A short but mysterious AVG game: Football Game
After taking for a long time to finish their masterpiece Legend of Hand, Cloak and Dagger Games (I would name it CDG in short) has created a rather short but much mysterious and creepy game Football Game. It was trying to describe 1980s American life, as the game Beat Cop, Crossing Souls and the most famous Grand Theft Auto: Vice City did, but to be specific that it especially focused on teen community. (Picture 1)
At the first scene, there is a bottle dripping red liquid which looked like a murder case happening although it was a teenager drinking too many beers, and the dim light effect was also amazing to make the scene moody, also the retro yellow subtitles, no any interlude to bother the silent, only a real county environment sound, all of these didn’t make me feel bored but cause me to focus on. (Picture 2)
In the very short gameplay, CDG inserted few seconds of clips as TV programs, the players could watch and switch the channels, such as nuclear bomb explosion, UFO was flying, a kid was eating hamburger, a Disney-like cartoon, many beautiful women were looking at you, these random shows may be looked like meaningless, for me, it embodied 1980s American popular culture, from MTV music video, cheap fast food and the war to the sexual freedom. (Picture 3)
The main character Tommy was a football superstar in local high school, but he also drank a lot of alcohols, he lived only with his mom, his dad was disappeared in the whole game, although Tommy’s mom did mention his dad would come home soon, the players could find out that the rooms on the second floor only belonged to his mom. (Picture 4)
Just like this one, there are many tricky details leading to speculation of the story, Tommy, and his past girlfriend Suzy.I had to be honest that I was not so explicit about the story after two rounds of the game, but it could be easier to explain the design tried to construct a very depressing atmosphere which may reflect American life was not always happy as in the TV shows. (Picture 5)
It was good to find out that CDG kept the close-up shots of characters and items which were very powerful in Legend of Hand, but it was not for joy this time, it leads to a deep psychological meaning for what did Tommy think and look. (Picture 6)
After examining most of the design, the storyline could be said that Tommy was looking for his girlfriend Suzy. He wanted to give her a necklace (a big letter S on it) as a gift before the game started. It randomly flashed static like it on the TV screen and then Tommy memorized the good old time of him with Suzy. When Tommy went to the court, he argued that he could not able to open his cabinet in the changing room, and people were surprised his existence there, then the player would understand that Tommy didn’t want to face the truth that he was expelled by the team for his bad behavior even he was a good football player. (Picture 7)
In the latter part of the gameplay, Tommy started to memorize he couldn’t find Suzy because he actually broke up with her and she was another guy’s girlfriend. (Picture 8)
After that, he remembered he did give the necklace at her house, and he chased her to the lake they both enjoyed, knew that she still wore that necklace. But in the final scene, his mom found out the gift she hid from Tommy was taken away, and she wanted Tommy to forget these things, the broken gift was thrown on the floor and it was again the red liquid dripping on the gift box and that necklace. In the end, we knew that there were many things not exactly happened but only ideal imagination faked by Tommy himself (Picture 9)
The last thing I should not forget to mention that the soundtrack also created the ambiguous mood, it was only played while driving the car, but the system seems too quick to imply the player could click to skip the interlude. (Picture 10)
Football Game is a short but meaningful game, it used a very dark mood to show popular alcoholic and smoking behaviors in high school, single mother, superstar myth, and the most important thing was how teenagers behaved negatively with their disappointing relationship. (Picture 11)
