Review - StevenHarmonGames
Contents
If you are looking for a bizarre experience, you need look no further than StevenHarmonGames. Steven Harmon is an experimental artist and game designer who has most noticeably released the games Awkward Dimensions Redux and Griptape Backbone. When I first noticed Awkward Dimensions Redux on the Steam store I passed it by thinking that it was just another meme game. After my interest was piqued again by the strangeness of Griptape Backbone, I had to give both of his works a look. To get a good look at StevenHarmonGames, we will first look at each of the previously mentioned games and then take a closer look at the developer himself.
Awkward Dimensions Redux
This game claims to be about a person's dreams. The first scene shows the choppy images of someone in bed, drifting to sleep. From there, the player is left to explore the mindscape of the dreamer. With the simple controls of walking and interacting with objects, it is the player’s job to figure it out from there.
The gameplay is broken up into different scenes, each of which are moved between by either passing through a door or achieving some goal in the level. In each scene, the player deals with a different thematic or gameplay element. One might be focused on surveillance while another is a mock-up of Mirror’s Edge. While at first the separate scenes will seem like disconnected entities, they will eventually thematically converge. Each one expresses a separate element of a greater question being asked.
Awkward Dimensions Redux focuses on a person's value in the modern world. It challenges a numerical basis of meaning by critiquing the modern standardized testing systems. The juxtaposition of a monotonous classroom environment with explanations of one's hard-work and achievements reveals the dehumanization inherent in reducing a person to numbers. A similar vein is followed as the player is presented with a mock assassination scene where the greatest moral dilemma is not the killing of a human, instead focusing on the potential loss of one's job. The player is to be presented with horrors not of blood and guts, but instead of the degradations of one's humanity in the face of such a system.
One of the more resonant scenes in the game was the meme machine. In essence, it was a slot machine that played out the same joke with minor variations over and over again. Critiques of the modern “meme culture” are a common thread throughout Harmon’s games, with memes always being presented as degrading and parasitic. The repetition of the meme machine forced the player to face a world of reproducible, unimaginative, and vapid humor through the rapid playing of jokes. It reminded me of Nietzsche’s devil that presented “the question in each and every thing, ‘do you will this once more and countless times more?’” (Nietzsche, 148). How many times can the same thing be played over before it makes you sick to your stomach?
Perhaps the tool that is used the most in this piece is the cut. Cuts are few and far between in gaming. Most often a cut is replaced by a cutscene that masks the potentially jarring nature of the cut and presents some plausible rationale for the player’s movement. In the case of Awkward Dimensions Redux, there is nothing masking cuts. They show up unceremoniously, often pulling the player directly out of the action of the scene. The result is a jarring discomfort that not only leaves the player disoriented in a suddenly new environment, but also keeps them on edge, never quite sure when the next cut will come. The whole game exudes a feeling of unease, and the cuts only support that atmosphere.
While there are a lot of experimental and insightful points in Awkward Dimensions Redux, there are some problems. The biggest problem is whenever more mechanics were added to the game. I can think particularly of the Mirror’s Edge parody and the chapter “Curfew”. Both added a challenge and a risk of death. The Mirror’s Edge parody was not too difficult, but required the player to quickly synthesize a new set of rules in order to move through the environment. Between that synthesis and the rather clunky movement controls this particular scene was less than appealing. Curfew had the player trying to avoid strange creatures as they moved towards a door. Being caught by the creatures put the player back at the beginning of the scene. Quite frankly, the rules for being caught seemed quite loosely set and the iteration time between attempts made the scene quite miserable. In the end, the worst part of these scenes was that they slowed down the narrative. Many narrative games have suffered from a similar issue of apparently feeling obligated to add some level of difficulty in the mechanics at some point. Unless the mechanics have been polished and play-tested repeatedly to make certain that they do not break the narrative flow, a narrative game will do better sticking with the core draw of the game: the narrative.
Awkward Dimensions Redux succeeds on a lot of levels, presenting the player with meaningful points of contemplation and some novel gameplay. Most of the game is presented on a cerebral level rather than being a skill based experience. It is a piece worthy of a play by anyone who enjoys games.
Griptape Backbone
The other of Steven Harmon’s games that we will be examining is Griptape Backbone. On its face it presents itself as a skateboarding game. However, it is both experimental and philosophical, like Awkward Dimensions Redux, without many of the drawbacks that the Awkward Dimensions Redux faced. In the first moments of the game, the player is presented with film of a person skateboarding before the sound of a crash. The remainder of the game is played in the broken mind-scape of the skateboarder.
Much of the game focuses on the question of value in the modern world. The philosophical base of the game pulls from existentialist thinkers and also includes a snippet from Alan Watts. The two main focuses are on death and aesthetics. Death is approached in a way that challenges much of the standard mindset through death being depicted as both liberating and glorious. Harmon’s representation of aesthetics, on the other hand, questions the vapidity of modern art and culture in a similar manner to what was done in Awkward Dimensions Redux. Actually, many of the same tools are used between the games, such as the meme machine being turned into bad jokes written across the walls of the world.
Griptape Backbone argues about the meaning and value of life in various ways. In some instances, the game presents a conception of life as being fulfilled through death. An interaction with a strange skeleton causes the player to question the value of living forever. Along the same vein, there are question of whether the mere memory of a thing is enough to keep it alive. Oddly enough this idea is brought up in respects to the Harambe meme. Unlike Awkward Dimensions Redux, this game takes a strong stance on its ideologies. Death is presented as not being the wholly negative experience that contemporary culture sees it as.
A more controversial part of the game is Griptape Backbone’s use of the player’s computer. Pulling, no doubt, from the player’s Steam account, the player’s name is automatically added to the game along with one mechanic writing files to the desktop. While putting the player’s name into the game is rather innocent and a bit clever, the nature of the file that is placed on the desktop is potentially concerning to some players. The ramifications of mechanics such as these are more complex than I can get into in a single review. If you are interested in a deeper discussion about this type of game mechanic, you can take a look at the Youtube channel Extra Credits’ video on the topic: Liminal Space. Regardless of the ramifications of the actions, Griptape Backbone uses the world outside of the game to solidify much of the commentary that is made inside of the game by tying it to more concrete objects.
This game was, in my opinion, more skillfully crafted than Awkward Dimensions Redux. Difficulty is not created by adding foreign mechanics into a game, instead being integral to the experience itself. The skateboarding controls are not great, but they are usable. The combination of odd controls for the sake of metaphor and the fact that the player is left to master only one control system makes the experience far more bearable. Many of the philosophical points that are trying to be expressed in Griptape Backbone are far more salient than those in Awkward Dimensions Redux, perhaps because the former is more pointed. Awkward Dimensions Redux tries to express a lot while Griptape Backbone focuses its experience on its two key points.
There is no doubt that Griptape Backbone is worth giving a look. It is confident in its message and treads into territory that is almost completely foreign to gaming by using liminal space. Given that it is free, there is no reason to not see what Griptape Backbone is doing.
StevenHarmonGames
Here we have examined two of Steven Harmon's games in some detail. They both show quite promising attributes. They are not afraid to tread into meaningful and often controversial philosophical territory. While their controls, and the experience overall, may be a bit strange, that rarely took much away from the overall experience. Not only were the experiences good, but I would dare say that Griptape Backbone was a significant improvement over Awkward Dimensions Redux. If Harmon continues to improve his craft along these lines, we are likely to see some true masterworks out of him. I hope that Harmon continues to create pieces like these because there is a lot to learn from these strange gaming gems.
Works Cited
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “The Gay Science.” Existentialism Basic Writings, edited by Charles Guignon and Derek Pereboom, Hackett Publishing Company, 2001.
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