Fight Crab is one of the finest surrealistic games we’ve seen in quite some time. I love this game (check out my review for more), but in playing it I was reminded of just how narrow our understanding of surrealism is. These days it’s a placeholder to describe anything that’s a bit different or quirky, but in reality, what the surrealist movement of the 20th century aimed for was something a lot more… well, deep.
Video games could do surrealism very, very well. Sadly too many of them use it as an aesthetic without trying to push the surrealist theme through the rest of the game, and that comes across as shallow and ingenuine (something I suspect we’ll be talking about regarding a certain game claiming to be both cyber and punk soon enough).
So in this video I take a look at what surrealism is, how it can apply to games, and what the difference is between genuine surrealism and something that uses it as an aesthetic.
– Matt S.
Editor-in-Chief
Find me on Twitter: @mattsainsb
