Tagged: a house of many doors
Child of Rhyme
Poetic Analysis: Child of Light
Image: Child of Light, (c) Longjunt, used with permission. Source: Deviant Art.
Child of Light is visually and aurally a beautiful game, with I’m sure an engaging story to tell. But I’m struggling to get on with it because of the poetry. I think it’s great that games are embracing the poetic form; I can think of some really innovative examples, like Molleindustria’s ERGON/LOGOS (branching experimental visual poetry), or the career-poetry of Fallen London and A House of Many Doors (the latter tackling procedural composition to surreal and absurd effect).
In Child of Light, poetry pervades most of the game text: dialogue, cutscenes – even some tooltips! It’s audacious, and at first I was wowed. But soon the poetry begins to break down, violating what I’ve come to appreciate as some of the core principles of the medium.
White Space 