Pixel Sword, the humble start-up studio based beyond the wall, in the wildling-infested forests of Bo’ness, has very quickly established itself as the pre-eminent creator of games based around the elegant, timeless simplicity of the square.Pixel Sword’s first game, Square Match Go, is a meditation upon discrimination, the despotic and tyranical rule and the inhumanity of treating all men according to an arbitrary and absolute colour.
They followed this with the Jungian reflection upon the nature of the void in Squares Of Black Space. A game in which the player must strive ceaselessly against the utter nothingness of infinity and the terrifying nature of the vast emptyness of the universe.
The studio’s coming release, I AM SQUARE, moves beyond these universal themes, to posit that mankind’s daily struggle to survive and the routine of our increasingly urban lives is ultimately pointless. No matter how smart or industrious. No matter what relationships or bonds we create. No matter how vicious or humane, we consider ourselves, we will end.Despite the apparently bleak subject matter, Pixel Sword seems to be recontexualising this activity and struggle, turning the journey itself into a celebration and platform for the joyous and visceral reality of human achievement.
In the artist’s statement, Paul Leishman, the founder of Pixel Sword, stated:I AM SQUARE is an action arcade game where you have to dodge the falling maze as a little white square. The longer your little square survives for the harder the game gets as each passing level marks an increase in speed and a likelihood of death.
Eschewing a gallery release, the artist is pursuing a digital only experience, bringing I AM SQUARE to a series of commercially popular platforms including iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 as well.
Leishman is also producing an optimized HTML5 version of the experience which will be made available on Game Jolt that will work on mobile and PC browsers, making I AM SQUARE socially inclusive to the wider public and allowing a broader appreciation of the work.The artist’s agent has released the following information to the critical media:
- Compete on a global leader-board for the grand title I AM SCORE
- Main character has 4 sides of equal length and creates a stream of colour
- You can dodge falling blocks
- It’s not another Flappy Birds clone
You may view…
)
We look forward to the opening of the I AM SQUARE experience and will bring you more as we experience it.
