GOBLET GROTTO

December 1, 2012 9:05 PM

From thecatamites of Space Funeral and jchastain of MONSTER KILLERS fame comes Goblet Grotto, "Millionaire coolgame franchise and mystery pak" featuring "over 2000 hours of cave-based gameplay".

Logographic toad language and lying dogs not your thing? Then try The Pleasuredromes of Kubla Khan or Crime Zone. If lying dogs are your thing, then Murder Dog IV is right up your alley. Or just have a browse through the rest of the " HARMONY ZONE ".

jchastain's excellent webcomics covered on MeFi previously.

posted by pravit (8 comments total)

I downloaded this right when it came out, and I can say it's a...it's like Pencil Whipped meets Dark Souls with some David Lynch (??)

anyway, play it. I can't remember a time when I played a game and it felt like I was tumbling through a new world I didn't understand and wouldn't understand.
posted by hellojed at 9:28 PM on December 1, 2012

While I couldn't get into Goblet Grotto or any of thecatamites other games, I do respect what he does immensely. He gives a good interview too. Here's on from A Hardy Developer's Journal. Excerpt:

12. What does game-making mean to you? Do you create any films and/or comics as well?

Game-making is where I go when I have any kind of idea. If I start thinking about a plot or a mood or whatever it’ll always be in the context of a game. I have no idea why since I don’t even play a lot of videogames but I guess I’m stuck with them by now!

Overall I like the looseness of it and the sense of playfulness in gamemaking. Especially with adventure games there’s no real fixed idea of what makes games enthralling, or what the stories should be about, or what the characters should look like, or how long it should be, or what the gameplay should be like. It’s just about making a kind of space that you think is interesting and giving the player some tools to explore it.

I’ve never really felt the urge to make films or comics because for me there’s always a sense of those things having rules or a point or a set of guidelines behind them. I couldn’t make movies because my experience of them is so tied up with ideas of what length they should be, what they should be about, protagonists and antagonists and three-act structures and all that garbage. With games there isn’t really that feeling at all. It’s like uncharted territory in that there is still a lot of scope to just do whatever you want and not really care if it fits some preexisting criteria of what a game should be.

And here's another from Rock, Paper, Shotgun
posted by Kattullus at 9:33 PM on December 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

The website of the game is completely non descriptive. I haven't played or heard of any of those games before what is this game play like? RTS? Puzzle? Find the hidden pixel that will let you advance? FPS?
posted by Mitheral at 11:04 PM on December 1, 2012

Goblet Grotto is some crazy shit... Is this what schizophrenia is like?
posted by quazichimp at 11:16 PM on December 1, 2012

Is this what schizophrenia is like?

For that, you want this.
posted by curious nu at 11:41 PM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

The website of the game is completely non descriptive. I haven't played or heard of any of those games before what is this game play like? RTS? Puzzle? Find the hidden pixel that will let you advance? FPS?

I think he's pretty clear on that point:

What is a game? Professor M. Mouse of Texas, America claims that the word game denotes
"the historical process by which the term game has been characterised and understood".
Easy for you to say, Professor!!
Those of us with a more down-home approach to codifying the various aspects of a
nebulous and unbearable human condition prefer to go by a simpler definition, thus.

A game is some combination of the following indivisable elements:
- skeleton
- red key
- score thing
- magic door

If you see something that looks like a videogame but isn't, you should notify the Police.

On a more serious note, the story of how this interviewer ended up getting an interview with thecatamites is pretty amusing.
posted by juv3nal at 12:56 AM on December 2, 2012 [2 favorites]

Available for Win. Available for Mac. Available for Dendy.

I've worked in a company which had a Dendy in its lobby. It was a Russian SNES knockoff from the early 1990s.
posted by acb at 6:08 AM on December 2, 2012

murder dog, game of the year, now and forever.
posted by jonbro at 7:14 AM on December 2, 2012