We decided to simply release Gray to the public for free. We didn’t see a game like this [not intended to be entertaining] doing very well or receiving the right audience at a typical Flash portal, though feel free to distribute the swf wherever you please. The more people that play this game, that happier we will be.

Gray isn’t a typical game, so if you would like to discuss Gray or have some questions ["wtf is this?"] there’s already some healthy discussion going on in the TigSource Forums, or strike up a new discussion on our own forum. Certainly the comments are always a welcome place to voice opinions as well.

Thanks for playing.

It was pretty challenging editing this sucker. Because the whole game is so short, the biggest issue was avoiding potential spoilers. We hope to have the game up somewhere soon, though we’re not sure in what capacity just yet. Currently, some very smart and caring people are play-testing the game and giving Mike and I feedback on all sorts of aspects of their experience. So far it’s going well, we’re finishing up the second round, which might prove to be the final round all-together.

About 2 weeks ago I was lying in bed staring at my ceiling wondering why I can’t get to sleep at a normal hour like most people. Somehow my brain wandered over to “mob mentality”, and more specifically this quote from someone I heard somewhere.
Men in Black?

A person is smart, but people are stupid.

That stuck with me, mostly because it’s a bit of a hopeless paradox. Those kind of thought experiments always intrigue me because it’s such a simple reality with no simple solution, or maybe none at all. I’ve found the smaller a sentence, phrase or idea, the easier it is to abstract out into a chunk of digestible gameplay. So the basic idea of the game is an attempt to explore this idea through player interaction. Essentially, the game is very simple. The player controls a character [similar to the others] attempting to stop what seems like an endless riot. By interacting with individual NPCs in the riot, it’s possible to turn them to your side. There’s more, of course, but you can figure that out when you play the game here shortly.

The big problems we’ve faced so far have been about the design. In a game this small, the only real challenges are the design decisions, some of them with the symbol design of the visual elements in the game, and the rest of them of course with the interaction. We want to make everything in the game support the general concept we’re trying to communicate [see above quote]. There’s a lot more I’d like to go over about the game, but it’s not finished [although close] and once it is hopefully it will speak for itself.