Armada

[clyde]

So I just played Armada by Porpentine. It's currently free here:
http://aliendovecote.com/armada.html

I went into it expecting a naïve-game, and that expectation put me into a receptive stance. MS Paint creatures float about or are anchored to the space. You control a girl with green hair and can press "z" to do an area-of-effect that sprays slime. Slime seems to kill hostile creatures and amuse friendly ones. The animations are sparse and there only sense of weight is the difference between an object being static or mobile. You move through maze-like tile-based areas where you may find yourself examining grave-stones, speaking to inhabitants, or getting lost.

I really enjoyed it. Porpentine's mythos is present. It's an odd thing that her tweets prep me for her games. I get excited when I encounter characters and environments that she has mentioned previously. I don't enjoy the moments of not being able to find the exit and the combat was not a joy (though both contribute to the tone), but exploring the alien world of Porpentine provided me with multiple instances of joyful discovery.

I'm not actually sure I finished the game. I think that it may be designed to just be a world meant for exploration without an end objective. Things happen, but the game hasn't ended for me. I've seen enough to feel satisfied, and I wanted to see if anyone else wanted to discuss Armada.

[clyde]

I'm not sure how it happens, but I get all snooty about art. I start thinking that allegories must be either subtle or enormous in scope, in order to be worth my attention. I act as if thin veils are useless, failing to realize that a disguise you can see through subverts the objective of disguise, to reveal its essence when "success" is disregarded. I'm not even saying that Armada has thinly veiled metaphors; what I'm saying is that I have a tendency to judge content based on suspension of disbelief from the perspective of a character within the game. Though this can be a useful view, it's also a limited one. The metaphor of "forgetting how to play pretend" is overdone, but grown-ups tend to miss the point redundantly. It's not that the child can't demarcate fiction from reality, it's that they are capable of not being consumed and distracted by the craftmanship of the illusion. Naive-games like Armada and Galah Galah de-program me, even as my snobbery protects itself with increased levels of frustration. I compare it to the effect to Brion Gysin's cut-up poetry and psychoactive disassociatives. The process does not rip away the layer of illusion and replace it with a new one, it brings all illusion down to a level that forces me to admit that I am volunteering for any associations I make. Existential effort is involved. That's what I have to say about production value of naive-games, but there is much more to say about the mode of production for these games and what inherencies emerge.

It's in this frame-of-mind that I interact with the PC game Armada and when I expose myself to it (or its walls funnel my interactions), Porpentine's world of swamp factories, MS Paint sprites, and idiosyncratic priorities create a space that I've never reacted to before. And let's be clear, the value is not that it is unique, but how it is unique. Porpentine made design decisions that are not controversial, so much as they are personal.

Early game spoilers:

The save-points are stumps. They even tell you so. They also tell you other things like "I used to be a tree." Why are they stumps? At first it seemed like an arbitrary decision, but as I progressed through the game and saw stumps misplaced (or incompletely removed) in atypical environments, it seemed less and less arbitrary. I could speculate as to what they symbolize, but I feel no need to; as I progressed through the game and pressed the space-bar, I began to just accept the details of the world on faith. And Porpentine earns it not through consistency or scope, but with an implicit confidence in design. The first time this aspect of Armada's world hit me with its willingness to be sincere in the moment (without a concern about what might endure or reciprocate), was when a dialogue choice appeared that gave me two choices; "superficial inquiry" or "penetrating inquiry". When provided with the choice I ask myself for the first time "Why would I inquire superficially? Why might I think it best to get personal?" It wasn't even as if I had an objective, I just had an opportunity. This interaction in the game isn't going to change my life, but it did highlight a decision I make daily and offered me a safe place to play with it.

End of game spoilers:

I'm currently in a limbo state of Newgame+. A lot has changed, most notably, myself. Up until I became 100% corrupted, I ran from danger, slinging slime while dodging in pirouettes. Now I run through all the areas of the game like a kid coming back to ta's rural hometown after a year in the city has shown me that none of this bumpkin-drama matters. My slime has turned into corruption and I disolve barriers like a curious tornado with no care for the enemies that once pestered her, for no reason but feigned urgency.

I don't know what Porpentine's intent was with this mechanic, but my interpretation is simple. A little time out of the impoverished swamp and a small amount of attention from a city of commercialization (with whiffs of mysticism) has promised me enough fame to disregard every obstacle and kindness which provided me with a path here. Armada is a power-fantasy, but one unlike I've ever played. I became a bored, invulnerable force that exercises her power for the sheer convenience of it. That is, until I returned to the city.

I suspect that the essential-priority focus, short duration, and scarce assets have a part in bringing the details of the game into my consciousness as I play. I have no doubt that every side-quest and weapon-ornamentation in Skyrim is worthy of examination and extrapolation, but it's just easier to do in Armada with fewer things to distract me. That's valuable to me, especially if it has a residual effect.

This shit is free.

[clyde]

I continue to think of Armada. I took it for granted when I played it. Now I see how under-used the JRPGesque template is. It may have been done before, but Armada is my first exposure to a lot of ideological design assumptions being questioned in such a way that it makes me want to make a JRPG style game too.

I'll probably just download GameMaker and do very little, but it's fun to be hiking in the mountains beside a frozen creek after a week of solid internetting and thinking about what I items I would choose to codify to express my thoughts and experiences for the game.

[ariskany_evan]

I downloaded this in the hopes of getting to it next week when things are less hectic. I thoroughly enjoyed the manual, though. They sold me at:

 

"Slime for girls"

 

I'M IN.

[Bjorn]

I've never actually played anything by Porpentine, even though I've read multiple essays about her work, or by her on other subjects.  Which is weird, I should have played something at this point.  I think I've been a little put-off by most (all?) of her previous work being Twine based IF.  I've got nothing against that, but it's not an experience I've had a lot of interest in. 

 

I downloaded it and will try to check it out soon.