Passage

created and published by HC Software in 2007-11-01, running on Linux
type: maze, adventure, role-play
genre: Historical
setting: Future, Past, Present
perspective: side view
player options: single player
languages: other

Official description

Passage is a video game written by Jason Rohrer about navigating the maze that is life and the obstacles, rewards, disappointments, challenges, relationships and the inevitable departure that is part of the adventure of life.

Passage is an art game. As a result, some people love it and some people hate it. Check out the links to places it has been discussed on the website for some of the reactions.
The mechanics of the game are fairly simple. Your "score" is related to two things; exploration and treasure. Treasure pieces are represented by blue stars that you find in the treasure chests scattered about the maze of life's challenges. Some chests will be empty, so you must learn which sequence of gems on the front of the chests means treasure is inside. You have the option to team up with a spouse. If you do, exploring life will be more rewarding but some treasure will no longer be reachable. As in life, your spouse will die and that death will slow you down. In the end, you will die alone after your 5 minutes is up.

The most interesting part about this game is the emotions it evokes within the player of the game. The ultra-low-res pixel art helps here, by not being too distracting and by leaving plenty room for viewer interpretation.

Passage has no command-line options.
The arrow keys move the player around.
The Esc key is used to quit the game.
The game resolution and use of fullscreen or a window can be set by editing the files in /etc/passage.

# 2010-02-03 02:57:39 - official description - man page

Description

This description is one big set of spoilers (see the official description) for a spoiler free experience.
This is an interactive Memento Mori. The Latin phrase mean "Remember you die" and it referes to a specific subset of art designed to remind the audience of their inevitable death. There is only one permenent death of the protagonist(s) which is based on the author's own (the game is autobiographical). Though the author had not actually passed away yet. There are no saves.

Time passes regardless of what the player does. The view slowly passes the protagonist(s). The ultra wide (6.25:1) default view is representative of a passage. The protagonist(s) are passing away.

It is intended that one can run the game from the command-line to add to the game experience.

It is intended that one edit the unusually stored settings in /etc/passage/ to add to the game experience.

Various life events are represented in the game, including romance and marriage. These events can have lasting consequences.


(Zerothis) - # 2010-02-03 03:50:49

Technical specs

display: raster

Authors / Staff

graphics

Jason Rohrer (artist)

Related games

has influenced
Hero Generations (Linux)

version of
Passage (Linux)

Contributor

zerothis

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Passage in-game screen.
Passage
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