Gameplay Journal #9— The Unfinished Swan
For this week’s journal I decided to play The Unfinished Swan. The Unfinished Swan is a game where you play as a young boy that is trying to find the missing muse from his mothers painting. The game starts in a world void of color, basically an all white world. The player has to throw paint balls to uncover and find the world around him and further navigate.
Flanagan says critical play “…means to create or occupy play environments and activities that represent one or more questions about aspects of human life. These questions can be abstract, … or concrete, … (Flangan, pg 6). The Unfinished Swan is about a young boy, Monroe, who has lost his mother and has become an orphan. His mother was an artist, and he could only bring one of her paintings with him. I believe the world we play in is a figment of Monroe’s imagination, somwhere in his subconscious and we try to add color and meaning back into our lives when it seems we have lost everything. I feel like this game brings into consideration mental health especially that of children and people that are grieving from the loss of a loved one. The game is very therapuetic and calming, no fighting or enemies, and brings about joy and excitement when you uncover more and more about the world.
“Artists using games as a medium of expression, then, manipulate elements common to games — representation systems and styles, rules of progress, codes of conduct, context of reception, winning and los-ing paradigms, ways of interacting in a game —.” (Flanagan, pg4) I would definitely consider The Unfinshed Swan as an artistic driven game just by the game’s intro alone (captured in my Let’s Play below). You essentially have to explore and uncover your world to progress through the game. Later in the game some objects already have color making it easier to navigate but there are still obstacles, challenges, and puzzles that you have to use your paint throwing mechanic to beat. You are always using the paint throwing mechanic to discover and interact with your world.
“Introduction to Critical Play.” Critical Play: Radical Game Design, by Mary Flanagan, The MIT Press, 2013, pp. 1–16.
“Designing for Critical Play.” Critical Play: Radical Game Design, by Mary Flanagan, The MIT Press, 2013, pp. 251–262.