| The Majesty of Colors | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Gregory Weir |
| Release | December 2008 |
| Genre(s) | Puzzle, artgame |
The Majesty of Colors (also known as (I Fell In Love With) The Majesty of Colors) is a 2008 Flash browser game by Gregory Weir. [1] Weir has described the game as "pixel-horror". [2]
The user is a tentacled sea creature and they interact with humans, creatures, and objects in and around an area of sea. The player's actions can be benevolent towards the humans and creatures, or destructive. The actions of the player determine which of five different endings will be shown.
 |
The game uses a blocky pixel art style. Said Weir, "What I try to do is fit the art to the game. Majesty is really a very simple game, with simple controls and a simple-minded protagonist, so I went for blocky pixel art, which is both easy to make and evokes a simpler era of video games." [1] Although the visuals seem simple and low-tech, they are actually more complex than they look, making use of alpha blending and large moving textures. [2] The most complex visual element is the creature's tentacle, which uses an inverse kinematic system more commonly used in 3D animation. [2]
Weir claims to have been inspired by a competition on indie game forum TIGSource themed around H. P. Lovecraft's commonplace book. Says Weir, "I had the idea of an enormous creature from beneath the waves discovering the world above. When I think of the deep ocean, I imagine darkness and a lack of color. When I think of color at its simplest, balloons come to mind: floating spheres in primary shades." [2]
In deciding on the art style, Weir drew inspiration from Daniel Benmergui's Flash game I Wish I Were the Moon, "which had similarly surreal premises and simple gameplay". Weir decided that a similar "chunky, low-res pixel style" would work well for Majesty. [2] Original designs involved a creature with two independently controlled tentacles, but during development Weir cut the control down to a single limb, suggesting but not showing additional tentacles through the position of the creature's body. [2]
The finished game presents some of the story through evocative prose. However, Weir has since stated he feels this was a mistake, saying without text it would have been a "cleaner, purer game". "In retrospect," he said, "I probably should have given the player more credit, and gone lighter on the narration text." [2]
Weir claims that development of Majesty cost him nothing other than his personal living expenses. The game was coded in the Flex compiler and IDE FlashDevelop, which are freely available. The sounds used in the game were obtained from website soundsnap.com, which provides free sound effects and loops. The game art was created by Weir in the open-source graphics editor GIMP. [2] Weir obtained sponsorship for the game by posting it on the FlashGameLicence website and directly emailing potential sponsors. Weir stated that although he is pleased with his experiences with FlashGameLicence, most of the sponsorship interest in the game came as a result of his direct emails. [2]
The game was first posted on FlashGameLicence on November 15, 2008 and a sponsorship deal with Kongregate worth "several thousand dollars" was finalized a month later. Weir claims the sponsorship money, when combined with advertising revenue and a secondary site-locked sponsorship, represents "over a hundred dollars for each hour [Weir] spent on the game". [2]
The Majesty of Colors was critically well received and gained endorsements on sites ranging from Kotaku to Penny Arcade. Said Weir, "I think that Majesty’s appeal is that it provides a very unified aesthetic, and makes players feel what it would be like to be a titanic, tentacled horror from beneath the waves who really only wants to be loved." [1]
Kotaku's Maggie Greene called Majesty an "artistic timewaster" and "a weird, lovely little game". [3] Penny Arcade's Jerry Holkins described it as "an electronic poem". [4] Jay Is Games noted Majesty's similarity to I Wish I Were The Moon, but thought that Majesty was more compelling because its interface was "more concrete and personal" and because of the strength of its narration. Jay Is Games also praised Majesty's pixel art and its strong focus on emotion and atmosphere, with the only criticism being a disappointment that the game didn't support more unscripted interactions between the sea creature and its environment. [5] Play This Thing described Majesty as "a poetic exploration of alienation and social interaction" and a "precious snowflake of content that unfolds like one of those paper-folded fortune tellers kids play with", but complained that ultimately all decisions in the game result in one of only five endings, creating an incentive to game the experience. [6]
The Majesty of Colors was nominated for "Best Game" in the 2008 Tank Awards at Newgrounds, [7] and nominated for "Most Creative Game" at the 2009 Mochi Awards at that year's Flash Gaming Summit. [8] Daniel Kronovet of the Daily Californian awarded it a "Krony Award", calling it "beautiful". [9]
By July 6, 2009, the game had been played almost 1.5 million times. [10]
Penny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website loonygames.com. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have established their own site, which is typically updated with a new comic strip each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The comics are accompanied by regular updates on the site's blog.
Jerry Holkins is an American writer. He is the co-creator and writer of the webcomic Penny Arcade along with its artist Mike Krahulik. Holkins sometimes uses the pseudonym "Tycho Brahe", which is also the name of a Penny Arcade character based on Holkins.
Newgrounds is an entertainment website and company founded by Tom Fulp in 1995. It hosts user-generated content such as games, films, audio, and artwork. Fulp produces in-house content at the headquarters and offices in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
Michael Krahulik is an American artist for the webcomic Penny Arcade and co-founder with Jerry Holkins of Child's Play, a charity that organizes toy drives for children's hospitals. He goes by the online moniker "Jonathan Gabriel" or "Gabe". Krahulik does not physically resemble his comic strip counterpart, as the character was not originally meant to represent him.
Child's Play is a charitable organization that donates toys and games to children's hospitals worldwide. It was founded in 2003 by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, authors of the popular video games-related webcomic Penny Arcade. The charity is seen as a way to refute mainstream media's perception of gamers as violent and antisocial. As of 2017, Child's Play had processed $44,538,978 in donations since its inception.
Prinnies are a fictional race of creatures primarily in Nippon Ichi's Disgaea series of role-playing games. First appearing in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, they have appeared in all later titles by the company, as well as on various merchandise such as hats and plush toys. With a few notable exceptions, they are voiced by Junji Majima in Japanese releases and Grant George in the English releases from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness to Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten. The Prinnies are regarded as the mascots for the Disgaea series and have received generally positive reception.
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is an episodic action-adventure role-playing video game series based on the webcomic Penny Arcade.
The Maw is an action-adventure video game developed by Twisted Pixel Games and released for Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The game centers on the extraterrestrial Frank and a purple, amorphous creature called The Maw, who have crash-landed their spacecraft on an alien planet. The player assumes the role of Frank and directs The Maw—which can take on the abilities of objects and fauna it consumes—via a leash.
Nitrome Games Limited is a British independent video game developer based in London. The company formerly developed Unity-based games for Web browsers, but now publishes and develops games across multiple platforms including mobile, Nintendo Switch, and PS4, with a few releases on Steam.
Aether is a video game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel and published by Armor Games, released on September 3, 2008. Players control a lonely boy and an octopus-like monster that the boy encounters, solving puzzles on different planets to restore them from monochrome to color. The pair travel through space by swinging on clouds and asteroids with the monster's elongated tongue, searching other planets for life to which the boy can relate. It is also a part of The Basement Collection.
The Fancy Pants Adventures is a series of free side-scrolling Flash games created by American developer Brad Borne. Four worlds have been released so far. World 1 was released on March 14, 2006 and World 2 was released on January 9, 2008. After the 2009 Comic-Con, Borne announced he would officially start working on World 3. It was released on April 5, 2012. A console version developed by Borne and Over the Top Games was released by EA 2D for PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on April 19 and April 20, 2011, respectively. An iOS version developed by Chillingo, Over the Top Games and Borne Games was released on the Apple App Store on March 4, 2012. Some years later, Brad Borne made a fourth entry, Super Fancy Pants Adventure, and it implies in its ending scene after defeating the final boss that it is "To be continued". Two years after the release of the game, Brad posted World 4 on Newgrounds. World 4 was Super Fancy Pants Adventures, just ported to Adobe Flash. Right now, there are three parts of the game available on Brad Borne's website and two on Newgrounds.
Twisted Pixel Games, LLC is an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. Originally a contractor, Twisted Pixel releases games based on its own intellectual properties such as The Maw and 'Splosion Man. The company uses its own proprietary engine, known as Beard, to power its games. On October 12, 2011, it was announced that Twisted Pixel had become part of Microsoft Studios. However, Twisted Pixel separated from Microsoft, and became an independent company again on September 30, 2015. In November 2021, the company became a subsidiary of Oculus Studios.
Flash Element TD is a Flash-based tower defense browser game created by American developer David Scott and launched in January 2007. The game had been played over 140 million times as of March 2009.
Destructoid is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017, and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022.
Gregory Avery-Weir is an American game designer and writer, best known for the 2009 browser game The Majesty of Colors. Avery-Weir lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.
Dys4ia is an abstract, autobiographical Adobe Flash video game that Anna Anthropy, also known as Auntie Pixelante, developed to recount her experiences of gender dysphoria and hormone replacement therapy. The game was originally published in Newgrounds but was later removed by Anthropy.
I Wish I Were the Moon is a short Flash game by Argentinian game developer Daniel Benmergui. It has been described as "a short love story told in the form of a puzzle game." The game was, as part of a collection of Benmergui's games, a finalist at the Sense of Wonder Night at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show. The game brought its maker, Benmergui, to international attention.
Don't Shit Your Pants is a browser-based text adventure game created by Canadian developers Teddy and Kenny "Rete" Lee for Cellar Door Games. The objective of the game is to use a text prompt to prevent a balding man standing beside a closed door in pajama bottoms and an undershirt from defecating inappropriately. It was the first title released by the Lee brothers, receiving positive critical reception.
Raid Gaza! is a short real-time strategy Flash game by Marcus Richert which satirizes the Israel–Palestine conflict from a pro-Palestinian perspective. The game was uploaded to Newgrounds on December 30, 2009, three days into Israel's Operation Cast Lead, and was also released for Android phones through Google Play. It has been referred to as a newsgame and an "editorial game" by Ian Bogost, and as a "journalistic game" by Piotr Kubinski.