PC Indie Game of the Year: You Have to Burn the Rope

[MFS]

Since YHTBTR generated so much heat in an earlier thread, I thought it might be worth mentioning that the game has been selected by Brian Crecente (editor in chief of Kotaku) as the Best PC Indie game of 2008.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/new...t-video-games/

[papillon]

... now that's insulting. But then, I don't exactly expect my views to align with kotaku, ever

[RinkuHero]

Ha.

It also gave Cortex Command a runner-up mention, but that game wasn't released in 2008.

[Reactor]

Looks like indie games just went the way of Youtube videos.

[Nikster]

Kotaku..... fail.......

[ChrisP]

Since YHTBTR generated so much heat in an earlier thread, I thought it might be worth mentioning[/url]

I just had an awesome idea. If we post enough of these threads, we can use the heat generated to power the entire continental United States for a year, thus solving that country's energy crisis in one clean stroke and dramatically reducing worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. For the long term we'll need to create a reliable system of "joke" games being created and then nominated for the IGF and other high-profile awards, so that the energy output remains high. (Save the planet - maintain the rage.)

Quick, someone tell Barack Obama!

Of course, we will first need to perform scientific studies to ensure that the global warming caused by all the flame threads doesn't outweigh the reduction of greenhouse gas output.

[JGOware]

I'm SO STOKED!!! I can actually code something like this! And afford the media as well! woo hoo!

[kevintrepanier]

... wow ...

YHTBTR is more than over-hyped...

We need a game categorization based on the average playtime... There is full feature movies, short movies and youtube. There is LP albums and singles. There is novels and short stories. And you don't see a short movie or a youtube joke (no matter how clever) win an oscar.

What is there for games, really? We need a categorization to avoid this kind of insulting crap in the future.

(I still think YHTBTR is an interesting and important game, but it certainly does not deserve any kind of innovation prize or so what.)

[MFS]

sarcasm

True, posting flamebait isn't something I condone; that's why the link I posted has a listing of the Top PC Indie games of 2008, as well as the Top Downloadable games of 2008 (which are mostly indie as well.)

So YHTBTR might inflame the announcement, but it's still announcement worthy IMHO

[Desktop Gaming]

I'm working on my game "You Have To Shovel The Poop" for next year.

Its a dead cert.

But seriously, things like this make a mockery of the whole system. Much like the Mercury Music Prize.

[Acord]

Don't be so sure. "Beating a Dead Horse" will be my first 2D undertaking in over a decade, and it's sure to win!

[princec]

I expect the number of entries next year will decline sharply. At least by 1.

Cas

[cliffski]

if the best indie game of the year was a freeware short flash game, then I'm going to try extra hard in 2009 to shake off being described as indie.

[Ciardhubh]

That guy is a gaming guru? The lists looks like he spent 5 minutes to come up with. He just took 4-5 recent AAA games and tried to give each one an award, considering he nominated most major games for multiple "awards". Well, lets hope it pays off for Kotaku in the form of ad campaings

I wonder if the guy knows there are games outside the PS3 and Xbox?

[Nexic]

If official, Indie now means "low quality rubbish".

[Applewood]

You'll find most of the outside world already thinks that, be it games, films or whatever.

And this tokatu twat isn't helping anyone, whoever he is.

[Acord]

Alright, here is my idea for Beating a Dead Horse.

-----------------------------------------------

Grok is a big, dumb, stinky Ogre.

Grok was having a boring day. But now that he's found a dead horse, things are looking up!

Level 1: Grok takes his oversized club and decides to beat the dead horse.
Level 2: Grok decides to hit his dead horse into a distant cliff face.
Level 3: Grok decides to hit his dead horse into a barn.
Level 4: Grok targets the busy feasting hall of a nearby human tribe.
Level 5: Target: a rickety old bridge being crossed by pilgrims.
Level 6: A slow moving fishing boat.
Level 7: Grok targets a royal cartography service balloon.
Level 8: The next target is a pond with children swimming in it.
Level 9: Grok targets a live horse.
Level 10: The Prince has just gotten married, and here comes his carriage!
etc. etc.

Gameplay mechanics:
Aim with the mouse. The left mouse button charges up Grok's swing.
The longer the button is held down, the farther he hits the dead horse.
Each stage has a specific target.
Points are awarded for hitting the target and causing collateral damage.
If the player misses, the stage starts over.
There is a skip button at the bottom of the screen to skip levels.

Other:
Grok says incredibly dumb quotes about his horsey and other things.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The more I thought about this last night, the harder I laughed. I should definitely just stick to 3D for this one.

[papillon]

The lists looks like he spent 5 minutes to come up with. He just took 4-5 recent AAA games and tried to give each one an award, considering he nominated most major games for multiple "awards".

This is what most gaming awards boil down to. Praising the same popular games you've already heard about a million times, in the hopes of either convincing you to give in and buy it or making you feel better about having already purchased it.

Game Tunnel's end-of-year awards are unusual in at least attempting to evaluate all applicable games and potentially give prizes to things you've never heard of before. Which is probably why those awards are less popular.

[jpoag]

Waaayyy too many levels. Did you play YHTBTR? There's a youtube walkthrough in case you can't get past the level.

Seriously though, YHTBTR is a serious disappointment.

Alright, here is my idea for Beating a Dead Horse.

-----------------------------------------------

Grok is a big, dumb, stinky Ogre.

Grok was having a boring day. But now that he's found a dead horse, things are looking up!

Level 1: Grok takes his oversized club and decides to beat the dead horse.
Level 2: Grok decides to hit his dead horse into a distant cliff face.
Level 3: Grok decides to hit his dead horse into a barn.
Level 4: Grok targets the busy feasting hall of a nearby human tribe.
Level 5: Target: a rickety old bridge being crossed by pilgrims.
Level 6: A slow moving fishing boat.
Level 7: Grok targets a royal cartography service balloon.
Level 8: The next target is a pond with children swimming in it.
Level 9: Grok targets a live horse.
Level 10: The Prince has just gotten married, and here comes his carriage!
etc. etc.

Gameplay mechanics:
Aim with the mouse. The left mouse button charges up Grok's swing.
The longer the button is held down, the farther he hits the dead horse.
Each stage has a specific target.
Points are awarded for hitting the target and causing collateral damage.
If the player misses, the stage starts over.
There is a skip button at the bottom of the screen to skip levels.

Other:
Grok says incredibly dumb quotes about his horsey and other things.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The more I thought about this last night, the harder I laughed. I should definitely just stick to 3D for this one.

[Acord]

Really, it's just going to be one level with multiple targets

[aiursrage2k]

Alright, here is my idea for Beating a Dead Horse.

-----------------------------------------------

Grok is a big, dumb, stinky Ogre.

Grok was having a boring day. But now that he's found a dead horse, things are looking up!

Level 1: Grok takes his oversized club and decides to beat the dead horse.
Level 2: Grok decides to hit his dead horse into a distant cliff face.
Level 3: Grok decides to hit his dead horse into a barn.
Level 4: Grok targets the busy feasting hall of a nearby human tribe.
Level 5: Target: a rickety old bridge being crossed by pilgrims.
Level 6: A slow moving fishing boat.
Level 7: Grok targets a royal cartography service balloon.
Level 8: The next target is a pond with children swimming in it.
Level 9: Grok targets a live horse.
Level 10: The Prince has just gotten married, and here comes his carriage!
etc. etc.

Gameplay mechanics:
Aim with the mouse. The left mouse button charges up Grok's swing.
The longer the button is held down, the farther he hits the dead horse.
Each stage has a specific target.
Points are awarded for hitting the target and causing collateral damage.
If the player misses, the stage starts over.
There is a skip button at the bottom of the screen to skip levels.

Other:
Grok says incredibly dumb quotes about his horsey and other things.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The more I thought about this last night, the harder I laughed. I should definitely just stick to 3D for this one.

That would probably be a good flash game

[cyrus_zuo]

This is what most gaming awards boil down to. Praising the same popular games you've already heard about a million times, in the hopes of either convincing you to give in and buy it or making you feel better about having already purchased it.

Game Tunnel's end-of-year awards are unusual in at least attempting to evaluate all applicable games and potentially give prizes to things you've never heard of before. Which is probably why those awards are less popular.

Woot woot for unpopular awards!

[Chris Evans]

Actually the IGF nomination annoys me more.

Magazine editors are free to follow their own inside jokes or whatever for their own publications. It's their own editorial statement. It doesn't really have to be fair. But the IGF is suppose to be striving to be a prestiges award festival, which means it needs to be judged by some consistent criteria.

Also developers aren't paying PC Gamer to be nominated for their awards. Developers aren't flying half-way around the world to appear at a ceremony. There isn't thousands of dollars in prize money at stake. With the PC Gamer awards, we just make a few angry/approving forum posts and then that's pretty much the end of it. No one's time or money is wasted unlike IGF.

[Pyabo]

Devil's Advocate time, guys...

Is it time to kick all the Piet Mondrian or Mark Rothko paintings out of museums and purge them from the literature? What about Jackson Pollock? Surely that's not art... he just dripped a bunch of paint onto a canvas! He's taking away recognition and wall space that *real* artists could use!

Irony aside... I feel like the fact that we are even having this discussion means that YHTBTR puts the final nail in the coffin of the "games aren't art" argument. The parallel is just absolutely striking... The artists I mentioned above were all somewhat controversial for their time, with many critics who derided their work and claimed it wasn't even art. But time has proved them wrong... Mondrian in particular is a great example, because he intentionally set out to answer the question of what makes art... how far could he distill down his work and still be representational of *something*?

Now, I think the motive behind YHTBTR was similar. I see it as a satirical attack on two things: giant, AAA multi-million dollar budget games... and their lack of innovation. In that regard it has succeeded amazingly well.

Here's some more reading material if you care: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism

[Dave TZ]

Irony aside... I feel like the fact that we are even having this discussion means that YHTBTR puts the final nail in the coffin of the "games aren't art" argument. The parallel is just absolutely striking... The artists I mentioned above were all somewhat controversial for their time, with many critics who derided their work and claimed it wasn't even art. But time has proved them wrong... Mondrian in particular is a great example, because he intentionally set out to answer the question of what makes art... how far could he distill down his work and still be representational of *something*?

Now, I think the motive behind YHTBTR was similar. I see it as a satirical attack on two things: giant, AAA multi-million dollar budget games... and their lack of innovation. In that regard it has succeeded amazingly well.

I didn't see any strong dig at against AAA games in YHTBTR. I just saw it as a playful dig at game mechanics that force you do some unexplained non-sequitur to get past a challenge - hence "You Have to Burn the Rope". Plus perhaps a dig at ending sequences, although I've heard that that was a close copy of Portal, which I have not played.

I also find the IGF nomination to be more unsettling then any top list from a magazine editor. Top lists have always be highly subjective, and a highly questionable pick like this just tells me that the editor in question probably doesn't have a good pulse on what makes a good indie game. Whereas IGF's official nature as the premier indie award makes a nomination more of an issue - it basically says the top indie judges deem a joke game like YHTBTR as one of the top five innovative indie games of the year. It's more the setting of the benchmark of what type of innovation gets officially acknowledged that troubles me.

[vjvj]

Irony aside... I feel like the fact that we are even having this discussion means that YHTBTR puts the final nail in the coffin of the "games aren't art" argument. The parallel is just absolutely striking... The artists I mentioned above were all somewhat controversial for their time, with many critics who derided their work and claimed it wasn't even art. But time has proved them wrong... Mondrian in particular is a great example, because he intentionally set out to answer the question of what makes art... how far could he distill down his work and still be representational of *something*?

Now, I think the motive behind YHTBTR was similar. I see it as a satirical attack on two things: giant, AAA multi-million dollar budget games... and their lack of innovation. In that regard it has succeeded amazingly well.

Here's some more reading material if you care: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism

You're right on all points but I think you're missing the problem... "Game as art" is two parts: Art + GAME. The problem is that 90% of these "games as art" are ALL ART AND NO GAME. Let's do a focused analysis of YHTBTR:

• Art: Good sense of humor, funny music, clever subtle message, good synergy between subtle message and production values, some degree of novelty.
  
• Game: Platforming mechanics that are simple even by 1986 standards (how the f*ck is that innovative in a GAME festival?). Game completion requires you to touch the torch sprite, then touch the rope sprite. No dexterity challenge, no intellectual challenge, no emotional challenge, no fast-response challenge, no resource management challenge, no challenge whatsoever. It's like a basketball court with no baskets (but ROFLS it pokes at the AAA industry, ROFLS!).

If people want to award innovations in interactive art, then they should create an interactive art category and isolate it from all the real games. Then they can go hog wild with the true interactive art (along with any other cleverware/ROFLware/pretentiousware they see fit), while the rest of us IGF fans can look forward to seeing what's new in GAME MECHANICS.

Remember back in 2004 when Oasis won the grand prize? I didn't even like Oasis as a gamer, but I respected the judges' decision because it WAS an interesting fusion of different game mechanics. That's what I want to see, dammit!!!

[Maupin]

Agreed. The key word is "innovation" and as previously discussed in another thread, YHTBTR is just crudely repeating a criticism of AAA games that has been done before, and done better.

I can agree it's art, but it doesn't deserve an award for innovation at the expense of game authors who paid money to submit an actual innovative game.

[Dave TZ]

Actually now I think about it, there is one aspect of this that has been slowly getting at me, which is that the argument in favour of YHTBTR being given top accolades basically boils down to "You know what indie games are best at? Making fun of real games!".

(Note that I don't think all this hullabaloo was the intention of YHTBTR's creator; he just made a fun joke game. It's all this over-analysis that's stretching it thin.)

[320x240]

vjvj is absolutely right. A game is labeled as art the less it resembles a real game and the more it resembles some of the already established forms of entertainment, or, even better, it doesn't try to be anything but clever. Afterall, that is what art has become in our times, a way for people to display their cleverness. In a culture as puerile as ours that is to be expected and, like Reactor implied, youtube will be the way of all things.

Rather than being a sign that gaming has matured, this is a sign that the surrounding world simply will not let it mature.

[cliffski]

I can agree it's art, but it doesn't deserve an award for innovation at the expense of game authors who paid money to submit an actual innovative game.

Agreed 200%. What's needed is a separate "international wanky artistic bullshit festival", which can attract stuff like that.
Then the IGF can concentrate on actual GAMES which tens of thousands of people will actually want to play, and *shock horror* buy.