BEAST A WORK OF ART
Inspired surrealist game evokes Dali and Magritte
Paper Beast
Pixel Reef Available on Playstation VR
Perhaps it was when I unspooled tape from an old reel-to-reel player and created a beast out of its ribbons, or maybe it was when I saw a tree sprout hot air balloons. It also could have been when I watched an elephant lead a menagerie in an underwater procession.
Each is among the possibilities for the moment I decided that Paper Beast should be counted among the handful of truly great games available on Playstation VR. Developed by Éric Chahi, creator of the renowned early ’90s adventure game Another World, Paper Beast throws players into a hallucinatory cyberscape running on a quantum computer — a place that visually evokes the work of the surrealist painters Dali and Magritte.
Before running the quantum computer you must tab through a user agreement that asks, among other things, if it can use part of your neural network while you sleep. Upon registering your responses the computer sets about its quantum calculations and a pop-up text appears on the screen asking if you’d like to play the Swirlybeat music app while you wait. Trust me, you do.
Clicking on the app transports you to your own private party: a small room festooned in confetti and streamers, pulsing with light and Japanese rock music.
As the song fades, a glitchy sound rings out and the environment goes dark. Then, in a wonderful transition, you find yourself standing on a narrow patch of terrain, surrounded on all sides by curtains, listening to the song from the music app coming from a reel-to-reel player on the ground.
Pulling aside the curtain reveals that you are standing underneath a dinosaurlike creature. Surrounding you and the creature is a desert whose bright colours and flat surfaces are like something out of a Dali painting. A little later you’ll be in an elevated spot, overlooking a message scrawled in the sand: “this is not a simulation.”
I’m reluctant to say much about the ensuing journey because one of the elements I most appreciated about Paper Beast was that I had no idea what to expect from one moment to the next. That said, I don’t think it’s ruinous to say the game involves observing the different paper beasts you encounter. You learn their goals and motivations and can then manipulate them for mutually beneficial ends.
The beasts are a treat to watch. Their abstract forms complement the game’s colourfully refined, low-polygon environments. Admittedly, I felt a bit like a psycho tossing some of them about and compelling them to do my bidding, but I promise not one crab was harmed.
Paper Beast is an inspired game. Don’t be surprised to see it on the year’s best list.