"Surreal" is some sort of sub-genre that's popped up in the last couple of years in the indie scene. Half these games are quite frankly rubbish. Most of these "surreal" game makers just take an existing concept and add a few weird looking effects, replace perfectly fine graphics with something really awful and make it look like general mess all round.

And lots of people actually like these games.

They like them. They like every patronizing moment of them. They like how it insults their common sense, intelligence and whatever else they might have.

And the creators of the terrible surreal games? They're laughing all the way to the bank after receiving praise for their excuse for a game. However, there's an oh-so-small proportion of "surreal" games that are actually good.

"They're easy to make" is what Kafei told me when I talked to him about ?surreal? games a while ago.

They?re fashionable too. They?re like how Pokemon trading cards were so terribly cool when I was little; they?re like how leg warmers and really small handbags were popular in the 80s and 90s (respectively. Although I hear there was a crazy few who still wore leg warmers in the 90s. Scary stuff).

A Game For Three Year Olds falls into the category of  ?surreal?. But there?s something about A game For Three Year Olds (AGTYO) that makes it sort of-kinda good. You feel like you?re doing something really illicit when you play it, or even download it. ?This isn?t a conventional game, hehe!? And: ?I?m sooo cool. I mean, how many other people play games like this??.
When really stuffy, really uptight classical musicians listen to something Avant-Garde for the first time (say, a John Cage piece or some atonal symphony by Schoenberg) they feel kind of naughty.
You can guarantee that one or two of these people will declare the piece to be an abomination, a blot on this pristine tablecloth of classical music. They?ll do this very loudly, and obnoxiously. 
But even these people have a tingle through their body when they hear the start of this Avant-Garde piece.
It?s uptight classical musicians smoking weed. (No, I?m not saying all classical musicians are uptight- I?m one myself!). It?s Shakespeare giving the finger to Elizabeth the First. It?s Harry Potter dying at the end of book 7.

?Game for Three Year old doesn?t bother with telling me how to control it. That?s so pass?. Who bothers with that anymore?
Nope. Let?s just bash the buttons and move the mouse randomly.
How fun.
And it actually is.
I have a sense of childlike wonder at playing through this. ?Gee-whiz, I can create flowers and burn the cute little birdies!?. Burning those cute little birdies is not a very nice thing to do. It?s like you?re the kid with the giant magnifying glass who burns poor defenceless insects and worms.
But this random (at the start) button mashing is really the essence of a three year old. Bite things, smash things, play with things; just experiment!

The game pretends we?re all three year olds. It?s not the same as some teacher or adult speaking down to a child, in a loud, condescending voice. Maybe the adult speaks slowly too. AGTYO doesn?t do this. It pretends to be a three year old too. We?re all three year olds together in our little playground!

New Zealand has a very eclectic fashion scene. Karen Walker is considered our ?top? designer. I was looking at her (badly designed) website a couple of weeks ago, and wondered to myself: how the hell did Karen Walker become our ?top? designer?
I like some of her clothes, I really do, but her latest collection seems to be a collection of clothes collected from op-shops. It?s the fashion version of ?surreal? games. It has the same ?designed by a three year old? feel that AGTYO has. I guess the collection has the same appeal too: it makes the wearer feel special. And both AGTYO and Karen Walker?s latest collection look totally ridiculous to an onlooker.

I downloaded A game for Three Year Olds simply for the esoteric appeal. The first time I played it I didn?t get very far. I didn?t play it for very long. Games they constantly flash on and off tend to have that effect. The second time I was browsing through a random folder, looking for some document. Got distracted and clicked on the little icon, whilst it was opening up I was questioning my motives for doing so. Why didn?t I just delete it in the first place? But anyway, I opened it up and started playing.
I liked it! Maybe I was too ?adult? when I first tried to play it. Like caviar (never tried it), surreal games are an acquired taste. This is the sort of game that 1% will declare a ?post modern masterpiece?. It?s not, but it attracts the kind of pretentious, snobby people who?ll call it that (the same sort of people who like Sun Ra not because of his music but because he?s Avant Garde).
A Game for Three Year Olds is the neon leg warmers of gaming.  It?s finger painting for people older than 8 (but still in touch with their inner-child). It?s the magic tape measure that Marry Poppins used to measure Jane and Michael.

Maybe you should link the game?

That sounds more like you're describing the Wii, the console that forces people to wave their arms around and do the most humiliating things just because the developers have all decided that motion sensing is awesome.

Anyway, I don't agree. Sure, many of these "surreal" games aren't very good. But I'd say for a GM genre, there's a higher percentage of decent games here than say platformers. The fact is, most games are crap. The La La Land series is just about the most interesting GM experience I've ever had.

I'll have to give the game you're talking about a go. Sounds interesting.

It's quite the hot fad now, isn't it? I never found "surreal" to be much of a definition; usually, "strange" made a lot more sense to me, because then I knew what I was in for. I'd be playing a game going: "this isn't surreal, it's just strange!"

:)

Unfortunately, I haven't played a La La Land game yet, though I've heard great things about them.

GMG archive link to the game: http://gamemakergames.com/?a=view&id=6010



You can read Jabberwock's review and my comment about the game.



The La La Land serie is awesome. I always get a kick out of such games, for their art value and because they really mean something to the creator. I once voiced my opinion in Kafei's topic for his game Jumble The Penguin (http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=259587) that reflects this thought:



"What people have to complain on projects that have a deep personal connotation, is over me. The game, if I can call it so, seems to me like something Kafei might have wanted to make for himself and simply thought "why not post it?" You can't argue that such a project was a waste of time for its creator, since it actually means something to him. It's to be expected that the majority doesn't like experimental projects. It's not like this is Kafei's first project, he pretty much knows what members are going to post."



And that was that.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make my comments double spaced, I think it does it automatically. And I forgot to add:


If he considers them easy to make, then I have much respect for the guy. They look easy to make because they have that simplistic feel to them, but in reality it's different. Just look at the number of people saying they'll enter the B-Game competition. They think it'll be a breeze to come up with a broken game play that works with the graphics that come with the experience (but really, they understand "Ugly graphics"). I'm certain only a few games submitted there will be of quality. (And it does not take Newton's IQ to believe Cactus will be part of those who rank well if he finishes anything.)

I don't have a problem with the wii. I have a problem with the games for it.


I don't like most GM games. All I'm saying is that most of these [surreal] games aren't good full stop. They're not even B-Games.
I encourage people to make "good" surreal games. It's a pity there isn't that many.
I also hate to play a game thinking "this was made in GM", and you know, think of it as a "GM experience". Games are games. (Although, some (if not most) indie games have a different athestic to commerical ones, that's a given. And that's great, as we probably all agree.)

I don't need to say that the La La land games are wonderful (in that strange way), do I?

ace!  finally someone on the same wavelength as i :D
the future of wii games will be brighter though, me thinks.  i have very high hopes.

You're pretty much right. I like the design of the thing, even if it looks like an iMac in console form. But it's not only the games, the controls suck really bad. It has two of them, but only four buttons (not counting pause button and the home button)? It's constructed for the awful games that are made for it.

You can very often tell when playing a game if it's made with GM or not. Even with the good ones. If there's "indie games" and "commercial games", then I think "GM games" should almost be a third category. But that's just me :P

what's it matter how many buttons an input device has?  from my perspective, the fewer the better, actually (i prefer that there's at least 1, though ;)).  heck, by your logic the nes/turbo grafix control pad is garbage, too...
as a matter of fact, the big reason i have a hard time enjoying pc games is the fact that there are 10,000 buttons and widgets in my face :-

i'm not sure if i can tell when a really well produced game is made in gm or any other code base.  it doesn't seem logical that a well crafted game would reveal its underlying engine unless the creator simply produced by-the-book and with default options (but in that case i wouldn't call it "well produced").  however my ignorance could just be because i haven't played enough gm games to recognize some common thing that gives them away?

The Nes controls suck badly. They're very pretty, but unergonomical (as in makes your hands bleed if used without caution) and would be a damn nightmare to play many genres with, such as FPS, racing, anything with a cursor, beat em up, RTS etc etc. I don't see why simpler should be considered better. That's silly. A game should have as many buttons as it needs to be played without trouble. And you don't need to use all buttons in every game just because they're there. But they should be there when they're needed.

There's many things. The built-in transitions/particle effects/graphic rotation/view port/scaling/collisions. And that's not mentioning the over use of midi or poor mp3s. Also sound effects from the resource pack and the blend mode effects. Well, I could write a long list, but I think you get the point.