The art of High Delivery
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Feb 17th 2007 at 12:30PM }
Gamers aren't well known for being pretentious. To further complicate things, art is subjective. One man's priceless Pollock is another man's vision of what a five-year-old having a seizure produces. On that note, we present High Delivery. Now, there's no blood or guns, but play it to the end and the sentiment is very sweet -- under the right conditions you may even shed a little tear.Raph Koster has a very New Yorker-style explanation on his website about the title. It's not very often that we get to use a word like "subtle" to describe a game. Even other games given the "art" label like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are more "awe inspiring," and there is nothing subtle about the Colossi. So, play High Delivery through once. Is it art?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Deep.Grave @ Feb 17th 2007 12:38PM
It is really quite subtle. You don't control the bottle (or even the balloon) directly, and there's no winning or losing, just a high score. And it looks fantastically bright and soft, very pastel-ish. I think it's art, but I have a loose definition of art.
Andy_J @ Feb 17th 2007 12:50PM
www.orisinal.com should be the topic of this blog post.
there are many games like this, all beautiful and moving in their own right. The bottle game is one of my favs though, but please take the time to look through more than one. As someone who makes a living off Flash, this site is awe inspiring.
filthy @ Feb 17th 2007 12:55PM
I guess one might consider this art as well as a video game, tho neither the art portion or the game portion of it are very interesting.
ss @ Feb 17th 2007 12:56PM
The art is fantastic. I also love his rain flash:
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/others/rain.htm
But the gameplay is not so appealing. I got 81 on my first try, but i don't want to play it again to improve it since it's so damn boring :))
sheppy @ Feb 17th 2007 12:59PM
Is it art? Hard to define such a term. Sadly, it's a fairly uninspired idea and while the watercolor is interesting.... it doesn't really challenge the viewer.
Is it a game? No. These are what we call "proof of concepts"
Dissident @ Feb 17th 2007 1:04PM
If this is art then I think it shows that you can't try to make a game that is art or art that is a game. You either end up with a very boring but beautiful game, or a very fun, pedestrian one.
That's not to say there aren't some interesting, beautiful games on the site. Several brought a smile to my face, but they just don't have the replay value most trashy flash games you'd play for fun.
Josh L. @ Feb 17th 2007 1:23PM
well it's boring, art's boring... I think you have a case!
Slaziman @ Feb 17th 2007 1:30PM
This game is ass, not art
Boring as hell, bad gameplay
Kinda like Ico
fishamaphone @ Feb 17th 2007 1:30PM
I think it should have been either a bit shorter or more varied, and slightly less subtle... halfway through, it got boring, but the end justified it. I just think it shouldn't have had to "justify" anything.
But yeah, this should have been a post about all of Orisinal games, not just this one. IMHO, Bugs is a more effective use of his style, it just didn't have a "story" to it like this one did.
It's art in the same sense that the plastic bag video is.
driven2sin @ Feb 17th 2007 1:42PM
"...under the right conditions you may even shed a little tear."
like when sonyfanboi realize it is better than any PS3 games..
Ikthog @ Feb 17th 2007 1:56PM
Art is in the eye of the beholder, not that it terribly matters whether anyone considers it art. What would it mean if it was "art?"
None of Halim's games are intended to offer gut-wrenching, deeply involving gameplay for the hardcore gamer, so criticizing them as "boring" is kind of like trashing the Kronos Quartet because it's hard to dance to. He creates simple, often novel games with an uncommon sense of beauty and wonder, which are intended as little trifles you can consume and then forget about. If it's not your thing, hey, you can always ask for a refund of the nothing you paid.
RoboChocobo @ Feb 17th 2007 2:05PM
Even with my loose definition of Art, I think this is breathe-taking if you analyze the subtle pastels, the themes and ideas, the simple joy of it.
But what do I know?
Thanks for sharing this Joystiq.
emmzee @ Feb 17th 2007 2:08PM
Wow, there's plenty of philistines in the comments so far. Halim's games are simple but that doesn't make them "ass". Boring? Yeah, actually the one that's linked is a little boring, but no more so that the vast majority of Atari 2600 games ... does that mean that all of those "suck" too?
My favorite Orisinal game is still Chicken Wings:
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g2/chicken.htm
We played that often in the computer labs back in the 'day ...
Campion @ Feb 17th 2007 2:20PM
Nice counterpoint to all that San Andreas lately. Orisinal has kicked ass for a long time, but I'd forgotten about them, so I'm grateful for the reminder.
I only delivered 96 flowers, though.
Slaziman @ Feb 17th 2007 2:51PM
@emmzee
Actually yes, by today's standards those Atari 2600 games are ASS, they totally suck, and I regret ever playing them (not back in the day but on flash versions of this time and age), and this game is even worse than those games.
ALH @ Feb 17th 2007 3:44PM
pretty :)
Ikthog @ Feb 17th 2007 8:01PM
Are there deep, involving Flash games you're thinking of that are significantly less assy than these, Slaziman? Or do you play Flash games while whining the whole time about how much they suck? Don't you have some Gears of War to play or something?
OhJustSomeRandomGuy @ Feb 17th 2007 3:59PM
"Gamers aren't well known for being pretentious."
Uh? What?
Pretentious is what we do best!
wayupnorth @ Feb 18th 2007 3:53PM
'course it's art. But so is something like god of war, or frogger for that matter. Gameplay is an art form too, next to things like visuals, sound and storyline.
And yeah, the orisinal titles are all lovely. And I suppose it's easier for someone who's not really into games to accept these games as art - beautiful graphics, sweet concepts etc.
Grunge @ Feb 17th 2007 6:15PM
I love Orisinal - and yes, I think that I would consider it art. I also think that that game does go on for a little too long. If people wanted to play it again to get a high score, it would sort of ruin the aesthetic of the game.
Tom Fronczak @ Feb 17th 2007 7:17PM
#2 - i agree completely with Andy_J - orisinal is a great art related game site, been playing it for years when im on crappy computers at work and want to get entertained for a few minutes. highly recommend it.
mocax @ Feb 18th 2007 3:11AM
I don't need a freakin flash game to remind me of the helplessness in losing a loved one! :(
Benjamin Gilbert @ Feb 18th 2007 8:07AM
Yeah, it's a pretty game but isn't part of the point that the videogame industry is trying to make right now, "All games are art?" Or was I mistaken? Nice music and pretty backgrounds are more visually and auditorally appealling I suppose, but that doesn't make this any more art than LoZ: Windwaker or Killer 7. Just a different kind of art.
Slaziman @ Feb 18th 2007 10:39AM
How is this game deep and involving? Seriously.
CordableTuna @ Feb 18th 2007 11:31AM
I played one game. I think it was beautiful and sad. The ending was magnificent. This is precisely the kind of game that can be called art.
After playing, I came here to read the comments and again remembered why every one of us gamers deserve to get shot. World would be a better place.
IcarusFightsMedusaAngels @ Feb 18th 2007 12:10PM
I found the game (unintentionally) tacky with all the aesthetic value of those collectible porcelain angels, an Anne Geddy's photo, or Ziggy cartoon. The criticism piece was far more interesting than the game in that it represented quite accurately the pseudo-academic floundering of a person with a narrow-minded scope of gaming, art and color palletes.
SjH @ Feb 18th 2007 1:48PM
The presentation is undoubtedly 'arty' (agreeably so, I think), but I don't think that the game itself could be described as art: there's little to it apart from a simple (and unmistakably familiar, though I'm not sure from where) gameplay mechanic.
K3NNY @ Feb 18th 2007 4:22PM
OMG thankyou joystiq like freshmen year I played one of the flash games on this site I played the one with the duck in the pond with the acorns and I have been looking for the site ever since the games are simply beautiful
GameNinja @ Feb 19th 2007 3:03PM
Asking whether or not something is art is completely useless. If it is presented as art, then invariably it is. Whether or not a person considers is art is meaningless. There are, however, ways of critiquing the quality of art, subjective as they may be.
Personally I would considering this a little lower than mediocre art. Something comparable to a Thomas Kinkade or country music. Stylistically, everthing is cohesive and looks generally nice, but everything else is pretty trivial. As many have pointed out, the gameplay is extremely lacking. The addition of intriguing gameplay would have made it all the more interesting, and thus more relevant. I feel this piece would have been much better suited to just a simple visual piece rather than an interactive one.
Is it art? Yes.
Is it good? Not really.
I hope some of that made sense...