The End of Gameplay

A fascinating experimental game by droqen, inspiring strong reflection on the texture of play and the act of creation. It's poetic, though-provoking and features a really cute little bunny sprite. Crisis, Blood and the Oubliettes were really powerful in particular for me. There is so much to reflect on in this game, really, it's a powerful work. Permeating through the experience is what felt to me like a warm, gentle glow of love. Delighted to have played it, thank you for making it. P.S. Remember to try and enjoy yourself when you are trapped.

I love poetry I love poetry because it doesn't need to be made public to be seen I love poetry because if I cut myself and bleed on it, it doesn't reply, to me, anyways I love poetry because it won't mock the viscosity of my blood I love poetry because it doesn't shout at me for writing words in a different way I love poetry because I don't have to be scared of being wrong I love poetry because it lets me cry and cry until I feel better I love poetry because I can long for more and still finish the story, despite I love poetry because I can stop writing and finish or come back to it another time, whenever I want, whatever I like, it listens I love poetry because I can stop

I was invisibly compelled to frame my review as a sort of preemptive defence to the people who I know wouldn't care for The End of Gameplay. I didn't even notice until I was done writing. What helps me to recommend this game with such a straight face is how droqen "tips their hand" as a designer. Having only really played a few games from droqen between this and Starseed Pilgrim (which I very much enjoyed), it's immediately striking just how rudimentary the presentation of this game is, paired with its price point, it would appear acidic to your average modern art hater. But games, as long form art, have time and space to really make their argument, to state their case on their intentionality. Were this game a cynical work, designed by someone who hates video games, were it less a game and more simply a thorny cage delivering you poetry, it would not contain so many little details, things only someone with a genuine affection for the medium could think to include. You can crouch in the End of Gameplay. It serves nearly no function, but coming from the perspective of somebody who has built a platformer before, there is just a deep sense of frustration in looking down at your peripheral, imperfect as it may be, and seeing four arrow keys, when only three of them do anything. A single pixel's descent is really all it takes to remedy this unease, but droqen goes further. You can crouch, and you can crouch while in motion to slide? You can release the down key mid slide to generate a gentle lift, the lowest you can leave the ground. None of this is obviously relevant to the game's "appeal". This is not a precision platformer and I doubt any essays will be written on the joy of its movement. But these details reinforce the argument that droqen is entirely capable of building a more conventional game, and they've chosen not to. They instead chose to project their thoughts in a way that will be abrasive and not entirely digestible to some people. But maybe I'm being uncharitable. Maybe this game's messages are, extremely, obviously apparent to everybody. Maybe that's why they have detractors. Maybe I just love sinking my teeth into obvious truths. I can only speak for myself. But I think, I could've sat down and had coffee with droqen and they could've told me what they mean when they say "I want to kill gameplay." And I think that having played this game, I have a more 3 dimensional appreciation of that perspective, I've explored every vertex on its face, and I leave with a great understanding. Being honest, I think I sort of understood the point just from perusing the steam page. But having now played the game, I understand it deeper, and I understand it better. I understand it not just rationally, but emotionally. I want more games shaped like this. I think there's more than enough room for them. Favourite moments, "open field", "final oubliette", "digested", "romantic"

I don't think I agree with droqen's view on "kill gameplay", at least based on listening to one podcast interview - I gather he has talked about it elsewhere. Honestly this game itself is only one layer of the rabbit hole (pun based on the game intended) of the whole topic that surrounds it. If I wanted to more "fully weigh in", I'd probably have to invest at least a few more hours on all the surrounding material. Having said all that, I found this game to be excellent. To get something out of this, let alone the most, I think you need tolerance for some unusual and sometimes finicky platforming controls (which are a plus to me when done well, as they are here) and an open mind. In contrast with some other reviews, I _don't_ think you need to have heard droqen speak on "kill gameplay" to enjoy this. Don't get me wrong - I can so easily imagine many people saying "what the hell is this" within 2 minutes and having a very bad time. If you have any impulse to think odd indie art games are "navel-gaze-y" or "self-important" I'd advise you to stay the heck away. But if poetry and musings on the nature of games, creating things, human connection, death and much more delivered via carefully considered lo-fi visuals, music and controls sound up your alley, I'd tell you this is well worth it.

thank you

I'm not great with words and I don't make games and never have, so I don't feel like I can say all that much about The End of Gameplay, but if nothing else I feel like I understand one developer's personal struggles with game development a lot better now. And that's neat, it puts the phrase "a tour of the inside of a stranger's soul" into my head (quote from Worm Girl's video on Wooden Ocean.) Worth the money and time.

i've finally gotten through the end of gameplay in a bit over an hour, taken over several separate sessions. i think i could have done it all at once but after the first few vignettes i decided it would be something i took a little at a time when it felt right. i think i've seen everything, although i suspect there's more to find. droqen is a developer whose work i've followed for a very long time now, with probably fishbane or probability 0 being the first ones i remember. i still think about those games. likewise, this is a game i'll be thinking about for a long time. this is a game that has made me feel things about video games that i haven't felt in a long time. i've had this suspicion for a while that making video games is something that's too "solved" at this point. there are seemingly mostly universal best practices for "this is how you make a menu", "this is how your controls should feel", "this is how progression should work". this isn't necessarily a bad phenomenon, games are better made than they ever have been. and yet. there (my nostalgia more blinding than the sun) used to be a sort of idiosyncrasy to playing a game where everything was made the way maker thought was best, for better or for worse. those sorts of games absolutely still exist, but i no longer dig for them like i used to. this is a game that made me feel that feeling of opening a random .exe from a forum and finding something really singular and beautiful. there's a chris ware (cartoonist) quote about having to only be sort of good at drawing and sort of good at writing to make comics. now, ware is incredible at both, and so too are the writing and interactive elements here. like comics, i think video games are, at their best, more than the sum of the disparate elements to make them. this is a game that i felt like i needed to play, myself, to get the experience that i got. it never tried to trick me, but there were so many genuine surprises. these all made me really happy and were directly because of playing it. there's lot of beautiful thoughts in this game, and the way each part handles what its trying to do makes those so much richer. my favorite vignettes are: the oubliettes, summer, blood, contribution, dream of the mountain, the end of gameplay, but also all of them. this is a good game. i think it will generally reach the people who it's meant to, and there's a good chance that if you've found it you'll like it too. (i didn't mean for this to be so long, but i had and continue to have THOUGHTS)

positive review

If the title and the description grab you, or if you just want to challenge the way you think about games, then I think you'll be happy you spent time and money on this collection. It won't take you long to play each entry, but you can stay as long as you need.

Enjoying this so far!