"There is no uncanny valley any more," declares French developer

[JoannaDark]

passage - load of wank.

[Wrestlevania]

Really pleased to read Thumbs' (generally positive! ) reactions to Passage.

I assumed most people would have seen it by now, as it's been bandied around on many of the more discerning gaming blogs. (Not that I'm implying anything.)

I knew it was coming, but I was still upset when the girl died. So much so in fact that I didn't want to go on any further and just waited around her tombstone to die myself.

Left a nice symmetrical pair of graves.

[Roderick]

I downloaded Passage, but it doesn't work properly. Now it seems to have nestled itself in my goddamned computer because I can't move or delete it; it says it's in use by some program -even when I've just booted up. Does anyone know how I can circumvent this? Fucking hell.

[Nappi]

Passage in its simplicity is very impressive.

My only complaint is that it should have been even more simple. In my opinion, the ability to move up and down should have been left out as it only* breaks the immersion of.. mm.. passage. Using it accidentally kind of ruined the experience for me and I had to start over.

*

I quess the main reason for that ability is to give the players a chance to avoid ever falling in love.

[Thrik]

Safe mode should do it.

[Roderick]

Thanks. But isn't there an easier solution? Damn Windows.

[toblix]

Thanks. But isn't there an easier solution? Damn Windows.

Naturally, Windows itself must be the problem.

[DanJW]

Try running the exe in win95 compatability mode?

[LOPcagney]

One example of a game doing this is err, I don't know the name, but it's this game set in the second world war in Paris and you're playing some underground whatever. The interesting bit: Nazi occupied areas in the city are greyscale, and when you deal with it the colour returns. It's a little more blunt and in-your-face than what you were proposing, but it's still a good idea.

You could have a game about someone who's mind is unravelling, and is this happens textures fall away, bumpmapping vanishes, motion blur and anti-aliasing go, polygon count dwindles... you could really make a nice arty high concept with that. But it's a one-time thing, obviously. It's the surprise that makes it worth it, like the Eternal Darkness insanity effects. It'd get boring if lots of games would do that.

Speaking of concept treatments like this, the same guy who did Oldboy did another movie in her Vengeance Trilogy (is that what it's called) that details a womans journey of revenge, and as the movie goes on, the image slowly fades from color to black-and-white to symbolize her descent into despair and cruelty.

[miffy495]

Ah yes, Lady Vengeance. Good flick.

[Wrestlevania]

My only complaint is that it should have been even more simple. In my opinion, the ability to move up and down should have been left out as it only* breaks the immersion of.. mm.. passage. Using it accidentally kind of ruined the experience for me and I had to start over.

Beg to differ; giving players the ability to noodle about, wasting time in their 'present' to avoid progressing, is even more accurate than simply trudging left to right.

I think you've underestimated the symbolism of this.

[Nappi]

Beg to differ; giving players the ability to noodle about, wasting time in their 'present' to avoid progressing, is even more accurate than simply trudging left to right.

I think you've underestimated the symbolism of this.

I guess my view is just that you simply can't avoid progressing, that everything you experience changes you and how you see the world making it impossible to stay in one "place" or go back to one you have already been to. Although you get older and even move a bit horizontally just by running in circles in the game, the visual presentation of your one-way journey to your grave, in that case, is lacking, in my opinion. To me, it seemed as if the game hadn't completely decided whether the character was moving in a real environment or a more symbolic one.

I'm not saying that I know how it should have been handled, but I would have probably prefered something like being able to control speed of your movement in a horizontal direction with minimal movement in a vertical direction (preferably so that you could always see the horizont) so that you could still choose whether or not to avoid the obstacles in your path.

Just to make sure, I wouldn't have bothered with something like this at all, if I hadn't liked the game so much.

[Wrestlevania]

OK, that's clearer (thank you).

Personally, I can't think of another way you could tackle the idea of 'paths' and free will without having vertical movement in there.

The 'paths' thing is difficult though, I agree. On the one hand you can actively fart about in real life in an effort to delay the inevitable. Or you can actively choose a new path to break the current one and go somewhere completely different (physically and/or metaphorically).

It's difficult enough to describe, nevermind implement in some sort of Video game form that actually means something. I suppose Passage's approach is merely the freshest, most unique representation that I've seen to date in Video game form.

(I feel dirty discussing this in a thread about The Uncanny Valley though; would be great if the Thumb forums allowed for thread-splitting... )

[Erkki]

Wow, I don't think I can thank you enough for making me discover this game!

This is spot on what I've been searching for a while; namely, 'gameplay' ideas which bear a symbolic (or as you, say, expressive) meaning that the player gets better as he plays ... it perfectly use the feedback loop, action-effect that only interactive medium display. And that's rare, right ?

Plus there's no tutorial - which is awesome- no loading screen, the guy stripped it down to the most essential thing -throwing away any Video game convention - and yet, it is subtle, interesting, but not elitist...Again, wow!

Yes, it's an interesting game. But he threw away *fun* as well. Still deserves a wow, I guess.

About the different paths, the only thing that bothered me was that you could find a dead end and then had to go back. Somewhy I associated going back with going back in time... So that seemed strange.

[JoannaDark]

Yes, it's an interesting game. But he threw away *fun* as well. .

see this is my problem with it. if it's an existential comment, fine. but as a game clearly it's a load of wank. i mean, yeah.

wow. serious amount of articulate-ness outta me today.

[Marek]

I can see how you might not consider Passage very interesting from a purely gaming point of view. I guess it's very subjective though. I personally thought there's enough game mechanics at play to appreciate it as a game, especially as it's a game that's supposed to last 5 minutes.

I especially enjoyed exploring the space, and kind of figuring out that the further south you go the more complex the maze becomes. Also figuring out you get points for taking the girl along, and points for the treasure chests, and points for going east... that kept me involved on a purely gameplay basis for at least a minute or two.

BTW it's sad that many people in blog comments have said it isn't a game but "an interactive experience" or "interactive art" (whatever that means). No, it's a game. I was hoping we'd gotten to the point where we could recognize something like this as a game.

[Wrestlevania]

[it's] sad that many people in blog comments have said it isn't a game but "an interactive experience" or "interactive art" (whatever that means). No, it's a game.

Correct - a game that makes a clear statement.

That, coupled with it's low-tech creative direction is what's got people beating off about "interactive art".

[ysbreker]

Ok, this is getting scary: http://cubo.cc/

[brkl]

It just looks weird. It doesn't look convincing or realistic.

[Nappi]

I'm not sure whether this thread was more about uncanny valley or heavy rain, but the new trailer only features the latter.

(They are probably just gathering speed for their leap way back.)

Nevermind that.

The action is handled in a disappointingly unsurprising manner though.

[Noyb]

Every action has a consequence? More like press X to not die.

Not like I was getting much of a photorealistic vibe from the admittedly pretty visuals before the action sequence, but those controller cues really take me out of it.

[lobotomy42]

Still looks pretty uncanny valley ish to me.

I will admit - it looks far better than what I expected.

The trailers for Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy were pretty sweet, though, too. And that turned out to be an enormous disappointment.

[DanJW]

Yeah, they should have taken on board the Fahrenheit feedback that quicktime events alone do not a game make.

If they had the shown the same footage but with 100% control of movement (using some incredible technology like, I dunno, analogue sticks) then this would probably be a fucking incredible game.

[Scrobbs]

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4557935.ece

Getting closer?

[brkl]

Well, yeah, no uncanny valley since it just looks animated.

EDIT: Regarding Norfolk's link, that's soo far ahead of any Heavy Rain footage we've seen... Though I guess it's prerendered.