Schoolwork completed, Barr spends his time teaching at the University of Malta's Institute of Digital Games, and developing small, profound games with an experimental edge. Barr's projects are simple, thoughtful and play with the boundaries of what a "game" can be:
The Artist is Present is a game about waiting in line at New York's Museum of Modern Art, complete with real-life museum closing times and hours of standing, doing-nothing excitement. Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment is a series of short games about Greek myths - short because they're all unwinnable, with death as a constant outcome looming behind each stark, pixelated scene. Barr's most recent project, the Mumble Indie Bungle, features six games based on popular indie titles as if your grandmother misheard them at the last family dinner, such as World of Glue, Carp Life and Gurney. They're short, minimalistic and frustrating, but they're definitely not all supposed to be "boring," Barr tells me.
"I want to make games that controvert the standard rules - I spent quite a bit of time on that in my early games - well, maybe all my games," he says. "Games that you can't win, games where you just have to wait for a long time, games where you win but it's not satisfying, games where you're not very important in the world of the game, and so forth. These games can be boring if you're not prepared to embrace a different perspective on things - but if you are prepared to do so, I think they can be quite interesting experiences."
Surprisingly, Barr has never been called a hipster.
Continue reading Pippin Barr's philosophy of developing 'curious' games
Pippin Barr's philosophy of developing 'curious' games originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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