This Is The Way

Stretching the Retro Remakes remit to the limits….

You know, if you gave me a bucketfull of cash on the morrow… you know what I’d spend it on? I’d be on the phone to Peter Saville asking him very nicely would he like to come and do some design work for a game. Whilst I recovered from a hangover, obviously. Y’see folks, I’ve always had quite an admiration for some of the stuff he did for Factory and I have no idea if it’d actually work or not, but damn – I’d love to give a game with Peter Saville graphics a try. Worst case scenario and we end up with Game Over, I’m sure we’ve all seen much much worse than that in our time.

It dawned on me today just how much of my own work is actually influenced by music. You’d think calling a game Squid Yes! Not So Octopus! after a single throwaway line in a Half Man Half Biscuit song would have sounded the alarm bells, you’d think that having Luke Haines lyrics obscured amongst the effects might have perked something up in my brain, but no, at times I can be quite possibly the least self aware person possible. That is, until I put things down to the internet in a topic sort of like this one. Tam Toucan’s “Games In Our Head” thread. Most of the games that float around in my head are, for better or for worse, somehow influenced by music in some way. Be it an obscure album cover, a sparkling lyric or just y’know, the general idea.

We don’t really see enough music influenced games do we? Yeah, we get our Rock Band so Jimmy Page can wave his weighty stomach about complaining that it’s not like it was in the old days, yeah we get “rhythm action” which to my eternal disappointment is so often not even remotely sex related, sadly it’s barely even rock ‘n’ roll related most of the time instead relying on “ooh, press coloured button A in time with the beat” and that’s all so goddammit boring. There’s this rich tapestry of aural delights out there that people don’t really seem to touch upon.

Thing is, if you’re going to wander off and pick a song to base a game around, it may as well be a bloody well written one. Which brings us back round to where we began in a really scary tangential splurge of thought way. Peter Saville was, for those either to young or too stuck in their odd little ways, the man responsible for this. It’s my second favourite album cover. The first, for those who’ve never met me or encountered my near eternal supply of T-shirts bearing its motif, is this and one day, I’ll damn well make a game riffing from it. What’s all this got to do with anything I hear you ask? Ok, This Is The Way is a game based on one of the more unsettling tracks from Joy Division’s Closer – Atrocity Exhibition.

“This is the way, step inside”

Y’know, I’ve always thought that I don’t really want to be doing that. See mass murder on a scale you’ve never seen? Woah, woah, woah, back up there. I’m off to play with some bunnies in the garden. Luckily, the game doesn’t take the song elements in a literal sense – it’s clearly more inspired by the feel and the vibe of things. The constant repeated drum loop, the intermittent bass riffs, the scratchy distorted guitars and that voice, Ian Curtis as the ringmaster of a terrible, terrible show. Have I mentioned how unsettling the whole thing is? Well, translate that uncomfortable feeling into a game and we’re getting roughly around to This Is The Way.

It’s an almost retro styled platformer, perhaps lo-fi would be a better fit but hey, I’m trying to plunder my chest filled with excuses to get this on the front page over these parts so for today and today only, it’s retro okay? Platforms shift and shape around you, you’re never quite sure where you’re meant to be heading other than at some point, it’s going to lead to a door. Step inside. The door is a solid chunk of black amidst a fuzzy Richter-esque world. I’m not really sure I want to be doing that but like the hypnotic repeated invitiation Curtis mutters in the song, it feels like the game is compelling you to do just that.

Step inside.

And the bugger with being human is that we’re curious beasts and we’re going to do just that.

Open the door, see what lies behind it. Step inside. This is the way. Anti art gaming awaits.