You may recall that when I wrote up Sombreros a few weeks ago, I confessed (as though you didn't already know) to being a fan of art-house games. If you're not one... well, you may want to skip this week's installment of Free and Worth Every Penny, because we're going all-the-way-pretentious this time. If it's any consolation, I promise it's short (and this writeup will be, too) and it's easy. Hopefully that'll be enough to get you to give it a spin even if you ordinarily wouldn't, because you might find yourself saying that you didn't think this sort of thing was worthwhile...
...Or maybe not. I apologize for the abuse of the title card, there, and I should say up front that I know this game won't be for everybody. Indeed, But That Was Yesterday won't even be considered a game by some of you, I'm sure; it's as valid to call it a piece of interactive animation... maybe even more valid. You can't really lose - or rather, any moments of "failure" have no real consequence - and you are limited to moving along the pre-set path laid out for you by the designer. Of course, I will refrain from pointing out how well that last sentence also describes many of the AAA single-player games I've played in the last couple years. Wait, I guess I just did. Well, nevermind.
In any event, it certainly isn't a game about challenge... wait, that's not true. It isn't a game about mechanical challenge. It's very much about challenge - the challenge of loss, and pain, and acceptance, and perseverence. I expect you'll find that at least one part of the narrative laid out here, if not the whole thing, resonates with the experiences you've had in your own life; the themes tackled by Michael Molinari ("Bean") in But That Was Yesterday are fairly universal. Like Jason Rohrer's Passage - another favorite of mine, though I know many dislike it - this feels like a very personal piece of art, but I think it means to speak to everyone about the joys and hardships the world holds for us and how to deal with them.
Unfortunately, I can't actually talk about how the game asks you to deal with them, or I'd give away the only secret it holds. Allow me to dance around it by saying that the game makes the most of an extremely minimal input set in some pretty clever ways, and that while I did think the whole thing went on about 5 minutes longer than I needed it to, I still took genuine satisfaction from the way everything came together in the game's final section.
But That Was Yesterday is an entry in this year's "Casual Gameplay Design Competition", run by JayIsGames.com and sponsored by EA. The theme this year is "Friends" - you can view all the entries here if you'd like to try more of them. As I said before, there's an argument to be made that this game is so casual that it doesn't even qualify as a game, but personally I think it's a wonderful take on the theme, and I'll be very curious to see how it fares against the other entries.
You'll notice, I'm sure, that I've spent a large portion of this piece writing from a rather defensive stance, as if I'm hesitant to put this out there and stand behind it as a game I like. That's because I am. Not for any good reason, really; I feel the same way I might feel taking a friend to a really quirky movie I love but that I know they might not like at all, or putting a painting on my wall without knowing exactly what people will think it reflects about me. What if anything that says about the "are games art" question, I leave for you to decide. If my words or the above screenshots have piqued your interest, evaluate it for yourself and let me know what you thought.
But That Was Yesterday is...
- not going to appeal to everyone. It's about a subject matter some people think games aren't suited to, and even then it arguably takes a position some may not like.
- very pleasant aesthetically, with simple but bold color use and some well-chosen music in the background.
- extremely straightforward from an interaction standpoint, but most of the time I appreciated the chance to think about what was going on.
- the only game I've ever played to use sitting on swings with a beautiful long-haired girl as a "level." As it happens, that's also a pretty awesome level in real life.
But That Was Yesterday is a flash game, so any supported browser will work fine. Click here to try it out. As a postscript: there are multiple endings, but I wasn't able to figure out whether anything I did determined which one I got. It may be random.
I hope you like it. See you next time.
"Free And Worth Every Penny" is a column I collaborate on with Mike Bellmore at Colony of Gamers. This piece also appears there.