Before I continue consider a warning that this will spoil some of the value in a game called GlitchHikers. Its a free game that takes about 20 minutes and probably runs across most computers and I'd recommend looking into it before pushing on in this discussion. If you don't care though, I'll explain it and you can still get in on some interesting thoughts if your ok with simply passing up the game.
I'm going to risk sound a bit pretentious here but I don't really care. Honestly you should not only be aloud to pull deeper meanings from unique or artsy games, but you SHOULD do so... because otherwise some are borderline pointless and dumb... and not gamey enough to be worth your time. If you go in with an open mind and curiosity, and the willingness to learn or be taken by surprise with something, you're truly participating with the art form or medium in question and it serves a point beyond simple entertainment (which these games don't specialize so much in) and distraction. Contrary to what some say that doesn't suddenly mean the game isn't anti-fun, its just that the fun comes with the philosophy, surprise, and adventure (even though its a far more mundane 'adventure" unlike say Okami or Tomb Raider). Don't take my word for it though, take it also from a game called GlitchHikers that builds itself up around themes of the unknown, surreal, and the search for meaning. I found this to be a surprising sort of meta-like experience about gaming.
Quick disclaimer: Now as I said long ago about the non-game debate, I think its fine that until these grow into another medium we can call these short lived interactive art trips "games". If that drives you nuts and you don't want to go with that, fair enough but for the sake of convenience I'm putting this disclaimer out there that GlitchHikers is a "game". It certainly ain't a comic, song, or movie, and it was downloaded and played as a game, with people recommending or asking me to play it from the gaming community. So I have nothing better to call it even if it is outside a traditional game experience.
So I heard about this game first through Totalbiscuit in the recent Polaris podcast where he demands answers for it. He wants to understand the point, the draw, and whether or not is he missing anything. Well of course it isn't something for everyone and that's the best I can say to answer that last one, but the draw and the point is actually what is felt when he's recommending to try this and solve the puzzle of this game's point. The answer is curiosity. At least that's what it is to me. One of the best things about our society interacting with each other is the art we produce and consume, and each new piece is somewhat different from the last. When a new game-like experience is put out there for free and leaving people a little stunned in good or bad ways, it becomes an interesting case to check out and investigate. See what its goals were, and how it holds up, or what it can give back to you for the time you choose to spend with it. Why does this process repeat though? For the same reason life goes on in a similar way. We continue to explore it and experience it to see what new stuff awaits and what new things we can take. That's not to say a new artsy game experience is life changing, so few really will be, but it will be something that likely stimulates and provokes thoughts that you may go deeper into because of that game or experience. Meanwhile GlitchHikers actually felt like sort of a meta experience to reflect on this exact subject.
In GlitchHiker you're simply put onto a road late at night, barely awake, and just drive. Actually you can't even truly do that, the controls are bare down to shifting lanes, making small speed differences, and temporary looking from either left to right. You drive through some slightly randomized pieces and a hitchhiker will appear in your car and start conversations with you. For the most part they're the ones doing the talking, though you have moments of choice that may hold influence over the conversation. This is sort of the game as far as mechanics go, but getting to the point of the game would require further discussion. The entire game is surrounded by a surreal sense of the unknown and hunting for answers. Whether its the fact that your just thrown into driving and forced to pick up talkative strangers, or simply the mystery of where the game itself will end. Even the people you meet will further push for questions, be it deranged and horribly scrambled looking models of people, or outright aliens with a giant eyeball on a green face. This stuff doesn't ever get addressed well, you mostly see the people and just accept they're now part of this experience alongside you, and you work with it. An odd man on the radio consistently keeps you company in between the few people you'll pick up, and he talks exclusively to late night drivers like yourself discussing the stars and loneliness. The HitchHikers that pop up will chat about similar things alongside odd experiences and metaphors. A woman comes popped in at the start of my playthroughs smoking and asks about why you drive before discussing old childhood memories of naming the stars and imagining them going to war for her. In her own words, she was like a god to them. She admits a weird event where a man walked up to her one day, claimed he was from the stars, and begged for her to stop the destruction. You can then tell her what you think about that with several choices that each get some sort of vague response. Either way you have to wonder what kind of imagination, universe, or idea was with that odd conversation and how you choose to accept it (other than the obvious "its just a game"). Moments like these happen again. You may get an alien that discusses life, you may get a woman eager to talk about wales beaching themselves and how it may relate to suicide and the question of whether or not loss and depression hurts. You may get a little girl abandoned (or escaping) her parents resenting them and trying to tell you about how pointless life is. Or instead maybe you'll get a man recalling his college years and how fantastic his life's jounrney has been. On all playthroughs though the last guy seems to repeat one of the first question on why you're where you are driving, even though you're not quite sure yourself. The answer options are just perfect though.
The game is still just plain weird on many things and I don't just say that to reinforce the surreal tone before. I couldn't help but feel like it was a bit hippy-like throughout the trip, and it had a pretty heavy handed "So cosmic!" sort of feeling to it. It felt weird not just as a surreal game but weird because of the tone of its direction. The smoking, the cosmic tone, the "its ok stranger" voice of the radio man, the guy recalling love in a weird manner... its just felt so out of place for me in addition to the surreal. If that didn't do it though, the odd dialogue certainly didn't help. I couldn't help but laugh as the radio man at one point talks of how "You're never alone. Millions of distinct bacteria share your body. You are.... NEVER alone." I felt reminded of the hippy off 70's show talking about how he met jesus on a bus, got a pretzel, and learned the meaning of life... and forgot everything except that the pretzel was good. It just felt like that kind of game at some point. However it all felt pretty good at the end of the day. I came in to see something happen, to find the expression and value of the game, I was searching for something.... and it delivered on that note even if it had to be a little weird about it. It actually kind of dilvered and shined on that exact message. This was further demonstrated at the ending where you're left with two choices that are each pretty harmless but tend to be based on some nature of how your mind responds to this situation. You have an exit left lane only warning and watch as a city comes up before your two lanes divide. You don't know what this exit really is or anything about your character, you simply know that its a matter of ending or continuing an experience for that character. Will you end your journey or is it the journey that you want to continue? Either way the game ends and it doesn't change anything, but its a pretty powerful moment if you take from it the same message as I did. To recap, that's the fact that the journey isn't over. You're always searching for something new, for new stories, for new mysteries, for new experiences, etc. That's part of the reason I took up this game in the first place, and even though it oddly enough sort of puts a mirror on the subject I feel like I still got something neat out of it. Of course though, its not quite as fun or as fulfilling as a normal game so its time for me to take the driving to a different level like say... cel damage.
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