I’m not talking about games; I’m talking about art. For a rare moment I have to remind myself of this. I’ve compiled a top 10 list of browser/freeware games that I found captivating from the year 2009, and while they are only opinions, and none should be taken as the all-encompassing “best ofs,” I found that each one of these games did something for me that I have hardly (if ever) felt before. To me, a strong video game does not have you controlling an avatar. It has you being a character. The story is your story, authored by the creator, and though I’ve rarely felt so in love with major retail video games, sometimes costing up to sixty dollars, I can honestly point to at least ten games this year that gave me full emotional content for free.
And that’s what real art is. It is a creation of emotions, a meaningful experience. Each one of these games gave a unique emotional moment. No two were alike, and they were all brilliant, from Tom Sennett’s lighthearted humor, to Molleindustria’s bleak view of reality, to Daniel Benmergui intense and thoughtfully poetic storytelling. These people brought to me something more than money, or time, or big teams of people could provide. All of them are artists. All of them have created something wonderful, and if you haven’t played even one of these games I hope you choose to. I think there is something for everyone here, whether you are looking for fun, challenge, or thought.
10. “Canabalt” by Semi Secret Software
“Canabalt” is a 2D platforming game from the mind of Adam Atomic (also creating the noteworthy game “Paper Moon” this year), and it manages to create an experience without plot or ending that is addictive in every way. The core mechanics are hit button to jump and make sure not to crash into walls or fall, and with that simple gameplay element “Canabalt” became the browser game version of heroin. The atmosphere and all together style built around the game helps to create questions in the mind of the player, “Why am I running?” being the prime thought to enter one’s head, but that never stops the player from running. No matter what the circumstances, whether you’re the good guy or bad guy, whatever you’re running from, it’s always important to keep running. Each new failure is just as heart breaking as the last. It’s an exciting experience that is only trumped by its own iPhone port.
9. “Fig. 8″ by Intuition Games
“Fig. 8″ has a very strange premise, ride a bike through a maze built out of an instruction manual while trying not to crash into the pictures or text, all while not lagging behind the quick-scrolling camera – essentially this is a new way to become frustrated by instruction manuals. However, the game is always “charming.” As you play your ears are accompanied by playful accordion music or folk guitar which stabilizes the mood and smoothness of gameplay. This keeps the player from becoming overly tired of failure or too panicked when things get tough. “Fig. 8″ has a beautiful look, where the player leaves trails of color behind himself as he rides through a purely black and white backdrop. The end result is one of the most intriguing experiences one can have in any medium.
8. “Ergos/Logos” by Molleindustria
Mood can be very important, and it’s not exactly something easy to master, or even explain. A good game can be ruined by a lack of proper atmosphere, and a bad game can feel a little bit better when it gets the mood just right. “Ergos/Logos” can barely be called a game, but whatever you want to call it, it’s good! and the mood is perfect. Guiding through hastily moving text at unreasonable speed, trying to take a literary right turn, leaves one panicking in alarm without even realizing that there are no avatars or environments. “Ergos/Logos” is as energetic and scary as any action or horror game.
7. “RunMan: Race Around the World” by Tom Sennett/Matt Thorson
Easy to play, hard to master, and simply adorable, “RunMan: Race Around the World” is a wonderful game. You play as the titular RunMan who enters a competition to “race around the world.” Even with all the other competitors dropping out upon his arrival he decides that it’s still best to go ahead and run, which leads to one of the most entertaining adventures of the year. Every level is done in with cute and cartoony look that leds itself to the fun racing formula of early Sonic the Hedgehog games without the frustrating lack of saves. Quite simply it’s a blast to play.
6. “Tower of Heaven” by Askiisoft
“Tower of Heaven” is about traveling up a tower, and with progress comes the more and more restrictions upon the player, limiting his actions – from going left to touch the flora and fauna and eventually not being able to look at the book to see what rules you have been set up, this is a challenging game, and whereas most games reward progress with new items for easier movement, “Tower of Heaven” is punishing the player for daring to defy the odds and scale the tower. With a beautiful art style found nowhere else, eyes may bleed when cast onto such a wonderful looking game. It uses it’s simple 2D graphics to create a dark and gorgeous setting better than most any other game can try to do.
5. “Every Day the Same Dream” by Molleindustria
Reminiscent of stories like “An Occurrence at Owl Creek,” “Every Dray the Same Dream” leads the player through the world in a dream like state, even if it is perhaps a more mundane world than any of us are used to. The dull events and daily routines which the player instinctively follows must be shucked away to investigate the greater world, a more beautiful and perhaps reflectively dismal world. With a wonderfully scary ending “Every Day the Same Dream” is a hard game to forget.
4. “Little Wheel” by OneClickDog
“Little Wheel” is a very simple game, that probably won’t take long to finish, but within that short amount of time is an absolutely beautiful adventure game. Based in a world without human life, where there are only robots, but the power ran dry and they all stopped, one robot awakes and (you, that robot) goes off to restore life. It’s very rare to see a game that manages to provide the feeling of isolation so well, but with no dialog and an essentially lifeless world even more barren by inactivity it comes off strong. Yet there are moments of cuteness, beautiful scenery, and a little puzzles that make the game feel like a lot more than just another game without NPCs. “Little Wheel” is gorgeous and charming in every way.
3. “When the Bomb Goes Off” by Tom Sennett
Black comedy is a tough act. If it isn’t done properly then you’ll have a tasteless joke with nobody laughing. Luckily, Tom Sennett is able to show his prowess in the art through “When the Bomb Goes Off” a collection of microgames with a simple stick-figure art style where the player only has five seconds to accomplish his goals before a bomb goes off, presumably killing every one. It’s ridiculously humorous when one thinks about just how mundane these tasks may be. Tom Sennett definitely works hard to establish himself this year as a great game maker, and we to see more wonderful and fun pieces from him in the 2010.
2. “Time Fcuk” by Edmund McMillen/William Good
“Time Fcuk” uses a background shifting mechanic to solve each levels puzzle, pushing the character through to the next room. With a neon and black environment, oppressive atmosphere, questions about time and space, a tumor growing out of you into you, you in the next room talking to you in the current room, an impressive length, and all of this taking place inside a box Time Fcuk is an amazingly well-done, challenging, and mind-bending game. There is simply nothing that feels quite like it, and everyone should give it a go.
1. “Today I Die” by Daniel Benmergui
“Today I Die” more than any other game this year has convinced me that there is a way to combine gameplay and story into one body. There is no story here without the gameplay, and there is no gameplay without the story. Many times we compare video gaming to novels or film, often wrongfully so. Though I’ve heard “Today I Die” compared to short poetry, which it does show similarities towards, it is the perfect example of how a video game can its own art without peers. Short in length, but enthralling, “Today I Die” is able to raise emotions from the player with ease as you change the words of a short poem through interacting with the limited environment around you. In the end it is not the titular depression one might think it is. It is a beautiful romance and declaration of life. “Today I Die” is a rebuilding of hoping, a reconstruction and reevaluation of life. Spread thickly with symbolism and meaning, a wonderful yet simplistic art style set in 2D, successfully getting across the moods it wishes to convey, one of the greatest successes in art I have seen from 2009, this is a game impossible to forget.
Little Wheel has some of the coolest art I’ve ever seen in a game. I really really love it.
Chad,
You continually write some of the best material on 72PC and you have excellent taste in video games.
Please write for GoodGameGet! I won’t pay you, but um… please?
- Kyle Wallace
goodgameget.com
[...] also discussed (in two parts) our Games of the Year, and there was a list of great freeware games that came out in [...]