Players of Jason Rohrer’s previous art games Passage and Gravitation might squint at first when trying his latest title, Between – intriguingly made for Esquire Magazine as part of its “Esquire’s Best and Brightest 2008” issue.

Sure, they will recognize Rohrer’s characteristic style: a preference for pixellation and visual austerity, the simple control over an abstract character, and an environment both naturalistic and man-made.

But unlike many of his earlier games, Between does not directly model a human emotion or experience in the way Passage did with mortality or Gravitation with inspiration. At least, not on first blush.

Between is a two-player game, in the way that Pong is: it cannot be played by a single player. Once connected to a counterpart over the network, players still do not see each other’s progress, at least not right away.

Read the whole article online at Gamasutra

published November 18, 2008