Drowning

[jorgebonafe]

New game by Notch... Are you feeling good? We can fix that real quick.

http://game.notch.net/drowning/index.html

[FlowerChild]

Hehe...pretty interesting. Saddens me to think that it has the vibe of him doing a self-portrait.

[Sarudak]

Does the game ever move beyond clicking the solve button? :P

[FlowerChild]

Does the game ever move beyond clicking the solve button? :P

Well, I think the question it's meant to generate is whether life ever really does ;)

I think it's best viewed as a mildly interactive philosophical statement rather than an actual game.

I do give credit to Notch for inventing yet another new gaming genre here though, which I tend to think of as "game as cry for help" :)

[Gilberreke]

I like these kinds of games. Good for him :)

Will comment more once I finish it

[Kannsinn]

You do not finish it loops that was interesting.
*or not I believe I was Deceived.

[FlowerChild]

You do not finish it loops that was interesting.

Does it? Ended in a blank screen for me, which felt entirely intentional. Multiple endings perhaps.

[Kannsinn]

Yeah once it got to there is nothing again I thought it looped but was mistaken, lesson learned just keep lurking XD

[logorouge]

Not a game about button mashing to reach the surface before you run out of oxygen. Color me surprised.

My favorite moment was definitely going from Troubled to Bitter, then requiring 10 memories and something else to move on, just to realized I only had 9 memories. I immediately thought "Dammit, I should have banged more while I had the chance!" And therein lies an important lesson about life. I'm glad I played this.

[FlowerChild]

My favorite moment was definitely going from Troubled to Bitter, then requiring 10 memories and something else to move on, just to realized I only had 9 memories. I immediately thought "Dammit, I should have banged more while I had the chance!" And therein lies an important lesson about life. I'm glad I played this.

Rofl! Words to live by :)

[EpicAaron]

You do not finish it loops that was interesting.
*or not I believe I was Deceived.

Mine looped, but the loading percentages went up much slower than in the first run.

EDIT: Nope, nevermind. Just ends.

[Taleric]

Lol well I enjoyed this, a nice way to summarize things. Very much the same voice as the MC ending.

I hope Notch can reach his zen, grasping it all and understanding is crushing till you accept, hence why ignorance can be bliss.

But hey, I still keep hope out for simulated consciousness after several centuries of lab grown organs/gene therapy... :P

[FlowerChild]

Very much the same voice as the MC ending.

Well, not exactly. Notch didn't write the MC ending :)

[JiiKoo]

Thanks for linking this. It certainly isn't something everyone instantly thinks of when they hear the word game, but as FC put it, an interactive philosophical statement suits well.

I love how everything about it seems so deliberate. Every prompt, other than the first option in each section, tells you you need to do x, which is a problem you obviously have to solve. And you are drowning in these problems, since they never end. (Well, to be honest, I haven't tried that out, but if I'm reading this experience properly I'm fairly certain they won't). There is really no point in this experience where you are told this thing is available to you, you can do it if you want. No, you always need more friends, you always need to learn, you always need to play and make love and work or get a better job. On my run through when I noticed you could solve multiple things at once I kept stocking up on things like money, friends, knowledge and so on. Because hey, bigger numbers means I'm doing good, right? All that amounts to at the end is a big fat nothing, none of that money or those friends does anything for you. Doing these things you need to do doesn't really give you anything in the end. Because at the end there is nothing.

I feel the longer "load times" towards the end were there to let this sink in, to let you think about it, to let you think there might still be something. That something is worth the wait, that it all couldn't have been for nothing. You were wrong. Make friends, have a lover, be knowledgeable or not, none of it matters in the end. It's... kind of sobering. I guess you could say it's depressing and I would see your point, but I wouldn't call it that myself.

I see it more as something to make you think if the things you are doing are simply something you need to do because reasons, or something you want to do. It asks me what I'm using my time on, and why. Not to say it's a life-changing experience or anything, but certainly worth the time I put into it. Thanks again.

Of course, I'm well aware I might just be putting a bit too much thought into it, or might just be saying obvious things, but... eh, I guess I just wanted to make note of this little thing.

[Taleric]

Very much the same voice as the MC ending.

Well, not exactly. Notch didn't write the MC ending :)

Well dang never mind, bad assumption :/
Never considered he had not written that.

[FlowerChild]

Well dang never mind, bad assumption :/
Never considered he had not written that.

Hehe...I only remember this because at one point he said that a very talented writer or something had put it together, and I still feel the mild sting of the face-palm that inspired ;)

[MoRmEnGiL]

It's a very very sad creation, and I think Notch is a very intelligent guy.. And the smarter you are, the more you realize, and the more you realize the sadder you get.. I've been down that route many times. These days I try to stick by the motto ignorance is bliss. Only it isn't.

I think my respect for Notch just climbed up a little.

[Sarudak]

I don't understand. Why would one get sadder the more they realize? I have only gotten happier with life as I've learned more. Occasionally afraid for the future in regard to certain things like say the direction of politics. I think it's sad that someone who has achieved such a great accomplishment that I consider Minecraft to be could be so depressed about life.

Further I absolutely disagree with the platitiude 'Ignorance is bliss'.

[EpicAaron]

Well, the whole philosophy here is that no matter how much or how little you accomplished in life, everything you have worked for will be erased upon your death. No matter how many ignorant people you have had to put up with or how much you have decided to learn, there is a pretty big chance that none of that will matter when you are gone. People can take that as a positive excuse for doing what they love, or a reason to not bother trying at all.

Of course, we can avoid this entire existential drama by not bothering to think about the long term impact of our choices (hence the phrase "ignorance is bliss") but the problem is that once the main idea hits you it can be very hard to stop thinking about it. I don't think ignorance directly means a general lack of knowledge about our world in this case.

[MoRmEnGiL]

Why would one get sadder the more they realize?

Because everything that matters is going to hell :]

To avoid the one liner: Earth ecology is collapsing, the economy is collapsing, we devolve into mindless drones and care nothing about things that truly matter while getting immersed in our own little worlds, private interests control vital resources that the entire world needs, and there are people as we speak that do not have access to clean water or medical care, in the brilliant society that we have meticulously constructed.

Without going more into politics, yeah not everything is rotten, but modern society does not stand up to close scrutiny, not by a long shot..

[FlowerChild]

Sar, please stop poking at this one. It came up before awhile ago. You seem to have a very optimistic view on life relative to others on these forums (myself included), and that can quickly spiral into politics and general conflict.

That's great for you and all that you enjoy life to the extent that you do, but please don't try to hit the rest of us over the head with it or drag us into an argument no good can come from. You may also want to keep in mind that as this is an international forum not everyone here may enjoy the same standard of living.

[Sarudak]

Sar, please stop poking at this one. It came up before awhile ago. You seem to have a very optimistic view on life relative to others on these forums (myself included), and that can quickly spiral into politics and general conflict.

Ok ok...

Earth ecology is collapsing, the economy is collapsing, we devolve into mindless drones and care nothing about things that truly matter while getting immersed in our own little worlds, private interests control vital resources that the entire world needs, and there are people as we speak that do not have access to clean water or medical care, in the brilliant society that we have meticulously constructed.

Without going more into politics, yeah not everything is rotten, but modern society does not stand up to close scrutiny, not by a long shot..

And point taken.

That's great for you and all that you enjoy life to the extent that you do, but please don't try to hit the rest of us over the head with it or drag us into an argument no good can come from. You may also want to keep in mind that as this is an international forum not everyone here may enjoy the same standard of living.

Ok. On the last point I feel I have to say a word in my defense especially after my previous topic that was in rather poor taste. I in no way believe that the modern world is utopia, a world without problems. I know that there are places today in Africa say where famine is a very real fact of life and intense famine is one of the most horrific things one can imagine. But one cannot judge a time period or a society in relation to a utopia that does not and has never existed. The truth is that famine has always been at our door and the modern age is the absolutely only time period ever where large percentages of the Earth's population have been able to live their lives without the fear of famine, or that their children would probably not live past the first few years of their life. My optimism for this time in history is not because I can't see that the glass is only half full but is because the glass used to be almost totally empty.

Furthermore I realize how incredibly fortunate I have been in my life. Not only to have been born in the country and the time that I have been but to my father and mother and my mother's grandparents who fought their way up out of broken emotional and financial states to a stability that they were able to pass onto me. As a member of upper middle class america yes I am happy with the time period I'm living in. But if I were to be poor I would absolutely choose to live in the world of today in almost any country in the world than I would to live anywhere before the industrial revolution. I say all this not to start an argument and I have been careful to avoid mention of politics of any flavor but to hopefully show that I'm neither 'blissfully ignorant' of the realities of the world nor some heartless bastard that doesn't care about the human suffering that goes on in the world. I just think life is worth living and we *have* made things better and we can keep doing so if we try.

PS: If someone does want to talk to me about this whether it's argument or whatever please do so via PM.

[FlowerChild]

I absolutely can not discuss this without it devolving into politics man, which is part of the problem here.

I will say this though. This:

As a member of upper middle class america

precludes the possibility of having a reasonable opinion on this:

But if I were to be poor I would absolutely choose to live in the world of today in almost any country in the world than I would to live anywhere before the industrial revolution.

which won't come across as insulting to a good portion of the world's population.

[MoRmEnGiL]

Back on topic though, is this all Notch has been doing lately? Does anyone know if he is working on a new game?

[Miss_Kat]

Back on topic though, is this all Notch has been doing lately? Does anyone know if he is working on a new game?

His twitter constantly refers to little things he's working on. He seems to really like game jams and does something for a lot of them, which makes sense, since I believe he said once he loves prototyping far more than more involved developing.