A Software Studies Approach to Interpreting Passage

The following paper argues for the value of critically analyzing game code, demonstrating two potential methodologies. These draw from literary theory and software studies to reach hermeneutic readings of procedures. We use Jason Rohrer’s Passage as a case study to demonstrate these methods. Passage is one of the most frequently studied, discussed and taught works in game studies. However, many critics take for granted the claims that Rohrer makes in his creator’s statement [16] regarding the game’s message. This paper seeks to complicate several of these claims, particularly regarding the balance between marriage or exploration, and their rewards. We explain in detail the steps we undertook to investigate the game’s code. First, a technique of closely playing the game, following a theorycrafting approach [15], was deployed to make sense of four particularly opaque lines of code. By combining close play with close readings of the code, not only did we solve a previously unconsidered puzzle, but added additional richness to existing interpretations of Rohrer’s work. Second, we produced modified versions of the game, following what McGann and Samuels call the critical practice of deformance [12]. We replayed these distorted version’s of the game in order to enlarge our considerations for its design. In doing so, we came to understand the rhetorical emphases placed by Rohrer and the shifts that small changes could have. Both of these techniques were used in our interpretation of Passage, and we present them as methods which other scholars can build on and use with other open-source games.