Good Question: The Games of Pippin Barr

Art: Pippin Barr (with permission)

What do you call an unwinnable game that players can compete to lose the most often? Or a game about our experience of art that simultaneously denies us the chance to experience it and simulates it perfectly? Or a physics platformer in which having complete control of all physics variables – and seemingly utmost power over the game – still leaves you with quite conventional puzzles to solve? You might call them a bit of a joke. You might call them experiments in paradox. You might call them horse shit (which is your prerogative, I suppose). But you might just call them the games of Pippin Barr.

Reality is Beastly: when videogames meet thirteenth century heresy

In a parallel universe, I start this article by declaring how sodding tired I am of games about the 13^th-century Catharite heresy and its persecution by the Catholic Church. Sadly, in this world, there is only L’Abbaye Des Morts. Dealing with a dark and obscure annex of European history, creator Locomalito opts for the dark and obscure conventions of classic insta-death platformers like Manic Miner. But because of how it uses these conventions, it is – delightfully – not just a game about the Cathars, but a Catharite game.