Game Lab.... YAH BOI!

Oh how I love game labs; especially the video game ones. I played some really interesting and relatively simple games that I probably wouldn't have played otherwise. The first one that I tried was, You Have to Burn the Rope. This was probably one of the easiest games I have ever played. This 2D plat-former begins in a tunnel where the designers have laid out instructions for the entire level. There is nothing to really discover. The hints tell you right off the bat that there is a boss in the next room, you can't kill him with weapons, and "you must burn the rope above" to destroy him. The only thing that isn't immediately obvious is how you will attain the fire. But this becomes clear as soon as you enter the room and jump up the wall, automatically picking up fire as you pass a torch. Your character is guided to success every step of the way, but the game is still insanely entertaining. Which is why I think the game serves more as a commentary on how difficult video games have become. The game doesn't need to require 3 months of your life to be beatable, and rewarding, and fun. You can get that same sense of satisfaction from a 1 minute game, especially when the credit song is twice as long as the game and its lyrics stroke your ego.

Eighty percent of the elephants died to gale force winds.

So, like the first game, This is the Only Level, had well... only one level. And much like my first game, was also relatively straight forward. You have an elephant, some platforms, a door mechanism controlled by a giant button, and a pipe/finishline. Each time you run your little elephant through that pipe, you get that warm feeling of accomplishment, YAY, I don't suck at everything! After that round screen ends, you confronted with the same level, but with new rules for how you must complete it. THIS made the game extremely interesting. I would have never though that there were so many ways to run that stupid little elephant through the same fricken level! I would be lying if I said I didn't have to watch the walk-through to figure out how to complete a couple of the rounds. Despite this, the game was still very similar to You Have to Burn the Rope; very simple, fun, and rewarding.

Not all the games I played were lighthearted and fun though. A couple of them were actually quite intense and disturbing. Playing Judith, for example, was a sickening experience. The story follows a couple that is having an affair (I say story because Judith has a very rigid narrative.) You play as an unfaithful husband who is secretly meeting his lover Emily; she just so happens to also be unfaithful. In a nutshell, you enter an abandoned castle, search for Emily who has gone missing, experience the gruesome revelations of the previous woman of the castle, watch her husband turn on her, and finally discover Emily locked in the same room the husband locked his wife in years prior. Phew, that is as simple as I can get it. This game.. is... creepy... as hell. You explore the abandoned castle in the first person. Each time you find something new, a book out of place that opens a secret passage for example, you unlock another scene in this twisted tale. What I found most interesting about this game, was how difficult it was to figure out what to do next. I found the secret passage out of desperation, after realizing all the doors were locked and there was no place to go. I wanted out. The clock in the bedroom was ticking, the music was eerie, and this little 8-bit game was scaring the crap out of me. I watched on in horror as the story unfolded, constantly asking myself why I was still playing. Even after the game is over, I am still thinking about it. I would say, that makes it a pretty successful game.

Canabalt was also an adrenaline pumping game. Although not as scary, I found myself still holding my breath as I drove the character over a cliff, hoping I wouldn't stumble on an air conditioning unit this time, hoping I could escape farther than I had last time. I didn't even know what I was running from and I still felt compelled to replay, over and over, until I felt I had run this guy as far as I could. I think the fact that there was no back story, added to the urgency of this game. WHAT WAS I RUNNING FROM? WHY WAS I ON A ROOF, AND WHO THE HELL LEAVES OFFICE CHAIRS ON TOP OF A SKY SCRAPER?! Yes.. caps were necessary... shhh. Oh while I'm on the topic of running....

Collapsing from shear finger exhaustion #YOLO 

QWOP!!! Everyone sucks at QWOP their 1st, 10th, and 100th time; that's a given. Controlling the calves with the O and P keys, and the thighs with the Q and W, you are tasked with getting an under-privileged, third world country Olympian to the finishline of the 100m dash. This is hard as hell! I have probably devoted a good 5 hours of my life to this game, and oddly enough, I find that I only do well when I am intoxicated. My best distance was about 75m which of course I am pretty happy with. I didn't feel like getting drunk today, so 23.8 was my best distance of the day. The BEST element of this game is the music! You could play this game a bunch of times before you ever move your runner fast enough to realize that the song, "Chariots of Fire," plays when you maintain a constant speed. OMG I about died when I realized this; SO EPIC.
So yes, I look forward to more game labs! If you ever want to challenge me to a QWOP-off, give me 45 minutes to get drunk enough, and I will show you how its done.