fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3093 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3093 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy]

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[Brendon Urie/Panic at the Disco]

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[Steven Universe]

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[Bones]

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[Ghostbusters, Bill Murray]

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[Game of Thrones]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 032 secrets from Secret Submission Post #442.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We all know that "art/arthouse/auteur games" occupy their own level of categorization regardless of their genre -- everything from Ico (action-adventure/puzzle) or Silent Hill 2 (survival horror) to more recent stuff like Kentucky Route Zero (point and click adventure/love letter to bygone eras of computing) or Spec Ops: The Line (third person shooter/remake of Apocalypse Now/savage critique of Call of Duty and similar tacticool manshooters).

What are some games you can think of that deserve to be called "art games" that most people wouldn't really think of in those terms? (I'm sure some of the ones I already listed might qualify...) As an example I posit that Marathon would meet that definition. Gameplay-wise it's little more than a slower-paced Doom with the story told through terminals you must find and read, but the series has always had a philosophical bent (there's a lot of Greek mythology references throughout the trilogy, and Durandal's rants are entertaining to read) and the third one's plot goes completely mindbending and meta with a lot of reality warping and time travel due to a Lovecraftian monstrosity that's entirely offscreen. (I've also seen quite a bit of influence in Portal as well as the famous Half-Life 2 mod Minerva: Metastasis.)

Any others? Something that takes conventional gameplay or plot tropes and turns them on their head.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

I actually think it's one of the most disturbing games I've ever played. And I think there's a lot of really subtle (and even some explicit) commentary about death throughout.

Oh, damn good choice and I agree. In a weird sort of way it's a bit like a Don Bluth film, too.

I'm going to go with an unpopular opinion and say Bioshock 2. It's not praised (or talked about) like the other two, but I thought the way they played out the story was fascinating. They took your expectations about what certain characters would be and gave them goodness.

I keep forgetting I'm not the only one who prefers that game over the others.

What I love is how they took the world that Ken Levine crafted in the first game and expanded greatly on it, to give a much more nuanced take on the themes that BS1 was trying to present. I also feel like the game presented its atmosphere much better as well.

Some stories portray how children learn from and carry on in memory of their parents. Bioshock makes it more literal than I've ever seen before. The good ending is just so fitting to everything that's come before.

Edited 2015-06-23 23:42 (UTC)

Darkest Dungeon!

If you like dungeon crawlers / hardcore-permadeath / lovecraftian horror, it's perfect. The voiceovers and plot and all the flavor text are amazing. All the gameplay is aimed toward making everything creepier too (your characters have Stress bars, and when they hit max Stress, they literally start going insane and killing each other/themselves)

It's Early Access on Steam right now, but worth it

I've had my eye on it, but not having played it I wonder what exactly makes it an art game in your opinion?

It's not so much that it has a story or plot (it kinda sorta does but it's not the main point), but the atmosphere is so well done and so very much the focus of the game - and the gameplay is support OF that atmosphere as opposed to the other way around - that it just feels like a homage to Lovecraftian horror first and foremost, just done in the form of a game

It's not really something you'd expect out of a 2D sidescrolly turn-based dungeon crawler, but out of all the games I've played, it punches you the hardest in the face with sheer atmosphere

Worth a look then! Pity I don't have the cash :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvxcWbPQlXE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rClHWMt9AWI

This guy basically narrates the whole time, and all the art is like that!

If you try to send Stressed/underleveled characters into dungeons, they'll go but you'll get speech bubbles being all "I beg you - no!" "I wouldn't last a minute!" "It's suicide!" then your whole party goes slowly insane...

Edited 2015-06-23 23:51 (UTC)

This War of Mine? Maybe. I don't really know what is considered an art game or not. It is beautiful. And the story is pretty unique. It is a war game, but about civilians trying to survive. Also, no zombies!

I think the definition is vague enough that it's really definable based on an individual's perception, but I like to think that it tends towards games that try to present themselves more thoughtfully, rather than just being, you know, games. Like the Thief series sometimes gets to that level, particularly the first and third. Or Deus Ex. Bonus points if the plot actually requires or encourages deeper, critical analysis -- to re-use the Marathon example there's a bit of a cottage industry that's sprung up around discussing the various facets of the series, from its terminal posts to the meaning of the rather idiosyncratic level >names.

Fallen London. It doesn't seem like much on the surface but if you're really paying attention it is WAY more immersive than it has any right to be, LOL.

There was a game in the works and all I can remember was an artsy almost glitchy shadow city. I wanted to look up how it was going but idk what it was called or anymore about it!

Can you at least remember what kind of game it was?

I've no idea :( I think I saw it in tumblr a year or two back but I've got nothing concrete to search on. I want to say explorative and maybe indie?

Maybe you're thinking of Contrast? Cool indie game where your character switches between real and shadow world, very nifty style.

Doesn't seem to be :( the game I'm thinking of was much more abstract and like an intentionally glitched City. I'll look around when I get home.

[ SECRET POST #3093 ]

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