ALZ

This game is without a shadow of a doubt the most artsy game I've reviewed in a while, if not the most artsy game reviewed on the entire sites history so far. Its was such a powerful experience for me though, that I couldn't help but talk about it in the hope that more people would find out about it and play it.

ALZ is flash game that was created by Dylan Carter for the Newgrounds.com 2014 Styncel Jam, which hopefully he won. The experience I had playing this game was by far one of the strongest and most conscious emotional experiences I have had with a game this year, very few games will be able to do this to a player let alone do it with with such minimalist sensibilities when it came to design, music and story. It all seemed so perfect though seeing how the game is an exploration about how it could potentially feel to suffer from Alzheimer's disease this is most definitely not a happy experience. Granted my experience may have been heightened due to the fact that my grandfather suffered from this disease before he passed away, but I am certain that it would be powerful regardless of whether or not this disease has touched anyone around you. Unless you are a psychopath who is unable to empathize with the issues facing other people of course.

The biggest fear I have when talking about this game to people or trying to get people to play it is that the game is walking the thin tightrope between being a game and being a movie and for some people that alone is a reason to just not try it. Just to give you a bit more information, your entire interaction with ALZ is simply pressing the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard while occasionally pressing the spacebar when prompted. But even that can been seen as a conscious part of the experience given the limits of interacting with the world around you that Alzheimer's disease places on people. I understand that some people would get caught up in the semantics of it all, but the nature of whether of not ALZ is "game" enough for you should not be a reason not to play it. At the end of the day a game is just a multimedia interactive experience and ALZ meets that criteria which makes it a videogame regardless of what you may think in my opinion.

The power of ALZ isn't derived from its mechanics though. It mostly derived from both its art style and sound track that are both immensely powerful despite their simplicity. The graphics in game only used a few color, four or five if I remember correctly, but its their animation and the constant flashing and strobing of the figures that were made using these color that disorients you and puts you in a state of mind where you can begin to glimpse what it might be like to suffer from Alzheimer's. The musical score, also simple in its tone, is a haunting background theme over the entire experience reminding you of the sadness of the entire ordeal and how Alzheimer's oppresses the people afflicted with it by making them feel a sense of constant loneliness regarding of their surrounding. The final aspect that really got me were those simple lines that the protagonist utters when you are told to interact with the world around you, they carry such weight and so many implications that you can't help but feel, you can't help but connect and empathize with the reality that there are numerous people and families out there who dealing with such a disease on a daily basis.

Regardless of whether you think ALZ deserves to be called a game or not, it is really something that you should experience. Don't get caught up arguing with yourself, just have the experience and take from it whatever you will. I assure you it will be one of the most powerful experiences you have with any form of media this year. I know it was for me. Plus, it only takes a total of three minutes to actually get through the entire thing, so, just do it.