Jason Oakley : The life of an Aussie geek!

 Passage – a free ‘game’ for Windows, Mac OS and Linux by Jason Rohrer.

In Passage, you’re this little pixelated guy. You live in the stripe of color. The stripe is twelve pixels tall. It’s green. All else is blackness. Your job is to move up and down and left and right through the stripe — the "forest" — in search of treasure chests, sort of like in the Legend of Zelda.

As you walk, the stripe shimmers and flickers, the fuzzy pixels in front of you scroll into sharpness, and the pixels you’ve already traveled blur in your wake. The stripe is your whole world. But soon you have to make a choice: share the world or keep it to yourself. You meet a girl. Your fat-pixeled soul mate. Link up with her and a heart explodes. You’re in love. Now she sticks to you as you move through the forest, less easily than before. It’s a trade-off: You can get more treasure by staying single, but bond with your "wife" and you earn double the points for every step you take.

If you’re like most people, you’ll choose the comforts of companionship. Only, as you trudge across the stripe, something happens. Your pixels begin to fade, gray out. Your hair recedes by degrees. Your wife slurs into a matronly shape. It hits you: This is going to happen to me. Age, decrepitude, ugliness.

Also: At least I won’t be alone. Somebody loves me. Ha-ha-ha.

Then — thwack — she dies.

Jesus. Weren’t expecting that. There’s a tombstone with a little cross.

Then — thwack — you die, too.

Passage: A somewhat poignant ‘game’ or, more like, experience of life. 

You start alone and young, find a mate (or not) and end up dying suddenly. The game lets you experience choices and directions in life to see what will happen.

You can download the Windows, Mac and Linux versions free or buy the iPhone game for AUD$1.19

It’s only in blocky, 8-bit style characters, but many people will argue that the graphics are not what matters.. it’s the message in the experience. Many people have posted comments about being deeply affected by trying out Passage. Either way, it’s only a tiny download (2Mb). Go try it out. It may make you think!

Read more here and buy the iPhone version for AUD$1.19: TouchArcade.