Game Art: Olle Essvik “Broken Narratives” (2008)

Swedish artist and curator Olle Essvik (alias JimPalt) is the mastermind behind a peculiar videogame, "Broken Narratives”, which he describes as:

“A collection of games/narratives. Games without levels, win/lose thinking, games without purpose, just narratives with the structure and navigation of a computer game. The computer game has references to dreams with graphics from classical computer games. Its also developed into a portable sculpture (arcade game) that you play with a joystick. It was built from old trash and other cheap materials.”

The game is a simple platform game made with Flash, the graphic is plain and in greyscale. The user guides a small black figure through the landscape and can jump, collect things and solve puzzles, but there is no time or score in the game. In the background you hear the melody from a music box creating a poetic and dreamlike feeling. If computer games are thr digital equivalent of dreaming, these dreams would look like “Broken Narratives”. Between 2008-09, this art game was shown in London, Copenhagen, Virserum (Sweden), and Helsinki.

Play the game here.

text by Mathias Jansson.