In the first part of an extensive, illuminating and arguably controversial interview with Passage, Sleep is Death and Chain World creator Jason Rohrer, we discussed his new game, the fascinating but sinister home defence MMO The Castle Doctrine, making virtual possessions and people matter and why he chose to include only male protagonists. In this second and final part, we pick up mid-chat about issues of authorship in games, leading to his thoughts on the divisive Far Cry 3. Then we cover his outspoken feelings about gun control, before moving on to how house and trap construction works in The Castle Doctrine, how he thinks he’s made player-generated content meaningful, and, inevitably, whatever happened to his mystery Minecraft mod Chain World.
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Posts Tagged ‘Passage’
Also: Far Cry 3, preventing kingpins and the 'but is it a game?' debate
Rohrer On The Castle Doctrine, Guns & Chain World, Pt 2
By Alec Meer on February 1st, 2013.
Love, theft, home and beating dogs with batons
Jason Rohrer Reveals The Castle Doctrine, Part 1
By Alec Meer on January 30th, 2013.
Indie dev Jason Rohrer, creator of Passage, Sleep Is Death, Inside A Star-Filled Sky, The Diamond Trust of London and the near-mythical Chain World is a divisive game designer, because reasons. I personally reckon his stuff is reliably fascinating, bold and often important (including on those occasions that I’ve rather bounced off it), so I’ve been very keen to find out more about his upcoming game The Castle Doctrine. An MMO based around the concept of home invasion and home defence, the nature of the Rohrer’s tenth game has remained cryptic since a guarded reveal last October.
In this first of a two-part interview, Rohrer explains just what this dark multiplayer game of strategy, construction, burglary and cold-blooded murder is, how it works, its amorality and politics, the unenviable living situation and fear of vicious dogs which inspired it, and why the late-in-the-day addition of a wife and kids changed the nature of the whole affair.
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Home Invasion: Rohrer’s New Game The Castle Doctrine
By Alec Meer on October 22nd, 2012.
About the easiest way to start a bar fight among those who deem themselves educated in videogames is to bring up Jason Rohrer’s Passage (missus), an unwitting poster child for ‘artgames.’ It worked its morose magic on me, while others found it arch and ungame, but between that and the lofty ambitions (though there are disagreements on the execution) of two-player storytelling game Sleep Is Death I suspect I’ll forever be fascinated by what Rohrer gets up to. Next up is The Castle Doctrine, “a massively multiplayer game of burglary and home defense.”
A Tony Martin sim? Maybe the Daily Mail will embrace videogames after all.
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Run For Your Life: Passagebalt
By Alec Meer on March 20th, 2012.
One is the grandaddy of the now ubiquitous auto-running genre, the other a divisive interactive poem about love and death. Together, Canabalt and Passage make Passagebalt: an auto-runner about love and death. The longer you run for, the older you get. Somewhere along the line, your true love waits. Can you protect them? Will you die alone or loved? What is love, anyway? Oh, shut up and press jump.
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Dream Game: Sleep Is Death
By Alec Meer on March 1st, 2010.
Jason Rohrer, the indie auteur behind the moving Passage, is back. If you’re one of those delightful people who reach immediately for the P word whenever a game requires you to have a bit of a think, you’ll be glad to hear that Sleep Is Death is, despite the arch name, something very different from his usual mediations on existence. Hell, any and everyone should be over the ruddy moon about the concept behind it. After seeing how it works, I’m about as excited as I’ve ever been about an upcoming videogame.
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Take Your Brain To Another Dimension: Gamma 3D
By Alec Meer on August 18th, 2008.
Gaming whilst wearing 3D glasses? Hell yeah. And not those headache-inducing digi-3D glasses like mad people plug into their graphics cards, but yer classic B-movie red/blue cardboard thingies. That’s the challenge for this year’s Gamma competition: stereoscopic gaming.
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Time Goes By
By Alec Meer on December 7th, 2007.
I’m a little sad today. Why? Because I’ve been playing a short game about death. Not just my death, but also the death of the woman I love. Happy Friday, everyone.
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