A1reviews
April 15, 2013 6:06 PM   Subscribe

PUCK MAN HAD HIS NAME CHANGED IN TRANSLATION TO PREVENT IT BEING DETOURNED INTO "FUCK MAN".
This is the key to everything I know. From this point on, I cannot help you.

A1reviews, the eminently quotable tumblr where thecatamites (previously 1,2) reviews videogames (er, sometimes).
posted by juv3nal (23 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
There are times when I try to figure out what an FPP post is all about and I realize that like Hank Hill, some things are not for me. I don't have the ability anymore to understand life at the edge of popular culture. I can't parse it. My operating system is too old and cannot be updated with the proper drivers and plugins.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:18 PM on April 15, 2013 [3 favorites]


Weng
posted by fullerine at 6:27 PM on April 15, 2013


I don't have the ability anymore to understand life at the edge of popular culture.

Nah, I think you're safe on that front - this is just the inner fringe of the small indie games movement. See also Mastaba Snoopy.

I want to like what they're doing, but embracing shallow incomprehensibility and poor execution as an aesthetic is just kind of... awful.
posted by 23 at 6:45 PM on April 15, 2013 [3 favorites]


Extracts from the abandoned 21st-century bildungsroman tentatively known as Donald Fuck

YOU'RE TRYING TOO HARD, he mused, mumble kids mumble lawn.
posted by Iosephus at 6:52 PM on April 15, 2013


I love this blog and had considered posting it before. I hope he makes a new game soon.
posted by codacorolla at 6:54 PM on April 15, 2013


I think of this sort of thing as the lessons of surrealism and dada as applied to mid-late 80s and early-mid 90s computer technology (and music, and visuals, though this particular link is on the gaming tip) where bad translation and bugs were a part of the experience (and are now being accentuated); weirdly specific, but for a lot of twentysomethings that's now what they've grown up with, and it comes up strong in their minds to detourne.

There's a lot of it I like for one reason or another, but I feel the execution here is rather poor.

Space Funeral (by the same guy, as you linked) was really good at this; the computer technology side represented by it being made in RPG Maker 2000, the likes of which produce a thousand crappy half-finished games on the web; then dialing up the weirdness you get from unfinished games like that to make it into more of a piece of art.

I think a lot of this one is just trying too hard, however; though he gives a good explanation of another side of this sort of thing.
posted by solarion at 7:00 PM on April 15, 2013 [3 favorites]


I want to like what they're doing, but embracing shallow incomprehensibility and poor execution as an aesthetic is just kind of... awful.

Nah it makes perfect sense. Glitches. Tossed off philosophy about final fantasy. Empty spaces, gifs, MySpace, loading screens, FYAD, weird twitter, murakami, subtle horror.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:44 PM on April 15, 2013


Hey, I didn't know I kept a blog!
posted by Nomyte at 9:33 PM on April 15, 2013


Glitches.

Looking for beauty in chaos.

Tossed off philosophy about final fantasy.

Looking for meaning in the mundane.

Empty spaces, gifs, MySpace, loading screens, FYAD, weird twitter, murakami, subtle horror.

Minimalism (?), working within constraints, constraints, constraints, what is that?, funny, suggestions of depth, doesn't necessarily involve poor execution.

Sometimes something comes out shabby because the creator can't do better. Sometimes it's made rough because it's about not being able to do better. Sometimes the roughness is attractive in a way you - or anybody - had never noticed before. But when you make it a mess because 'lol wut wink-wink' it feels insincere.
posted by 23 at 10:14 PM on April 15, 2013 [1 favorite]


But what platonic ideal of smoothness are you contrasting it to? There's more meat in the review than in lots of things online.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 1:40 AM on April 16, 2013


i feel like stuff like this only appeals to people who are reasonably well off and secure, for whom the search for meaning is not deadly serious
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 1:45 AM on April 16, 2013


I don't have the ability anymore to understand life at the edge of popular culture.

Or it's perhaps just a bit shit. Things can be, even on Tumblr.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:08 AM on April 16, 2013


But what platonic ideal of smoothness are you contrasting it to?

The point isn't that other things are smooth, it's that generally I expect people who write reviews or make games to make an attempt at being clear or entertaining and thecatamites seems to just be going for obtuse. There are lots of people who make games that are rough, unpolished, and bad, but it's clear they're trying, whereas things like Goblet Grotto or the reviews on the blog seem to be aiming to be shallow nonsense.

There's more meat in the review than in lots of things online.

Well, sure, but while there's a whole ton of comments on YouTube I wouldn't hold them up as a standard.
posted by 23 at 2:53 AM on April 16, 2013


also isn't it kind of creepy this guy names himself "catamites"

maybe i'm not hip enough to get why that's okay
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 4:12 AM on April 16, 2013


Incidentally, this tumblr actually reads a lot better if you start with the last page and move back toward the first. It's a blog of weird video games that starts into musing about them in a self-reflective manner and eventually just falls apart entirely that way.
posted by solarion at 4:20 AM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


also isn't it kind of creepy this guy names himself "catamites"

maybe i'm not hip enough to get why that's okay


So you've finally found a 'creepy' site you won 't defend.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 4:49 AM on April 16, 2013


Anyone who doesn't get this should probably put the blog down and play Space Funeral, it's a much better expression of thecatamites' tone.

I am baffled that anyone could take offense at his name, but then, this is Metafilter.
posted by forgetful snow at 4:52 AM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


What part of these reviews are obscure or unclear in any way?

discrete activity objects combine to form a microworld chiefly distinguishable from our own by autonomy of the participants and the clarity of purpose embedded in their hardcoded repetitive actions.

Part of the reason we love games is because unlike life, every object has a purpose.

synopses and realising how much convoluted junk narrative is involved in communicating the ostensible real meaning. Similarly Final Fantasy games which are about all kinds of things asides from the moral stated at the end: all that running from place to place!

Despite their high-minded and melodramatic plots, the action of Final Fantasy games mostly consists of walking around and getting into random battles.

This is all stated in clear language, and any obscurity is a stylistic choice to get people to think. What's wrong with that?

Why does Metafilter encourage complete sentences instead of fragments and ellipsis?

Are these guys connected to Insert Credit and Select Button? It reads like them.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 4:58 AM on April 16, 2013


@charlemagne

'to afflict the comfortable'
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:03 AM on April 16, 2013


Charlemagne In Sweatpants: "This is all stated in clear language, and any obscurity is a stylistic choice to get people to think. What's wrong with that?

Why does Metafilter encourage complete sentences instead of fragments and ellipsis?
"

I can't speak for other people, but in my case, your explanation caused me to think. The pieces you quoted from the site caused my mind to shut down and my eyes to glaze over. So, in my case, what's wrong with the obscurity is that it prevents that which it is attempting to accomplish. Maybe other folks feel the same?
posted by Bugbread at 3:33 PM on April 16, 2013


but they're not being obscure? They're speaking in clear language. Maybe it's not language thats pitched to you, but if you think about it for a second what they're trying to say is clear. and if it's not its deliberately obscure.

what's wrong with the obscurity is that it prevents that which it is attempting to accomplish.

maybe requiring you to examine or reflect or avoid simplistic explanations is what is trying to accomplish
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:09 PM on April 16, 2013


HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK
posted by pravit at 6:36 PM on April 17, 2013


noooooo!
obviously it was "too future" to exist.
posted by juv3nal at 9:11 PM on April 26, 2013


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