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I am not a hardcore gamer. I don’t play FPS games for fear of throwing up my soul, I’m no good at RTS games (I do <3 me some StarCraft though), and I have approximately 5 games for my PS2. I much prefer to watch someone else play long-form games unless it’s some sort of point-and-click puzzle/adventure or Killer7. It’s that Kon Smith. He’s so cool.
On the other hand, I spend a portion of nearly every day playing casual games. I love these things. They are great diversions, and occasionally I run across one that turns out to be much more than I had expected. The other day I was poking around Kongregate when I discovered a new game called ImmorTall. I’ve played Hunted Forever and Alter, other games by Pixelante and I was already in it just to see some more of this developer’s artistic style. I clicked, the music started, I was ready to find out what that extra “l” in the title is for.
True to Pixelante’s style, the art is gorgeous. It’s got a retro feel, not too detailed but looking instead like something from a retro-futuristic war poster. The coloring is mostly primary with black and white. I loved the sounds: guitar punctuates every game happening as well as providing a moody musical backdrop to the action.
You begin the game as a little inchwormy alien who has emerged from a crashed ship. Over the course of the next few minutes you meet people, get snacks, grow tall, and then become a human alien shield. There isn’t a lot to figure out and when you need to do something instructions appear on the screen to guide you. This could be said to be a linear game, in that there is a single ending which really cannot be prevented, only staved off. I won’t pull any punches here: I played this game several times to see how much I could influence the ending and I cried my eyes out every single time.
My impression of ImmorTall is that it’s a very well done tiny story about any number of things including our fear of the unknown, the ways humans are willing to harm one another “for their own good”, and -depending on the circumstances at the ending- sacrifice.
It’s brilliant in that there’s just enough there to nudge you toward some understanding of what the game means, though it might be very different from the interpretations of other players. It made me think, and according to Pixelante’s Twitter feed there are a lot of varying opinions as to its meaning. That is, I think, as it should be. Art is interpreted by the one who experiences it.
I recommend this game for anyone who’s got about 5 minutes and a little thought power to spare. From beginning to end it’s a tiny masterpiece and the newest of my favorites. It’s games like this that show me the strength of play as a vehicle for storytelling and inspire me to want to make my own.
Rated 5 momspiders - A perfect score
You thought you were safe, didn’t you? With your lidded trash can and your double-pane windows and that big front door of yours. Indoors stays in, outdoors stays out. Or does it?
There’s been a spate of animals taking the next step. They’re tired of being on the outside looking in. We’re just upright, hairless apes. We can’t even hold our own against an angry dog half the time if we’re bare-handed. Each year plenty of humans are killed or maimed by pets. Okay it may have been unfair to use Trevor the face-eating chimpanzee as an example. But you can find plenty of reports of people who have discovered that a dog was not their best friend.
These gentle woodland animals, long venerated in such movies as <insert Disney film here>, are catching on. “Why, if they can be defeated by an animal they willingly keep in their homes, surely I too can get some of this civilization action.” They’re not kidding. Lots of them are throwing off the shackles of living outside and eating from the ground and checking into the Hotel Fancypants.
Nowadays animals are tired of having to walk everywhere when humans can ride. We might try to tell them that having four legs is plenty enough appendages to go where they need to go without a lot of fuss but I don’t think they believe us. Witness these adorable (and probably delicious) little goats, trying to get on the bus without paying any fare. Aren’t they adorable? Lazy-asses.
Know what’s less cute than a goat on the bus but infinitely scarier? A bear. Eating your ice cream. Let’s have a look at some of the shenanigans bears have been up to in people’s homes:
“They went into my sister’s room and pooped on her bed. But they didn’t touch her Hannah Montana poster.”
—Danielle Hyde, 7 (Did you have a good laugh, Danielle?)
“I was in Indonesia when I got a call: A bear had gotten inside my house and set off the alarm. He battered down two doors; after that he was a perfect gentlemen. All he took was a tub of java chip Starbucks ice cream and a five-gallon tin of popcorn.”
—Tower Snow Jr., 59, homeowner (If you’d had Ben & Jerry’s he’d have come back)
What do the experts say? “People need to understand they’re not coming to kill us, they’re coming to eat our Hershey’s chocolate.” They’re tired of our shit. They have to live outside and hunt for food while the most hunting we do is trying to find what cabinet we hid the cookies in. They’re onto us and I don’t think they’re about to give up convenience foods now.
Bears and goats aren’t the only ones involved in the animal invasion cabal. Deer like snacks too, but even better than that they’re acutely aware of where to receive medical help. In case you’re looking for a deer date, you’ll find some deer like to look pretty and others are into tackle football. Some of the more sensitive deer may attempt to redecorate your bathroom.
Look at that last link. I mean look at the sheer amount of “related content” which has “deer” or deer-related terms in it. Remember when deer were shy and they ran away, flashing their white tails at you when you startled them? No more, man. No more. Now they’re all up in your grill, shopping at your stores and taking themselves to the vet.
If I were you I’d beware. I’d be real careful and cast a jaundiced eye at that 12-point barista if I were you, because honestly at this rate you’re just going to think you’re hallucinating when he starts talking to you. And while you’re standing there wondering about it he’s gonna drink your coffee.
The Public Shame Glory Train is now departing. First stop: Griekspoor & Border.
When you’re nine years old, $80 is a lot. When it’s $80 for your birthday, that’s awesome! One young Miss Marissa Holland received two gift cards for her birthday and went out shopping, probably thrilled to have her very own money. Being a kid and possibly not thinking clearly in all the excitement (or at all, but she’s 9 and this stuff happens) she sat them on a store shelf.
Enter the swoopers: Tina Griekspoor and Evelyn Border, 35 and 56, respectively. They saw these gift cards on the store shelf, with the child’s name on them, and did what they felt was right- paid for their shit. How awesome is that? Not very. Worse, they went back and tried to purchase MORE things with the child’s gift. Really?
It may not have been the smartest thing for the girl to do, putting the cards on the shelf and not in her pocket but we have no idea what prompted her to do that. And remember, she’s nine. I think, however, we can safely say what prompted these two ladies to snatch her gift cards, however, and in that we can see they had no shame.
Well, didn’t. Thanks to some creative adjudication, Griekspoor and Border got to be the stars of the show and receive the shame they so desperately lacked. The two of them, a mother and daughter sad-sack show, got to stand in front of their local courthouse in what is apparently the center of town holding signs which read “I stole from a 9-year-old girl on her birthday! Don’t steal or this could happen to you!” For 4.5 hours they held up these enormous signs with their six-inch-high letters, and Marissa’s mother drove her past so she could see not only the women who stole from her, but the price one pays when public shaming is at work.
Whatever happened to public shaming? When did we become a society which is afraid to make people feel that they should be ashamed of themselves and what they’ve done? Whenever public shaming happens it’s somehow seen as a big deal. We can look at the Korean Train Dog Poop Girl or the more recent Rotten MySpace Mom cases and see where public shaming is as effective as or more effective than anything which can be done by law. Do you think Griekspoor and Border would have changed their ways if they didn’t have to spend half a workday in the middle of town telling everyone they are heartless gift-snatchers? I doubt it.
Some people are against public shaming. In the case of Dog Poop Girl, people decried the release of her information into the public sphere. No, it most certainly was not right to harass her family and tell everyone her business. At the same time, however, the right of the public to bring shame to someone who doesn’t have it for themselves has long been upheld. Dog Poop Girl gave less than a fuck about decorum or anyone’s health or even the right of her fellow riders not to slip in a pile of dog crap, and for her clear demonstration that she has no shame, the internet brought her some. Lori Drew, who with not a drop of self-control precipitated and participated in a charade which sent a young girl to take her own life, was similarly exposed and shamed by the internet. You may argue whether the young girl in question was already messed up or whatever. That is hardly the point. The point is that Lori Drew, a grown-ass woman, knew better.
Public shaming has had a long and storied history throughout the world as a way to punish without removing someone from society. The idea is that if you can’t access your inner shame before you do something stupid, society will help. It’s one thing to do your crime in secret and even to go to jail for it. That’s a function of law and order, but unless you’re all over the papers nobody has to know what you’ve done. In public shaming, however, your name and face become synonymous with whatever careless, antisocial act you have perpetrated and now everyone knows what you’ve done. Worse, they all know you don’t know how to act. They can avoid you. They can talk about you. They can mock you, point and laugh, they can choose to pity you or to avoid you altogether because now they know what kind of person you are.
There’s hardly any way of getting out of that.