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All in the Timing: "Queers in Love at the End of the World" & "Where the Goats Are"

October 1, 2017

I doubt it's solely a modern metric, but there definitely seems to be a trend in contemporary art criticism: the exultation of "getting lost" in artwork.

Living in the era of binge-watching television means that television must (natch) be binge-watch-able. Good books are "page-turners." I've lost count of the number of times I've heard theatre-goers lament the show that feels too long. ("Two intermissions? Who needs two intermissions??")

This metric is equally applied to video games, and I know it well. Whether it be my childhood obsessions with The Sims and Age of Empires, or my more recent dives into Dead Cells or Stardew Valley, it's really no challenge for me to log dozens (if not hundreds) of hours in the world of an especially immersive video game. Indeed, all the games I listed have been lauded as "easy to get lost in." It is seen as a positive virtue when you are so enrapt in a game that you forget how long you've been playing it.

However, this metric assumes an antagonistic relationship between art and time. By the above criterion, art is good when it surpasses the oppressive weight of time, allowing people to feel -- however fleetingly -- that they are removed from time's binds and limitation

This relationship doesn't need to be antagonistic. It is much more interesting to think of time as one of the many components a work can use to influence a viewer.

Recently, I played two games that use time as a calculated storytelling mechanic in their game, rather than an antagonist: Queers in Love at the End of the World by anna anthrophy & Where the Goats Are by Memory of God. 

Click here to keep reading.

Tags game review, queers in love at the end of the world, anna anthropy, memory of god, Where the Goats Are

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