Wednesday 4 March 2009

Jason Rohrer: A Close Textual Analysis

We will be forcusing on a close textual analysis of a specific designers work during the session this week... Jason Roher


More specifically we will be focusing on 3 games in his ouevre Gravitation, Passage and Between

Rohrer J. (2008) Gravitation [download], PC/Mac/Linux, http://www.sourceforge.net/

Rohrer J. (2007) Passage [download], PC/Mac/Linux/iphone http://www.sourceforge.net/

Rohrer J. (2008) Between [download], PC/Mac/Linux, http://www.sourceforge.net/

This is a full list of Jason Rohrer's videogames
Primrose - A compelling tile-placement puzzle game
Between - about consciousness and isolation.
Gravitation - about mania, melancholia, and the creative process.
Passage - shown at Kokoromi's curated GAMMA 256 event
Cultivation - explores the balance between conflict and compromise.
Transcend - an abstract 2D shooting game that doubles as a multimedia sculpture.


Jason was named one of Esquire magazines best and brightest of 2008 and ran a design journal for Escapist magazine during 2008, Wired have refered to his games as "a superb and tightly crafted sonnet... more than any game I've ever played, it illustrates how a game can be a fantastically expressive, artistic vehicle for exploring the human condition." Clint Hocking, best known for his work on the Splinter Cell at the 2007 Game Designers Conference said... "Why can't we make a game that fucking means something? A game that matters? You know? We wonder all the time if games are art, if computers can make you cry, and all that. Stop wondering. The answer is yes to both. Here's a game that made me cry. It did. It really did."

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