For a game that lasts for all of about five minutes, Passage manages to pack in a surprising amount of story. Or rather, you do. You see, this is most certainly a game all about your experiences, memories, and emotional wounds. The actual gameplay is extremely simple. You can move up, down, left and right, and that's about it. Usually, you're just walking to the right of the screen, advancing the game and watching as your pixelated main character begins to grow older. After several minutes of walking to the right (and occasionally avoiding blocks that halt your progress), your character's posture will slump lower and lower, until he is merely a gravestone.
There are certainly some obvious metaphors in Passage. The blocks in the path are almost definitely meant to represent a problem or hardship in one's life. And right at the beginning of the game, you can choose to walk into a female character, sparking a romantic relationship but making it more difficult to navigate the tighter blockades in the game world. But it's the endgame, mixed with your life, that makes Passage a surprisingly powerful game.
Take the game's love interest, for example. Based on my playthroughs of the game, she always died before my character did. Afterward, he seemed to slouch more as he walked toward his own death. And although there are two few pixels to even see his face, something about him seemed sadder to me. Something changed. Maybe it was because for the last four minutes all I saw was the couple, walking through the game together. And then she was gone, my character an aging, balding man, going onward.
It's you, though, that makes things like the inevitable deaths this game mean something. Maybe the main character is you, and you fear death like so many other people. Or maybe the love interest in the game is a wife, girlfriend, friend, or family member who has passed on. It might seem silly to be making these connections in a five minute game, but with nothing to do but watch, walk, and wait, you can't help it. Passage demands an emotional investment.
You have to be willing to make the investment for this game to be worth your time. You've probably guessed that I was willing, since I've just written a review of a five-minute game with no dialogue, combat, puzzles, or bump-mapping, and have given it four stars. It's free on PC and it's a dollar on the iTunes App Store. No matter where you choose to play it, Passage is a fascinating game.