Jumpy: Animated videogame short

[mouser]

This brought a real smile to my face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwzHx_NbGEQ

[Deozaan]

I hadn't gotten to viewing this thread yet and now that I have time the video is not available.

[mouser]

Here it is on vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/231344456

https://vimeo.com/231344456

Hey what do you know we can handle vimeo tags on the forum 

[Deozaan]

Nice. Good music, too.

[mouser]

There is a lesson about life in that video, but i'll be damned if i can say what it is. which is, of course, the best kind of life lesson.

[wraith808]

There is a lesson about life in that video, but i'll be damned if i can say what it is. which is, of course, the best kind of life lesson.

You will come across obstacles that seem impossible to you, but are easy to others, whether because of strength, wit, or guile.  Seeing you fail, out of the kindness of their heart, they will try to help you succeed.  Taking that help will kill some part of you that knows that you can do it.  Don't try to solve problems in the way that others do, or the way set before you, but in your own unique way, and you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

My own .02 interpretation

[p3lb0x]

Did the character "succeed" though? To be it looks more like the character got sent back to beginning opening up the interpretation that you shouldn't disregard others help because of your own stubbornness

[mouser]

Perhaps the lesson was: Be determined and idiosyncratic and unreasonable in your pursuit of your dream, and embrace failure -- eventually the world will glitch out and you will slip behind the curtain of reality, behind the matrix -- and see things that normal people will never see, if only briefly.

[IainB]

A psychologist might say something to the effect that the funny little red "Jumpy" character reflected the difficulties that could be encountered in dealing with life events by someone who exhibited passive-aggressive tendencies/characteristics, and whose response, when faced with a disturbing reality to which they were cognitively blind (unwilling to perceive) was to escape by stepping into a dreamworld (unreality) that matched their cognitive bias, and which, because it made them happy, was deemed a personal success, even though the now-occluded (or denied) reality was - for them - a failure state.
However, I couldn't possibly comment.
In fact, some people (not me, you understand) might say that psychologists might well say something like that (above), as psychologists are very often just talking straight-out BS, but, again, I couldn't possibly comment.

[wraith808]

Did the character "succeed" though? To be it looks more like the character got sent back to beginning opening up the interpretation that you shouldn't disregard others help because of your own stubbornness

He did in the end, it seemed to me, from his expressions to the differences in what he experienced, and more telling to the way that he was able to jump higher as show that he did at the end.

Perhaps the lesson was: Be determined and idiosyncratic and unreasonable in your pursuit of your dream, and embrace failure -- eventually the world will glitch out and you will slip behind the curtain of reality, behind the matrix -- and see things that normal people will never see, if only briefly.

Nicely put.

[mouser]

I like Iain's interpretation as well.. This is a a good exercise.

[tomos]

It's when the player presses the reset button that the epic journey happens, and going back to the beginning, at the end, seems fine.
As a metaphor, that's open to different interpretations -- as you were saying earlier mouser, that makes it interesting.

I was starting to post one interpretation, but didnt want to pin it down :p

[Deozaan]

I just accidentally rediscovered this through the music. I had another album by Luminist on my Bandcamp wishlist and decided to look through his other stuff and found the track for Jumpy. I read the description and looked at the cover art and it all started to come back to me, so I came back here to this thread.

Watching it again, I realize the problem is one a lot of players seem to have. The player was not holding down the run button!

As someone who has been playing Super Mario games since the beginning, it's really weird to me to see how many people play the Mario games and almost never press the run button. Whereas from my viewpoint, I think a person should almost never let go of the run button in these games if they want to make all the jumps and finish before the timer runs out.