
that, then, is my criticism of tale of tales: i think they design games that have no player.
59 comments
I think tale of tales should sell a special $25 version where the old woman has a 10% chance of exploding in a gigantic cloud of fire
you’re really quick on the draw these days, zara.
IT’S HORMONAL
“The Graveyard” is Another One of Those Games. “Rameses,” “LASH…” I’m having trouble remembering more, but I’m sure there are a lot of indie games that do it. They’re games where the big Idea is “hey, this is an interactive game… that’s not actually interactive!” And then it’s making some sort of comment on the nature of free will or the player-PC relationship or something. That’s all well and good, but it’s one of those tricks that can only be pulled so many times before it gets old.
even in ramses, though, it’s still the player’s actions that drive the game forward. the player types something and the protagonist says “no way,” and while the protagonist may not follow the player’s command the game reacts in a way that acknowledges it. that’s input and feedback.
a number of games draw attention to the distance between player and protagonist. the graveyard makes the player aware of that distance because it’s poorly designed.
I know game parodies of other games have always been around, but I feel like the indie gaming scene is having some sort of anti-indie counterculture renaissance to a scene that is already counterculture (art games), what with this game lampooning The Graveyard, messhoff’s game ripping on the idea of demos vs. actual games, and Jumpbox (dunno how recent this is) being a VERY thinly-veiled tirade on the existence of people cheering about “art games.”
I’m just worried that all these cool ideas about emotional distance between player vs. protagonist, the inability to go back, feelings like that will become cliche and stuff and then suddenly stuff that I’ve made will seem like it’s ripping off stuff FROM THE FUTURE, kind of like how Pride and Prejudice sorta seems like a bunch of poorly-thought-out cliches by now even though it’s not.
“i think they design games that have no player.”
well, that’s one way to make an “art game”
(a bad way)
okay I just played the graveyard. that was monumentally stupid
it’s also the the first program that actually BSOD my pc :(
radiation, parody is the first line of reaction against perceived trends. next comes deconstruction.
@ Gregory Weir: Look at Judith, though. That was really linear to the point of being “about” linearity,, but not only was it a really fun story, I never once thought “aw dude these grafix SUCK wtf did i buy this uber card for” because it was like being 12 again.
The Graveyard annoyed the hell out of me because it’s not really a game. There’s no challenge, no goal, no variation, no narrative… it doesn’t have a risk-reward system, it doesn’t have a different, you know, place to be in, it includes intrinsic backtracking, and it has to spell everything out for you. Isn’t that clumsy in almost every way?
I used to sneak into my brothers room and play his JRPGs at night, and I got to the point where I wanted to do the power-levelling (kill this one dude leik 1000000 tiems and you lvl reel fast omg) and I’d print off all this stuff from gamefaqs.
He’d ask me, “Why are you just following that set of instructions? It’s like data entry!” My reason was, though, that it was soothing, and mind-numbing, and it looked pretty, and it tickled my (dangerously atrophied) adventure bone, and everybody likes seeing a dude fire a meteor from a sword he shouldn’t even be able to heft at a 15 degree angle.
That had a lot of flare and bullshit that, okay, I wouldn’t go for it now, but it gave you something. This just looked like some shitty movie. I got so tired of that woman bobbing her head in the same way over and over again, I started to wish it’d just loll over suddenly and she’d drop her stupid cane.
I really want games about things that aren’t epic struggles against Xenu, too. First game I got hooked on, for serious? Harvest Moon. Why? YEAH BABY MORE CORN THIS YEAR!!!1
i agree with everything said here about The Graveyard and ToT, but i don’t think i’d put Heart as a counterpoint or defend that game. I like the other agj games, i’d even said i liked those a lot, but heart seems pretty undefendable to me. it lacks any kind of exploration the others may have had and the emotive element is so heavy-handed it’s ridiculous.
That’s almost exactly how I imagined someone behind “The Graveyard” would dress.
I’m not a huge fan of the “hold the right arrow key down to watch a metaphor slowly unfold” (HTRAKDTWAMSU) genre of games. There’s a bunch of them. Even Cactus made one, I assume without knowing about the other ones. It did not end up being my favorite Cactus game.
Played “Heart”, which at least had style. The inclusion of being able to hit left was also a great improvement. It’s an inclusion that may disqualify it from the HTRAKDTWAMSU genre, though.
Zaratustra: How would The Graveyard be deconstructed?
My problem with The Graveyard is that its only point is that it doesn’t have one. To go even further, even the face that it doesn’t have a point doesn’t have a point.
And what you say is absolutely right. I made a game called The Great Machine: A Fragment, in which player input is also ultimately “meaningless,” as the game is actually a loop that you cannot exit. But the player still has to do something in order to experience that loop, and he or she can experience the loop in several ways; and there is a *reason* for the loop, a point to it. The form is derived from the content, or at least connected to it. The one justifies the other.
But in The Graveyard, the “artsy” lack of interaction is totally arbitrary. It’s just there so that they can say “look at what we did! We’re so original! We’re so artistic!”
Kind of like (post)modern German theatre:
“Why is there a man on the stage peeing into a bottle?”
“We’re breaking theatrical conventions!”
“But every other show is doing the same thing… in fact, everyone has been doing this for the last 30 years. And it still doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it’s shocking and breaking theatrical conventions.”
“I’m not shocked.”
“Breaking! Theatrical! Conventions!”
“I’m telling you, none of this is new. And it doesn’t serve a purpose in your play.”
“Play?”
“You know, a show with actors on a stage? Meant to entertain us and make us think at the same time?”
“Huh? Breakingtheatricalconventions! Breakingtheatricalconventions! Braekingthatetiralcreregkgkfg!”
ARGH! TYPO! It says face when it should say fact!
ARGH!
yeah i mean its cool that people are taking apart the mechanics of games and turning them on their head and subverting expectations and all that, but the graveyard just does it really shittily and its lame that it got SO MUCH ATTENTION for being so mediocre
like i really really really wish i never heard of the graveyard
the worst part is people are talkinga bout the graveyard like PEOPLE HAVENT DONE THIS BEFORE ING AMES when people are doing it a ton right now and a lot better
which you talked about in your post so yeah
and i mean look at all the fucking examples in the comments
independent of player input
independent of feedback
independent of verbs
independent of self-reflection
independent of beta testing
independent of criticism
I’ll never forget this part of the Tale of Tales “Road to the IGF” interview, where ToT said this about what they’d improve in The Graveyard:
“I think we would try to find a more elegant solution for the fact that walking down the side paths in the cemetery is irrelevant. But only because several players responded very negatively to this. I guess they didn’t realize that the game was not about spatial exploration. So we should communicate this better in the design.”
I can’t believe that they’d present a beautiful world to the player, then yank it back and go “oh, you can’t explore it! This isn’t an EXPLORATION game, you know!” I mean, at least make it lead to a dead end or put a rope across it or something. Don’t blame the player for their own curiosity :/
noah, you should know i was genuinely impressed by your burn.
the only verb we’ve given the player is the verb “TO MOVE,” but it’s not a game about spatial exploration.
They probably shouldn’t have called it the Graveyard. That got my hopes up, I think. I hate how they defended it as only being relevant in this medium. A short film like that would be better than the current thing.
I know verbs are really useful for design, but you know what’s also useful? Adverbs.
Words like SLOWLY.
I should note at this point that while I find “The Graveyard” ineffective and, yes, poorly designed, I really like Tale of Tales’ other works, The Endless Forest and The Path.
I will have to try The Path soon. I hope they come out with that demo they’ve been talking about…
I really hate The Graveyard, but The Gutter is pure brilliance. Even though it is a parody, it succeeds where The Graveyard fails. It is aesthetically beautiful, has at least some player input (where you stop determines what ending you get) and functions as both interactive art and parody. I also can’t get enough of that pixelly 3D effect.
didnt tales of tales make that little red riding rape game
little rape riding hood
rape red riding hood
little red rape hood
Didn’t Tales of Tales also make “Charles Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden”.
That was a pretty good art game that really deconstructed the genre of b-ball games.
Shut Up and Jam Gaiden was by Tales of Games, who may have been mocking Tales of Tales with their chosen moniker.
Yeah, I want to play the path more after playing this. The Graveyard shows that they’re willing to publish and charge money for a potentially stupid idea, which isn’t always bad. Not, you know, always.
Rape is a yellow, oily plant too, you know. Please don’t trivialise the word, as I know many farmers and it’s disrespectful.
whenever i try to type “tale of tales” i want to type “tales of game’s.” probably because they deserve the press that tale of tales gets.
NOT GAME’S GAMES, GOD
tale of tale’s
Ok, I get it. Tales of GAME’S made “Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden”. Tales of TALES made “The Graveyard” and “The Diary of Anne Frank Shareware”.
Tales of Game’s. They’re ARTISTS, they can put apostrophes wherever they want.
No, Tales of GAME’s made “Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden”, “The Diary of Anne Frank Shareware”, “The Real Dilbert”, and “The Sewer Goblet: The Wu-Tang Clan and the Wu-Tang Baby”. Tales of TALES made “The Graveyard”, “The Endless Forest”, and “The Path”.
Sorry, not Tales of TALES, Tale of TALES.
This is waaay too confusing for me. We could make things a lot simpler if we just ignore the existence of Tale of TALES entirely, from now on, forever. Just a suggestion.
Tales of GAME’S does deserve way more press than they get. I always thought Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden was a better game than the actual games they were parodying. Then again, I also thought “Jon Lovitz 3″ was the best Metroidvania style game in recent memory ( http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/136 ).
hey, and don’t forget about telltale games.
Telltale games is easy to remember. They did the recent Sam and Max episodic adventure games. Next they’re working on “Frasier Crane: Starship Commander” and “Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley Saga 3D”.
Nonono, that’s Tales of Game’s.
who did sonic and tale’s
*whispers* tales of games
Miles Tales of Tales of Games Prower
miles of tails
[i]Frasier Crane: Starship Commander[/i]! Man, I fucking wish!
dess, I know you responded poorly to the idea that death in The Graveyard was probably a random chance not under direct player control, but last night I was playing The Gutter and some random number generator decided that this time a kitty should walk up to me. It ran when I stopped to pet it and subsequently vomited, but the fact remains: This random occurance was totally awesome.
random occurances are neat! i think the idea that the event of the greatest narrative significance should happen with no involvement from the player speaks to where the player fits in tale of tales’ design philosophy (she doesn’t). though i havn’t played the money version of the game so i don’t know that this is actually the case.
i’m curious about the path but given what i’ve heard and the precedent the graveyard set i’m not willing to pay money to play it.
tale of ales
tale of males
tale of stale tales
tale of whales
tale of male whales with stale ales
or i guess tale of stale trails would cover it, too
@ Beylita:
The cat will only come if you vomit at the crossroads. It’s not a random occurrence, it’s just an occurrence you didn’t understand.
@Fuzz
That simple distinction qualifies The Gutter over The Graveyard in the category of Understanding Human Nature. Death really is random in the Graveyard (a sentence helpless without its context, btw).
“I started to wish it’d just loll over suddenly and she’d drop her stupid cane.”
yeah tot was counting on this though, remember, if you give them money you get to watch the old lady die. i actually agree with auntie, i totally dig the context and characterization, it’s the ‘artistic intent’ and execution that make it insipid. right there with you on harvest moon.
“They probably shouldn’t have called it the Graveyard.”
yeah. they should’ve just called it ‘the path’. oh, shit.
“The inclusion of being able to hit left was also a great improvement.”
this.
“How would The Graveyard be deconstructed?”
i think a better question is ‘how can it be decompiled’ so somebody talented can fix it, romhack style. or at least make sonic and tales of tales.
i would pay cash money for footage of the ‘player testing’ tot did for their latest game… like the graveyard it seemed like a wonderful sort of concept and i really was looking forward to it, but it ended up being another game that seriously hates the player.
that jw’s usual output are nifty little gameplay experiments only adds to the poignant hilarity of the gutter.
“i think a better question is ‘how can it [The Graveyard] be decompiled’ so somebody talented can fix it, romhack style.”
The fixing it part would be easy enough. For starters, have paths to other places. Rough list of other locations:
1. Diner
2. Bus Stop
3. Unicorn Meadow
4. Gun Upgrade/Ammo Store
5. Haunted Forest
An element of exploration would add actual gameplay to The Graveyard. This would make the second word in “art game” not be a complete lie. The problem is that this may detract from the “art” aspect of it.
In order to preserve artistic intent, I suggest the inclusion of a new feature. At random, a picture of the developer will pop up and different sayings will come out of his mouth via speech bubble. Here’s another rough list:
1. WHAT IF EVERYTHING WE KNEW WAS A DREAM… *WITHIN* A DREAM
2. MORTALITY IS THE PAC-MAN GHOST OF THE HUMAN SOUL
3. IS FREE WILL AN ILLUSION?
The post mortem on The Graveyard has some funny stuff in it:
“The return on investment through sales was far too low to get even near to breaking even. Technically, this is not a failure because the project was not designed to be commercial [...] So not selling well is in fact a bonus”
That followed by this is pretty contradicting…
“We talked to Steam. They didn’t want it. We asked Manifesto. They didn’t respond.”
I wonder why…
“We always like to receive emails from people who appreciate our work. But the silent flow of confirmations of purchase coming from PayPal, was heartwarming in an unexpected way. [...] Expressing their appreciation without knowing us or talking to us. It feels nice.”
Must feel heartwarming to not receive any feedback, and also to know that people pay to see an old lady die.
I’m sure there’s more fun stuff in here:
http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/the-graveyard-post-mortem/
to MAYBE see her die, ivo.
i’d take five bucks to have people maybe see me die
it isn’t likely, but if it did happen you could be there for it!
I quite liked The Endless Forest when I tried it. Mainly because being a deer with a face, then running around for five minutes, then roaring at some random person, was the most surreal laugh I had all day. Good game.
Anyway. I liked the Gutter!
“it’s also the the first program that actually BSOD my pc :(”
fuck man that is not what i wanted to hear about the unity engine on windows :(
excellent critique of tot, dess.
Kepa – you know, your suggestion for a “gun upgrade/ammo store” might have been a joke, but I honestly think that’s exactly the sort of thing that probably would have given The Graveyard some sort of value.
The idea of a slow old woman with a cane, who controls like a tank and needs to stop every so often to take a breather, being the hero of an action game would probably make many peoples’ heads explode. You’re not even sprightly; you’re just forced to rely on enemies with bad aim and the knowledge that this old woman is probably making this the last act of her life. It would be an interesting comment on war games, fun, amusing, thought-provoking, and NOT mind-numbing tedium brought to you by the letter “experimental narrative wannabe”. Of course, doing that now would just degrade the experience – much like “the gutter” to be honest – into parody territory. So, The Graveyard has actually managed to not only be bad, but to drag other future potential down with it.
I mean, the music was nice and all, but I saw enough of that crap when I was forced to watch film school screenings. It’s the same message repeated over and over by people who think they’re groundbreaking, just like Jonas mentioned above. It’s a joke.
@Daphne (#16-17)
The Graveyard would be terrible whether or not people were talking about it. I think the worst part is that someone (ToT) thinks that this qualifies as a game. (Or that they would expect people to give them money for this.)
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[...] (enfin je dis ça, sans te commander) de trouver le projet un peu creux. Comme le formule la développeuse indépendante Anna Anthropy, le problème c’est que The Graveyard n’a rien d’un jeu dans la mesure où il ne [...]
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