David OReilly, a blazing star of the contemporary animation scene, released his first game titled Mountain on July 1st. His animated films The External World, OctoCat Adventures, and Please Say Something have a permanent home in my heart, and have collectively won a myriad of awards. More recently he has directed an episode of Adventure Time, “A Glitch is a Glitch,” as well as the animated video game scenes from Spike Jonze’s film Her. Mountain signals a new interactive path in OReilly’s ever-evolving body of work.
Mountain is many things, and simultaneously few. It is a game that is strange, beautiful, humorous, depressing, uplifting, reflective, random, and absent. The game makes you think…and search…and hope, only to find yourself drifting without control. The only way I can properly describe it, is to share a glimpse of my own gameplay.
The first few minutes of Mountain were a confusing blast of stimulation, followed by a sensation of being misled. As time continued, my relationship with the randomly generated mountain became more complicated. It became my mountain—an affinity towards the digital domain had taken root. I began to feel slight sensations of joy and sadness, all at the cost of $0.99.
