[Discovering Indies] Proteus

As with previous Discovering Indies as Shank and Shank 2 either And Yet it Moves, I will not discover anything unknown among the public that is moderately fond of independent video games. And the game I discuss in this installment is one of those titles that had its viral era, hardly indifferent to the user who likes to find out about the world with a certain regularity.

Not in vain was it one of those products that, together with Dear Esther and some other isolated exception made the gaming community and the specialized media reconsider a series of questions whose answers, no matter how many times they have been asked, still do not seem to convince the majority. Are video games art? What is a video game? A lot of thesis and few nuts for a title whose experience raises absolutely different conclusions in each user who experiences it; we talk about Proteus.

The most accepted definition of Proteus it would be the one First-person retro-style open-world exploration game, a combination that just by reading it already reeks of the second decade of the century in an exaggerated way. Cyclic mechanics introduces us to a world of randomly generated islands that offer themselves to be discovered. From the calm sea in which we appear, we observe in the distance an island of striking pastel tones that we will access in order to explore every intricacy of its geography. Once discovered, start again, again in the sea, again another challenging island on the horizon and again to explore until boredom or fatigue frees you from the yoke of the controversial loop of Proteus.

Each island may be random and each exploration different, but it continues to move under the same patterns and elements that make each new experience more similar to the previous one. Not far from what a walk might be like in real life where even if you wander through different streets there are always elements that are repeated but that does not make the experience identical although familiar.

In the case of Proteus, trees, monoliths, cabins, bushes, flowers... are recurring elements on each island although they will not always occur in the same way. In this way, one could think that the situations resulting from our wanderings around the area occur infinitely, and in a certain way it is. During our walks we can chase a small forest animal through flowered meadows, discover stones intentionally aligned as traces of an ancient civilization, walk among the cherry blossom trees whose petals fall into slow motion in a dramatic way, sliding along the beach while observing the celestial vault in its multiple manifestations or climbing to the top of a mountain to look at the bed of clouds that a few moments ago threatened you with its precipitate of fine drops of almost imperceptible sound.

Thus described in words, It seems beautiful, relaxing and even poetic. Of course, it has seemed that way to many people, but that is not the case with me, at least not in the same way. Is it pretty? Yes. Is it relaxing? Depends. Is it poetic? Depending on what perspective you look at it from. It would be cynical on my part or anyone else's to criticize the visual section of this product. However, cynicism is the universal sport of human beings, since many pigeonhole it into that group of games. indie that use retro style to pretend to be classics and make up for their budget deficiency. Palpable reality but aberrant argument in this case to which I can only respond with a So what?

He exploit of retro style, the goose that lays the golden eggs of the indie It's obvious. I understand the anger of a certain part of the community due to overexposure to this artistic style that, when done poorly, borders on tacky and surpasses tacky. But the situation does not arise with Proteus,whose pixelart is absolutely captivating. It is true that its color palette is flat and very limited, that it lacks any type of texture and that it is too simple. But precisely in that simplicity lies the magic, it is not a question of comparing the graphic section with other similar 2D products, naturally the art could have been more realistic, more detailed, less crude... but is it so hard to believe that it was done on purpose? Is it so difficult to assimilate that no more is needed to represent a tree or a mountain? I sincerely doubt that anyone can say that they do not identify any of the elements of the landscape. It seems unbelievable that several centuries later we continue to sin just as the French did with the first Impressionists.

So, yes, it is beautiful, visually very attractive and this is where I stand.  It is said about this product that each walk is harmonious, abstract, that its frames together with its music recreate all kinds of sensations... poetry made into a video game, experimental gameplay that inaugurates a new genre. Without a doubt this title goes out of the ordinary and follows in the wake of phenomena like the one mentioned Dear EstherHowever, no matter how much we try to compare them in the absence of other references, they have nothing to do with each other.

The experience of Proteus it is ephemeral, more than volatile ephemera, as if it were a particle unstable in contact with air, each journey offers us interesting, beautiful, mysterious situations... fantastic if it weren't for the fact that they last a blink of an eye. Yes, more than once a feeling of surprise and amazement has flooded my body when I see the first comet in the sky, the first cabin or the first animal. A surprise that does not last and that is not repeated. Nor does it convey tranquility to me and much less do I see poetry in it. Not even that low fidelity music that was so in line with the graphics transported me anywhere, nor did it make me enjoy it, only the sound effects of the rain or the creatures made me believe in the title for a moment.

The proposal is undeniably interesting, but too pretentious, After just 15 minutes I thought I had seen everything there was to see, a lot of situations that caught my attention for a few seconds but did not last over time or come together to give me a false sense of comfort. Even forcing myself to play more in order to discover new experiences, I found nothing in the hour and a half I put it through. The more I played, the more it seemed to me that I was faced with a beautiful scenario empty of intentions and reasons to exercise the muscle of imagination, despite the fact that at times it threatened me with touches of mystery that for me were meaningless, not because of its cryptic nature but because it seemed to be there to pretend the depth it lacked.

Being aware of the subjectivity of the personal experience that each one may feel, what is objective is that the gameplay does not exist. It can be pretended to be experimental, contemplative gameplay or whatever, but when you limit yourself to walking without interacting, you can't say you're playing. What is experimental is the general concept of the product, but the playable experience is certainly not because it is absent.

Partiendo de la base de que ningún juego puede vivir sin jugabilidad, ya sea por etimología de la propia palabra o por sentido común, lo cierto es que a este título le falta de todo, parece querer formar parte de la canción de Nina Simone Ain’t Got No… I Got Life, porque no tiene de nada, no tiene jugabilidad, no tiene historia, no tiene duración, no tiene objetivos, no tiene diversión… pero tiene un apartado audiovisual fantástico aunque insuficiente. Si a Dear Esther lo calificaba como una película de animación interactiva aunque pudiese entender que alguien lo considere un videojuego, a Proteus no sabría dónde meterlo. Si alguien me dice que es la demo técnica de un motor gráfico retro le creería y si alguien me dice que es el proyecto experimental de un artista de Brooklyn le aplaudiría, pero desde luego no le llamaría videojuego. Y no es una razón de purismo sino de mantener claras las líneas que debe seguir este ocio electrónico del que tanto nos gusta escribir.

Sea como sea, independientemente de lo que yo piense, un concepto tan ambiguo cual película independiente con final abierto es normal que suscite todo tipo de opiniones hasta el punto de hacerse tan viral como lo fue en su día. En este punto cuando algo tan experimental sale al mercado se tienden a manifestar opiniones bastante contrarias tal que «este juego es postureo para gafapastas», «Lo he jugado y no he sentido nada», «no es para todos los públicos» o la irritante «si no te ha gustado es que no lo has entendido».

Por mi parte, sin casarme con ninguna de esas opiniones, creo que todas tienen algo de razón. Es evidente que detrás de todo esto hay algo de postureo, mi experiencia ha sido del todo insípida, no creo que sea para todo el mundo y desde luego para que tanta gente lo tenga como una obra maestra, algo he debido no entender o simplemente no miramos bajo los mismos patrones.