serial consign

[image: screen capture from Submachine 4: The Lab]

A few weeks ago, in preparing a post on David Lynch-related links from around the net, I stumbled upon Emmanuel Papillon's Black Lodge. This immersive game inspired me to start thinking about the potential for interactive fiction on the web, and has drawn my girlfriend and I into a downward spiral of online gaming over this past long weekend. We've both ventured into the worlds of several game designers and these works are worth discussing for their narrative and aesthetic qualities.

Leaving the biggest imprint on me are the works of Polish graphic novelist Mateusz Skutnik. Skutnik is the author of the Submachine series of games, each of which finds you escaping from an elaborate, explorable puzzle box. Captivity is a familiar theme in this genre of games, known as escape the room games in the point-and-click world. This gameplay style evolved from Robyn and Rand Miller's 1993 classic Myst, which shaped the game industry as much as SimCity and Doom.

The Submachine games could all be described as immersive labyrinths. In each of these first-person sleuthers, the player must navigate through a series of abandoned research facilities and ruins in hopes of finding a means to freedom. Stranded without instructions, maps or context, the story forms via notes and transmissions picked up along the way. The Submachines demand an eye for pattern recognition, and the intricacy of some of the puzzles can be quite maddening. Adding to the ambiance is an eerie score and impressive sound design. There are a number of recurring motifs including typewriters, radios and pipelines that visually unite the games. Be warned, these puzzle boxes are habit-forming.

Skutnik recently launched the first chapter of a new series called Covert Front, an espionage-flavoured interactive mystery set on the eve of the First World War.

Outside of discussions of narrative, many of these games are so gorgeous that they are worth playing through simply to witness their stunning visuals. Pictured above is a still from the endearing Miestas, a charming jazz-scored puzzle game characterized by impressive hand-drawn cityscapes. Sadly, the game is buggy in some versions of Flash.

There is a flourishing subculture around the production and consumption of these games - there is a considerable amount of great work coming out of eastern Europe and Japan. Like Myst, some of these games have enjoyed great exposure to an audience beyond puzzle aficionados. The 2007 Webby Award for online gaming was awarded to Samorost2, the Amanita Design-produced sequel to Czech artist Jakub Dvorsky's 2003 surreal masterpiece.

The Escape the Room blog boasts an impressive list of point-and-click titles for those interested in digging deeper. My girlfriend Jordan has helped me assemble a shortlist of some of the most interesting games out there:

I'm keeping my eye out for other provocative point-and-click titles - if you know of something I should investigate, please leave a link in the comments.