Three and Out – ‘Kids’

Kids by Playables, recently published by Double Fine, experiments with how our interactions we have with other people influence our perceived identity. In a nonverbal way, the game abstractly investigates social proprioception. I picked up this title because I read somewhere that this game was initially an art installation rather than a mobile game, one about how we act in crowds, which makes sense given the simplicity of the gameplay and the brevity of the narrative. Even then, I’m not sure if this game achieves anything beyond the avant-garde value of passing it by as an installation.

Kids begins with a circle of silent bodies – “kids” – standing around an open black pit. Your first task is to toss these kids down into the pit, followed by a plopping of your character’s body on the ground far below. Soon, you’re swimming through white tunnels that organically snake their way down the screen as you continually push the bodies through. There are verbal standoffs – the only dialogue in the game – in which these kids argue about which way to go next. Eventually the crowds turn on you. It’s all very bizarre, and none of these moments linger more than about 30 seconds at a time before moving on to the next bewilderment.  

I can praise Kids for the ethereal headspace it left me in, entrancing me by atmosphere alone. For a mobile game, I found the touch screen interface to be intuitive and smooth. Much of this game is polished, especially the art style and soundtrack. But this game suffers from a few unintuitive moments that stall the otherwise rapid flow throughout the game. Kids just keeps recycling the same mechanics, almost never building on previous sequences. I loved almost every moment of this experience with Kids due to the stellar sound design and art direction rather than the experience of playing itself. By the time this mere 20 minute experience concluded, I had to wonder why this game won so many awards.  

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