Critical Riffs: Fez, Snot City, Glitchhikers, Love Worker

by Jed Pressgrove

Fez

This ballyhooed platformer combines Nintendo nostalgia and esoterica to make us go “Wow.” We’re supposed to do the talking because Phil Fish’s pixel art has next to nothing to say. The game has cute dialogue and plenty of places to see, but the perspective changing and puzzles make for rigid and tedious exercises, as opposed to the revelations uncovered with practice and experimentation in the cryptic masterpiece Solomon’s Key. Don’t buy into the bullshit about Fez’s ode to relaxation. Fish called his work “a ‘stop and smell the flowers’ kind of game.” No, that was 2009’s vastly superior Flower.

Snot City

James Earl Cox III is a more accomplished artist than Phil Fish. Snot City won’t win any awards for maturity or sensitivity, but the game’s subversion of clean-cut problem solving in games is unpretentious and original. Snot City establishes itself as a race against time in which you have to find new abilities to unlock paths and save the day. Although it’s tempting to stand still and take in the unusual environment, message prompts and fidgety animation reinforce the urgency to move. One could criticize Snot City as an inside joke on game design, but Cox’s conclusion is an unforgettable sensation.

Glitchhikers

This game from Silverstring Media captures the suspense of normal human life through an appeal to the senses. Simulating a late-night drive on the highway, Glitchhikers awakens the universal fear of running off the road with every blink of an eye and every look out the side window. The game wrecks when it starts talking. Although sure to garner comparisons to filmmaker David Lynch, the heavy-handed dialogue between imaginary hitchhikers and the driver overlooks ordinary, relatable concerns (work, family, etc.) of people who drive tired at night. By primarily appealing to dark, surface-level philosophy, Glitchhikers proves that commoners don’t matter when you’re up your own ass.

Love Worker

Earlier this year, Vaida shared Talks with My Mom, a modest story that surpassed Gone Home’s nonsensical and irrelevant portrait of gay identity and family. Vaida’s Love Worker is more of a minor achievement yet registers as genuine escapism. You move left and right hurling bombs in the middle of an industrial area full of walking suits. Rather than kill, the bombs add color. Not as naive as it might seem, Love Worker refashions the robot, a symbol of compulsory work, into a songwriter: “As a machine/I can’t compete/With what humans do.” This combination of song and game isn’t new, but few independent shorts concentrate on joy like Love Worker.