experimental games | Line Hollis

Swimming Upstream

October 14, 2011 / 0 comments

Being slow with the blog for a while means my backlog of experimental games has grown even more overwhelming. Today I’ll be covering some games from the June Experimental Gameplay Project, theme “MASHUP,” so you can see how far behind I am. There’s nothing for it but to keep pushing forward against all odds! Squirrels…

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Chemical Reactions

September 6, 2011 / 0 comments

This is up a bit late. I blame Labor Day! Also, getting swamped at work. Anyway, last week I was mainly playing through last May’s Experimental Gameplay Project entries, with the theme of “ZOOM.” The Camera Made Me Fat! and Broken Zoomometer [direct download link] Both of these games use a pretty straightforward interpretation of the…

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Awkward Attachments

August 19, 2011 / 0 comments

Just a few short reviews this week. I had the bad luck to run into a few more buggy/unplayable games than usual. Comes with the territory, that. On to the games that worked! Block Push Championship Another great puzzler from Stephen Lavelle. One of his favorite maneuvers in these type of games is to put you in…

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Terrible Gameplay is Hilarious

August 12, 2011 / 1 comment

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have noticed that I’ve been tweeting links and brief assessments of all the experimental shorts I play. Most of these don’t end up getting full reviews here or at Robot Geek, but I like to record my thoughts on them anyhow. In addition to that, I’m…

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Depression (2011)

July 6, 2011 / 1 comment

Aaron Oldenburg’s Depression is a short entry in this past February’s Experimental Gameplay Project. If you’re not following the EGP, you should. The organizers come up with a short theme every month, and participants come up with a game prototype in seven days to fit it. You end up with lots of short, simple experiments…

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Loop Raccord (2010)

April 28, 2011 / 1 comment

“I see storytelling as a game: whenever I am making a film, a book or a comic, I set a series of rules for myself and I try to play with them to reach their limits. Watching a movie or reading a book is not a passive experience. The viewer/reader can perceive those rules if…

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Frames, Objects, and Such

April 17, 2011 / 1 comment

I don’t much like talking about myself, but in the spirit of getting this blog going again, I’m gonna try to get out of my comfort zone a bit. This is a tangent following on an interesting conversation on adventure games I’ve been having with K. Cox of Your Critic is in Another Castle. In…

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Signifier (2009)

March 9, 2009 / 0 comments

Interaction in games can be roughly divided into two major parts: the actions that can be performed and the control scheme used to trigger those actions. Intuitively, we often consider the ideal control scheme to be one so natural that it becomes invisible, so that your intentions lead to in-game actions without any thought spared…

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Mirror Stage (2009)

February 27, 2009 / 0 comments

Stephen Lavelle’s Mirror Stage is a trim and elegant little piece about exploring kaleidoscope patterns. While there’s not much more to it than that on paper, the aesthetic effect outstrips the simplicity of the premise by a surprising amount. The game builds up a lot of appealing disorientation through the design of kaleidoscope levels full…

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4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness (2009)

February 19, 2009 / 0 comments

Petri Purho has come up with a brilliant border case of a game in 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness, the most memorable entry from the recent Global Game Jam. Inspired by John Cage’s 4’33”, a musical composition without sound, Purho made a game of the same length with no interaction. You win by…

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