I first encountered the Kokoromi Collective a year or so ago, when I read a bit about the music to their 2d/3d platformer, Fez, on the blog Create Digital Music. Around that time, I heard tell of a game which had been exhibited at their Gamma256 event, which was a showcase of retro-styled games with pixelated graphics. There was some buzz about it.
As it happens, I didn't download and play it at the time; I was busy. Some other things happened as well. But a few days ago, I finally took the time to download Passage.
I wouldn't say that it was an earth-shattering experience, exactly, but, there's something undeniably beautiful about the game. I keep thinking that "impressionistic" is the word to describe it: it's so simple and melancholy, oddly open-ended for so simple a game...it's an exquisite experience, a tiny masterpiece which left me full of more emotion than I had thought a game could inspire. Download it, and play it for its entire five-minute running time, and see if it speaks to you.
