Way better than Passage.

Ronsauce:
Except for the fact that Passage is an interactive game where your moment-to-moment choices change both the gameplay environment (via your score, your ability to traverse the map depending on whether or not you grab the wife) and the player's relationship to the theme (can you recognize the treasure chests that contain points and those that do not, and can you interpret what that means in order to be more successful; is it worth it to grab your wife and give up some freedom or is it better to go out on your own and explore with total, lonely freedom),

and that in Edmund your moment-to-moment actions mean absolutely nothing apart from allowing you to further progress through a prebaked narrative where you control characters who would be better suited as autonomous characters with their own free will rather than cyphers which the player can control considering their dense backstories and jarringly unpalatable motivations,

and if you ignore the fact that expansive moment-to-moment freedom in a closed system with only one ending is more game-like than an entirely scripted system with one or two plot branches scripted throughout (in roughly the same way that Ikaruga is more of a game than a Choose Your Own Adventure novel),

then yes, you're completely right.

Perhaps the lack of freedom is the point though, Anthony. The inevitability and lack of choice is a gameplay tool like any of the interesting aspects of Passage. It's a game designed to make you uncomfortable, so the only choice it offers is to force you through this uncomfortably interactive sequence. I fail to see how this does not meet the criteria of a game though. Countless well-accepted games direct the player down one path, with extremely limited options, if any.

Based on some of the Indie Nation items you've posted, it's clear that the line between "game" and "interactive art" is gray at best. So why deny Edmund the same inclusion as others that were far more dubious (While I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, I'm sure I could go back and find some if you insist)? Perhaps instead of ranting about games, you could take some time to define what a "game" actually is.

Personally, I found it interesting in the same way I found Passage interesting. They both are designed to provoke particular emotions, and succeed in that regard. I was certainly entertained by neither (especially Edmund), but interested to be sure.

"The game seems to congratulate itself for giving the player controversial, disturbing roles to play, without considering that those roles are so wildly distancing"

Anthony that effect you felt was not what the creator intended. Check out our interview with him to get some insight in terms of what he was trying to accomplish.

As someone who is GROSSLY offended by rape, and is quite vocal about it, I didn't think it was that bad.

@Magnalon
"Anthony that effect you felt was not what the creator intended"

That is an awful excuse for a creator of anything.

I will probably be thinking about this game for a little while, but I can't say I feel like I've really been exposed to anything new. This is probably more meaningful for people who don't normally think about sexual violence. But it still could have been a better game if it had shown a more balanced description of rape.

I felt when I played this before that you never feel a connection or a disconnection with any of the characters. It feels random like "Oh...that's what I'm doing...right" the message gets mixed up with a counter-intuitive system.

So is this an adaptation of the David Mamet nihlist play, "Edmond"? It got done as a movie a couple years back with William H. Macy as the title character.

Yeah, that one. Pretty much everyone gives him a hard time, then he decides to embrace being a psycho.

UglyDuck:
But the whole "whoops, I didn't know that button would rape the shit out of her" emotion isn't even remotely shared by the character you're playing as. He's out there to rape, he wants to rape, and even if one half of his personality wants to pretend he isn't complicit, he knows deep down that this is who he is. He's experiencing guilt because he sees who he truly is; you're experiencing guilt because the game told you to hit X and you didn't know that input translated into "rape the fuck out of a stranger." Edmund rapes because he wants to; you rape because you were tricked into it and because it didn't seem like there was anything else you could possibly do to progress the game.

MechaMonkey:
Yeah, but the whole freedomless-mechanics-as-symbol-of-fate-and-inevitability thing has been done to death, and is really more of a bad excuse than anything else. Even games that are at least in part about inevitability (Passage, Photopia) allow the player a great deal of both mechanical and interpretive freedom, where Edmund just settles for being a slightly-interactive movie. Beyond that, lack-of-freedom-as-inevitability is a tremendously easy and boring design philosophy to explore in my opinion, considering noninteractive media already has that kind of stuff down pat and choice is the defining characteristic that makes games special. Why purposefully ignore the greatest strength of a medium this early on in its development?

I like your line of thinking Anthony. Why merely let the player row the boat when the medium is build around being the captain of the ship? By limiting player determination in matters, one general ignores the strength of the medium. Why have an early movie with severely limited visuals and an audio track? Considering it this way, sure, it looks like shock value. Making the intended point, perhaps, but shock value.

Mind you, I haven't played this one: got an old Mac. But it seems fairly straight forward, game-wise.

Does a game really need all this freedom Anthony talks about? Does this game even imply that you're supposed to have that freedom? I just see it as a story that plays out in a game. I've played lots of great games that do that. If this game were re-skinned into something more family friendly, it could actually be a fun game to play. Passage re-skinned would still be a boring piece of shit.

"I would call it a experience, but others might not, I think that question is best left to the individual player."
This was said by the maker.
There are 4 endings but I dont know how to get to them at all the game feels busted from being so limited.

@Anthony

See, now that I can deal with. Calling it a poor design choice is cool in my book. I was just confused over why you refused to call it a game. (For counterargument, see everyone's gushing reaction over [OLD ASS SPOILER] Andrew Ryan's death scene.)