The End of Gameplay

In The End Of Gameplay you make your way through a series of 2D platformer vignettes, as a bunny, with one of droqen's typically exotic player controllers, reading lines of poetry that are scattered throughout the screens, wandering through meticulously vibrant and varied tile-based pixel art environments encased in sparsely evocative synth melodies. Each vignette is an expression of a different perspective of the elephant that is The Problem that has consumed droqen's mind for the past five years, at least, and only recently crystallized into the war-cry 'Kill Gameplay': why, after being in love with games for so long, and while still being inexplicably and inextricably drawn to them, am I so fundamentally unsatisfied, and perhaps even disgusted, with them? It's a complicated feeling. But also, to the existential gameplayer, a familiar one. Struggle, pain, hope, folly, death, searching, history, striving, acceptance. Longing. Blood. These are the clearest words that came to mind after finishing the game. I, too, have struggled to understand how I could give so much of myself over to something that is, in the moment, so deeply enchanting, but is, in retrospect, so 'clearly' empty. I longed for a deeper connection to my world from my life of gameplay. Learning cardboard cutouts of systems, chasing after carefully crafted trails of carrots, overcoming what turn out to be only the blown-up shadows of sticks - it all gets to feel a bit too fake, too Disney, too neat, too known. Entertaining, and immersive, but ultimately distracting. When will it actually mean something to me? When will it actually change me, make me better? The End Of Gameplay doesn't answer the question. It's up to you, the player, to find your own answer, and ultimately to change yourself. TEOG can't do it for you, but it is there to help you figure it out. Through commisery. TEOG is a rich game, immersive in the moment and in retrospect. It's a network of interactive poems that are filled with life, each made fuller by their relations to the others. A collective organism, an architecture of embodied thought. It is very good to be playing 'game' while ruminating on 'game' - just moving around, deciding what to do, considering what is being asked of you, considering how you are feeling, considering what others have done, considering what you have done... And all the while, it being not always easy to know what's on the next screen. And you, finally being at peace with that.

droqen, We've had more than a handful of discussions about kill gameplay over on Bluesky, and having finally experienced... whatever you want to call this, I feel I understand your perspective much better. Had I not dug into your original musings on the topic, I feel this would have fell a little flat but I imagine you're okay with that. To recommend it feels like the wrong perspective to have, and yet I do recommend it. What this illuminated for me is while kill gameplay can certainly be ascribed to those who play games, our role as developers, as architects, is to reject, well, gameplay. There's simultaneously nothing and yet so much to say, but I'll end with what I found to be the most impactful message from my experience. regular trees fertilized with ego become parks, gardens, zoos nature redesigned nature built as if from scratch nature destroyed

a playful game. plays with pixels, plays with tunes, plays with frames, plays with jumps, plays with me and you. plays for poetry. thank you droqen

Very interesting experiment from an artistic point of view. A deconstruction of level design principles through poetic storytelling.It reminded me somewhat the experimental games of Pippin Barr.

O que eu espero de um jogo e o que ele espera de mim? Quais são os limites que o próprio jogo me impõe e quais os limites que minha imaginação (codificada e treinada pelos próprios padrões de funcionamento dos jogos) me coloca? Qual o espaço dentro dos jogos para o desconforto, a dúvida, o silêncio, o sentimento? Como buscar outros caminhos dentro dos jogos que não sejam apenas experiências de estímulo-recompensa? Saio de The End of Gameplay cheio de perguntas, e acho que isso é um dos maiores elogios que posso fazer a esse belo jogo. What do I expect from a game, and what does it expect from me? What are the limits the game itself imposes on me, and what are the limits my own imagination — coded and trained by the very patterns of how games work — places upon me? Is there room in games for discomfort, for doubt, for silence, for feeling? How can we search for other paths within games that aren't just stimulus-reward experiences? I come away from The End of Gameplay full of questions — and I think that’s one of the greatest compliments I can give to such a beautiful game.

I'm gonna make a video essay about why I recommend this game.

poem

an impactful poetry collection. maybe you'll want to kill gameplay after. maybe not

A series of meditations on gameplay and games. Very personal, intriguing, absorbing. Gives you a lot to chew on, which I always value more than an obvious concrete takeaway. The movement feels great, begs for kaizo. But that might hurt the poor little bunny!