As Slow As Possible (ASLAP) was inspired by a composition (“ASLSP”) of the famous and notorious American composer John Cage. The original tempo instruction for the performing musician was: as slow as possible. This resulted in performances typically lasting between 20 to 70 minutes. Is this slow enough? How slow is “as slow as possible?”

The city of Halberstadt, Germany, is currently conducting an organ performance that will last 639 years. The last sound change occurred August 5, 2011, and the next sound change will be July 5, 2012. Is this as slow as possible? Is this the final word on the slowness of musical performances?

A performance of 639 years spans the lifetime of many human generations. This performance is certainly using a time scale uncommon to the human experience.

One aspect of ASLAP (the videogame) and of ASLSP (the composition) is the perception of time and of the human time scale (that goes from birth to death).

What does an instruction like “as slow as possible” mean for a videogame? How slow can a game be? ASLAP presents this question to the player. At what point does the player become a viewer? Which strategies are required to play a game, which is breaking the standard time length for videogames? How do you organize your life around playing a game in “realtime” which could take 20 years? Or 200 years?

ASLAP starts slow, you need to “phase yourself in.” It starts slow and gets slower and slower. And slower. Ad infinitum(*). Each player should decide for her/himself, how slow “as slow as possible” is.

What kind of game then is it? ASLAP can be described as a game in search of a puzzle game, though there should be enough time left to find the game in the game. The musical structure of ASLAP (the videogame) is very primitive. Two notes switch endlessly back and forth and each note plays longer and longer. It is a found footage game from the 70s, from the lost works of Ewon Gral. It is a living painting and a still life (nature morte). It has its own consciousness (*).

(*) still needs to be proven.

On Valentine’s Day, indie game developers axcho and knivel released a little game called The Love Letter. It’s a free, five-minute experience, a slice of life as the most popular boy in school. But things aren’t so easy at the top, especially when you find a mysterious love letter in your locker and you have to read the whole thing during passing period without any of your so-called friends catching you.

“It’s hard for me to say where The Love Letter fits in the spectrum of game to notgame. The purpose is to get across a particular five-minute experience, not to make it about a challenging game with a lot of replay value,” says axcho, who wrote the code for the game.

While there are no points, achievements or levels to be found in The Love Letter, it is possible to win or lose. Getting caught by another student while reading your love letter results in a cute but painful shaming in front of your peers, and a quick trip back to the title screen to try again. If you do get to the end of the letter without anyone seeing you, you are rewarded with an awkward but adorable encounter with your secret admirer, and a satisfying “the end” that makes it clear you’ve met the game’s expectations.

Still, there is a balance to be struck. You could call it a casual stealth game with only one level, but that would be missing the point.

The Love Letter was originally a 72-hour creation for the Ludum Dare 22 game jam, where hundreds of participants all over the world spent a weekend making games inspired by the theme of “alone”. The game’s author knivel says that the brief development time encouraged him to try making a short, scripted experience that really explores the competition theme rather than simply trying to make a fun game that people would want to play over and over again. It lasts for five minutes because that’s as long as it needs to be. It’s not particularly deep or profound, but it stands on its own for five minutes, without all the gameplay fluff that would be needed to sustain a longer playing time.

As one player mentioned on the notgames forum,

“What made this for me was the fact that the game didn’t try to ‘challenge’ me with levels, achievements, or points. It could have been more ‘fun’ and earn more flash portal money if you went that route. I can imagine myself adding more challenging level design and mechanics to this until the game ends up as this soulless fun machine.

But you sir, made this with the notgames mindset and left me with something pure and sincere. Thanks for that.”

We’ve all seen shallow themes stretched out to hours of gameplay, whether in killing monsters or clicking cows. But while some developers choose to reach for lofty heights with themes that deserve such extended introspection, others like axcho and knivel simply take something sweet and fresh and give it all the time it deserves. Five minutes.

This quote says it best:

“If Dear Esther is the main course, The Love Letter is my dessert.”

You can read more about The Love Letter’s development on axcho’s blog.

Swedish indie game studio Woolly Robot has just released its poetic title Flight of the Fireflies for iPad. Flight of the Fireflies is an atmospheric and experimental game where you guide a swarm of musical fireflies with your finger. The game is available through the App Store for $3.99.

“I want to create games that are more about having an experience than about being challenged. Flight of the Fireflies is an experiment to see how much you can take the game out of a game, but still have an immersive experience,” says the game’s designer Jonathan Hise Kaldma.

The game design isn’t the only way that the game pushes boundaries. Unlike in most games, the music isn’t pre-recorded, but is generated dynamically while you play the game. Each firefly is a separate tone, and as you collect more fireflies, the music builds up and becomes more complex. Also, the environments in the game aren’t painted or rendered, but made from photographs taken in and around Stockholm, Sweden.

“One of the inspirations for the game was an exhibition by photographer Gregory Crewdson. I always felt like games could use photography more, so I went out with a camera around Stockholm to try to capture the feelings that I wanted to convey in the game,” says Hise Kaldma.

One of the problems the studio has faced with the game is how to best describe it.

“I call it a game, since it comes from that tradition. But I know some people wont think it’s a game since you can’t really win or lose,” says Hise Kaldma. “I don’t really care if people call it ‘interactive art’ or something else instead. As long as they don’t think it’s inaccessible or hard to understand, because it’s not. Anyone with an open mind can enjoy it.”

Woolly Robot is the indie game studio of designer Jonathan Hise Kaldma from Stockholm, Sweden. He is an active participant in the Notgames Initiative, the collective of game designers that explores the potential of video games as a new medium. Flight of the Fireflies was exhibited at last year’s Notgames Fest in Cologne.

Flight of the Fireflies – Trailer from Woolly Robot on Vimeo.