Comments on: Mario Empalado (Pedro Paiva)

By: Fabien

Fabien — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:57:31 +0000

Taking advantage of this comment function to say that I love this game and will carry it in my heart always.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:38:34 +0000

Excellent commentary on what really is involved in shooting games. (ps I now and then like FPS but consider it a guilty pleasure.)

By: Pedro Paiva

Pedro Paiva — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 22:22:32 +0000

“i can’t get past the title screen. shooting the body just causes it to spin around. huh.”

HTML5 is so fucking unstable. I think it’s a bug that happens with some browsers. Try Google Chrome or a different from that you are using.

By: increpare

increpare — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:30:38 +0000

i can’t get past the title screen. shooting the body just causes it to spin around. huh.

By: derfwin

derfwin — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:06:04 +0000

For me, the violence was so over-the-top and absurd, I assumed that most of this was meant in jest. I think this could easily be interpreted as a satire of the ridiculous overreactions people have to the “politics” of the games industry. The ending could be seen as encouraging people to unplug themselves from the hate-machine they’ve become so deeply intrenched in.

Whatever message the author intended to get across, I enjoyed it.

By: zaratustra

zaratustra — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:40:36 +0000

You don’t have to shoot the baby you know

By: Porpentine

Porpentine — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:56:04 +0000

agreed

By: nobody

nobody — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:36:14 +0000

The comments on this one make me uncomfortable in a way that’s hard to pin down. I think that’s because to respond to a game — or any art object — with mockery like “WOW SO EDGY BRO” or to dismiss it by pointing toward its “supposed…symbolism” requires some really uncharitable assumptions about not only the work itself but the mindset of its author.

And in both cases the uncharitable assumptions boil down to accusing the author of not being sufficiently self-aware, of having flatly ambitious or objectionable intentions that aren’t borne out or justified by the work itself.

And of course there are immature works worthy of such critique, but I guess I want to insist that Paiva’s games are simply too savvy to deserve that sort of reproach, though I have trouble putting into words exactly why I feel that way so strongly. (Anyone want to jump in and give it a shot?)

I think I’d also like to point out that ‘depth’ and ‘symbolism’ aren’t really such great categories to be on the lookout for when approaching an art-object in general, that the uniqueness of an art-object is more about its surfaces, and how those surfaces work against each other to feel a bit more complicated than they might at first appear, that ‘depth,’ properly speaking, is a neat illusion produced by those surfaces and not something so crass or didactic as a Message or a 1:1 symbol code.

But these are not so well fleshed-out thoughts now. I guess I’m stumbling toward something I think I know intuitively but can’t quite articulate yet.

Thanks for listening!

By: Bennett

Bennett — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 12:57:03 +0000

Perhaps worth pointing out that there is a lot less to this game if you play it in Safari (and possibly other browsers) than if you play it in Chrome.

By: Justin

Justin — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:39:21 +0000

Crass and incoherent.
Just like a hate letter should be?

That said, this doesn’t really bring anything new the conversation on the state of the games industry.

I dig the visual style, also. Monochrome done well is always nice to see.