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March 27, 2010

Caught Sleeping - Brandon Boyer interviews Jason Rohrer for BoingBoing

Brandon Boyer, games editor at BoingBoing.net, was given a preview of Jason Rohrer's new game Sleep is Death and created a featured post. In an earlier post from last year Boyer pointed to video of a conversation between Rohrer and Chris Crawford, an eminence grise of the videogame design community. The full length video of the conversation between Rohrer and Crawford is available online.

I have been admiring Jason Rohrer's games for several years. Last year I asked my younger son Diego (then eleven years old) to record his impressions after he had played Passage. He was quite moved by it, more so than I think Diego's written comments show.

Rohrer has been working with a very minimalist palette from which to construct his games. He has been working in opposition to the prevailing logic of the industry, to create more visually faithful replicas of reality. He has instead been focusing on the experience(s) of the player(s), and the meaning(s) they might derive or construct.

Rohrer offered a contrarian manifesto at the Art History of Games conference earlier this year. His games have been received as special, as Art, with a capital "A." He is continually attempting to expand the expressive range of videogames.


New Gamist Manifesto

February 3, 2010

1. Games do not have spoilers.
2. Game cannot be finished.
3. Games do not have characters, except for the characters who play them.
4. Games do not have stories, expect for the stories that players tell through them.
5. Playing a new game is less like reading a new story, hearing a new song, or seeing a new film.
6. Playing a new game is more like learning a new language.
7. Games are interfaces, not between minds and content, but between minds.

Posted by Rafael Fajardo at March 27, 2010 12:00 AM