Coil

how do you beat level 5?

For those having trouble with reading the final text:

If you wait long enough, the squirming black mass shifts out of the way enough to let you read a bit at a time. The text itself just trails off with...

"He pressed his cheek against her cheek he pressed his cheek..."

...which really doesn't help the obscurity much!

I'm sorry, but this is a horrible game. It prides itself in being completely useless when it comes to controls. I have yet not been able to get past stage 3, because I always get notched back up to the surface by those green things, and the featus almost never responds to anything I do with my mouse, and when it does respond, it's completely random.

i've gotten rid of the other things that pop up in 5, but don't know what to do now

well if you move your mouse erratically or too fast it won't spin very well, I found that if you do it in small circles it works ok.

final text essentially says: "from here there is nothing, just as it was before"

Eh. The gameplay alternates between trivial and frustrating, and the story is depressing. At a couple times I wanted to like this game, but after finishing it, I don't think it's worth the bother.

Perhaps the helplessness and frustration is built in to add information to the storyline.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this one either. I got to the flying orange arrow-shooting part before giving up. I don't mind games that let you figure things out for yourself, but I played that stage for about ten minutes with absolutely no indication of whether I was making any progress or not.

Frustration as a FEATURE?!? This is the worst game I've ever played. As stated before, it prides itself on making you feel like an absolute idiot. The author could have saved a lot of time and just written "You are a worthless waste of a human being and should kill yourself." all over a webpage.

The controls on the 3rd level are more or less completely unresponsive. Spinning my cursor around the fetus does virtually nothing and when I do start to fall I'm almost immediately pushed back to the very beginning by those stupid green things.

You know, I could make a bowel movement onto the floor and *someone* would call it art. It obviously isn't though. Same thing with this game. All I got from this was "I'm incredibly pretentious and nobody understands my pain. Wawawa. *cuts self*"

I'm sort of on the fence. I kind of get it, but I kind of don't.

This reminds me of a French game called "Evolution". It was posted a nordinho.net.
My favorite part of Coil is level 3.
I have a question. Has anyone finished the game, been taken back to the beginning level, and tried to play it again? When I tried to play it again, my sperm didn't have a head and when it went into the egg, the tail of the sperm stuck out straight and the nucleus of the egg started to divide and stopped. Is this a new level with a way to solve it or is it a bug?

Meh... pretentious pseudo-game with wonky mechanics. Good to see stuff like this on the site, but I'm with Jess: this game was like the second season of Twin Peaks with less giants and more tentacles.

Bleugh. The controls were terrible. It would be much better if you could effectively DO something without going a completely different direction half the time.

It seems to take ages to load each game for me and stay on the story

is there a way to skip to the actual game?

As Patrick mentions in the review, most interactions involve moving the mouse in circles, like a coil. To get to the next game, after reading the text, just move the mouse in circles.

Anyone else having difficulty loading this game? I got to the sperm/egg screen once, but since then have not managed to get the game to load.

JDB

I didn't understand what the last two levels were about, what you were supposed to accomplish, or even how the controls worked. I loved the music and the style, but in the end the game is creepy, vaguely disturbing, and confusing.

I rather like this one - first time to comment on jayisgames.com at all, but this one is very unique and deserves a comment.

It doesn't make great game play. I think you have to be looking for something *other* than a game to play when you approach this one. I don't know that I'd call it interactive art so much as a new breed of fiction.

I agree it does come across more like a story about a rape, and about the baby that was produced by that rape. BTW - I thought of that myself whilst playing, but was not the first to say so here, so I give full credit to the idea to the person above who came up with it previously.

It intrigues me because the story puts you in the perspective of the woman and her fetus, both trying to survive a bad situation. Now, I admit I may be wrong, but it comes across that way to me, and I think that it works on a non-game playing level much better than as a strict game. I think it works better as the image of powerlessness and the struggle to survive, and in that sense invites the reader (player) to become a character in the story.

And I think the last stage signified the death of the baby, probably through still-birth or miscarriage.

Just saying that as a game it stinks, but it has a lot of potential if it's worked out into something more, something less like a game and more like fiction.

I had to load the game 3 times before it worked for me.

Warning: PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATION ALERT
It reminds me of a one act play I once saw. The premise of the play is three fetuses talking in the womb. One of them doesn't believe in 'life after birth' while another thinks after birth all pain and suffering will end. It's a metephor for all the contemplation we have on the afterlife. Despite all the conjecture we make on it we can't possibly comprehend what will happen after death as much as a fetus can't comprehend what will happen outside of the womb (or maybe how we can't possibly remember back that far).

Maybe this game is totally different and I'm looking for meanings that aren't there. It comes off as a bit pretentious (and the controls take a while to get the hang of) but that was my take.

Holly--do you remember the name of the play? I'm looking for something new to direct and am not familiar with that one.

Having played it several times now, I finaly got the meaning of story.

And it seems, however depressing it may seem to some, that this is a fact.

(...)

While writing this comment I read some of what others written.

Come on, people. You can do better. You think it's some sort of emo tripe just because we are served white letters on the black background, but it's NOT.

Don't forget that throughout the story HE means TIME and if you don't get the part about others being taken in:

I believe (strongly) that theese are habits we took after others. We (people) do that, you must have noticed.

I read a comment saying how the point was to show the author's pain etc.
Pain? It's about LIFE and life is not a pain. Even if technical details differ from our beliefs it's our life we're given and there's nothing depressing about it if you look at it this way.

Sorry if I seemed too rude at times. Perhaps I was. But I enjoyed this as both game and a poem (though you can't have one without the other in this case) and as soon as I decided it must be one of the best works I've seen recently I take a look at angry and emotional comments, so I had to leave one of my own.

See you on Casual Collective,
Cheers.

I like your perspectives, Drondh.

And coil can mean life's struggles, as in mortal coil.

Now we're talking. :)

Although I hate to bash people like this, this "game" really does weed out those who have more deep, intellectual and philosophical methods of thought as opposed to the unfortunate standard person we have today. It really does bug me when people are so quick to criticize something for the sole reason that they themselves can't comprehend it. </rant>

Ok, now on to the actual game. I personally felt the story it told was quite vivid and each part of the game held some sort of deep philosophical meaning. Even the method of advancing the text could be held to reference the grand cyclicality (Yes, I just made up that word. No, I am not going to fix it.) of life in general. The beginning text references to the pain and suffering with which we come into this world. The level itself could refer to the way we all seem to wander aimlessly towards our goals in life, without truly understanding how. I could go on and on, but I think I'll spare you the droning (as well as the text wall, lol).

It struck me that the orange stage was some sort of mating, as hearts came out when arrows hit, and that the last stage was it laying eggs into the sea to restart the cycle.

I see a lot of people interpretting the story in interesting ways, but, a lot of fallen prey to an interesting phenomena. The concept of a rape has such gravity that it pulls to the mind it immediately and does not let go. However, this is never explicitly stated within the game. Nor is "she" really ever explained. Perhaps "she" is not the parent at all, but the nascent daughter? Think about the text and how it pertains to step by step. It works on a cellular level too. I've considered the "him" to be as well as possibly being a rapist or dysfunctional lover, to be the father to the daughter, or in some aspect, perhaps even the male sex cell to the female sex cell. The stages we see do not follow human biology, which is curious, and perhaps detaches us enough to make us wonder without actually coming to any firm conclusions. The dark obscurity at the end may be lifted by some act in game, or it may simply be the fading of vision. Though, for whoever pointed out what it might say, I suspect I saw "dream" to the right on that line.

I encourage others to consider other relationships and meanings beyond what we are initially drawn to. I keep probing different avenues of thought, but ultimately, something is always out of place and disrupts that line. The meaning may be as complex and imperceptible a coil as you can get. Meaning wound in meaning, but, the mind doesn't take well to thinking in the same direction, down the same curve, down the same path. And for some coils, you'll simply come out on the other side.

I think "pretentious" is the weakest criticism you can offer for a piece of art. Either you get something out of it or you don't, but to accuse the artist of pretentiousness for trying to share something with you is pretty ungrateful. I mean, by all means, discuss why it does or doesn't work for you, and suggest how it could have been better. But calling it "pretentious" is like saying nothing.

We're on a much better track when we're talking about what Coil means, not about whether it has a right to mean anything at all.

Since she was so busted that she had the baby, maybe It's
ALIEN! Like... THE ALIEN! As in ... Vs. Predator-type alien!

I love the stuff that followed the first post I made and am impressed by the other ideas that people got! I admit that I was taken into the rape idea originally, and when I saw someone had posted before me with the same general idea, I thought I'd hit on it, but I love that there's more, that people have expanded and seen different perspectives.

I hadn't thought of "he" and "time" being the same person, and I like the idea that "she" is the embryo. Very clever interpretation. I think there are more interpretations out there that we can discover, with a little patience and some imagination. Personally, I plan to play it a few more times to see what else I can come up with.

I encourage everyone out there to please keep an open mind as the authors asked, and please keep those wonderful interpretations coming. The more varied and diverse our opinions, the more we can puzzle it out together, and the more we put into it, the more we get out of it.

Bravo to the authors for this intense and interesting bit of fiction/art/gaming intrigue.

mkelican - do we shallow, simple-minded, and fact-oriented "standard" people at least get points for wanting to like it?

(PS, no offense taken, but I wanted to point out that just because this sort of thing is not one's cup of tea doesn't make that person a simpleton)

>It really does bug me when people are so quick to criticize something for the sole reason that they themselves can't comprehend it. </rant>

I'd hate to start an argument, but this really caught my eye. I have played it not once, not twice, but three times. There's more of a reason for my dislike than just "I can't comprehend it".

I tried it not once, but three times. Now, I should mention two things: One, I have a high sensitivity to brightness, and I have to wear sunglasses indoors on a low brightness monitor to avoid a serious headache. Two, I use Linux and Firefox, and every once in a long while Flash lags a lot.

So, I start it up for the first time. I see the spiny circle of the main menu, and figure out I need to circle it. However, the circle of the message is too dark for me to see. In fact, I'm even assuming that there is one from the other comments. I clicked and waved at it for a few minutes, but nothing happened. Eventually, I triggered the the next scene, where Flash appeared to be lagging (it was actually the control scheme), which made it even worse. I then randomly bumped into the egg, and the next messages stopped me.

I then decided to give it another chance, after reading the comments. With the help of the walkthrough, I got up to scene two. After stirring the cells for another few minutes, I thought to myself "What is the point of this?" and closed it again.

But then the rape theory was posted, and I thought "That's disturbing, and if it is true this would actually be a good game/art thing". So once again I opened it up, and I even fought through scene two and three. But scene four ended it for me, as I couldn't see the "food" I was supposed to collect. And then and there I gave up on it for the last time, as I am not going to give myself a major headache for a game that I had not had fun with and would be highly unlikely to give any further fun, of which the sole reason of playing it further would be the artistic value it may or may not actually have.

Now, the question comes, is it the designer's fault that I cannot play it? I say yes. They didn't need to make a game with a almost all black color scheme. They could have gone with a ghostly white scheme, or a shades-of-blood-red one. Or at the very least increase the contrast between the shades.

Furthermore, is it the designer's fault that the control scheme is frustrating? I say yes as well. If the rape camp is right, and this choice is deliberate, there are other ways to create the feeling of frustration than making inane controls. They could have made a huge labyrinth without a map. Or a large number of enemies. The entry right after this one, A Company of Seagulls is frustrating, yet it's playable.

Is there a way to make a game like this without it having this game's flaws? Yes. Passage has no instructions beyond the controls. It also is about life. However, even a non-gamer could play Passage. Not so in this game.

This game is trying to be many things. It tries to be a game without instructions, a game with a bizarre control scheme, a game with a disturbing atmosphere, and a game that is art. All of those ideas could make a good game, but together, and for me, at least, the result is a unplayable and meaningless game. Others are free to have their own opinion.

P.S.: I was under the impression that it is a game about reincarnation, and that "she" is losing her memories as she becomes a baby once more.

I assumed the story was about both the other and the child being conceived in the first chunk of narrative. It's a cycle, in which you finish and start over at the beginning. It seems to me that each passage was carefully crafted so you could read it both ways.

As for the rape thing: initially I thought it was an act of rape as well. But later stages made me question this. There is a "him" she repeatedly longs for. Is it the "him" from the first passage, or someone else? (Assuming you're reading from the mother's perspective.) I think that it would be a valid interpretation to assume it was consensual.

I'm not sure how I feel about the work overall. The gameplay was far too frustrating for a work of interactive art, in my opinion. I can understand the motivation for letting the player figure out the controls (life is that way, after all), but the level of difficulty once you do so should be doable. Chances are the person playing a game like this is motivated to do so because they want to see the art unfold, not because they expect super-challenging gameplay that might tempt them to give up before the end.

Was it meant to have some deep meaning, or is it just, as Jess said, smoke and mirrors? Well, you can read something into it, whether it was meant to be there or not. Good enough for me.

Y'know, it seems like an interesting game, but after the second time on the third level (where you're falling and you have to spin to avoid/deflect the spermy things) where after about 5 minutes of play I just got carried up and up and up on a wave of spermy things despite whirling my mouse around fast enough to make my wrist hurt -- I give up. The interface is way too sticky/unresponsive to make this worth playing for me; this wasn't the only level where I felt like my mouse movements weren't being registered as finely as they needed to be.

I found the controls to be exceptional. I'm not making excuses for the sake of art, either. The controls in this game are really responsive and reliable. It's hard to figure out how some of the control schemes work, but once you've got it, they couldn't be better. I especially love the control in the first scene, since it's so appropriate to the character you're controlling. You waggle back and forth. It's very intuitive.

In fact, I never had a single moment's frustration while playing Coil. Seriously. I somehow trusted that there would be a reliable control method in each level, and I just experimented with it until I found it. I think Coil demands a higher level of attention than most Flash games, but the notion that it's frustrating on purpose is way off base, I think. You're essentially getting a new body in each chapter of the story. It's only natural that you'd have to take a moment to learn how to use it.

I'm starting to think that the frustration some people are having is due to Flash issues, rather than the implementation of the controls. The game seems to run slowly on a lot of computers, and it could probably be optimized much better.

I don't think that's a flaw in the game, however. Some things need to be experienced the way they were intended, like movies that need to be seen on a big screen. There's always going to be a trade-off between accessibility and the artist's original intent.

I couldn't agree with Psychotronic more...
The controls seemed completely natural and while i did have to look at a walkthrough twice just to see if i was doing it right (and i was, just not trying hard enough) but it didn't take that long. level three seemed the easiest for me, so i don't know.

this was a beautiful game that i wish there was more of on the web.

Ok i know i'm stupid now.

WHERE'S THE START BUTTON!!??

When a game provokes everyone to write very big paragraphs , it succeeds.
So did Coil.

Nevermind you just

move the mouse in a counter-clockwise (left) circle

Pretty nice, creepy, disturbing, odd game. I like it!!!

This post has a lot of disjointed replies in it:

Psychotronic

I'm sorry if my word choice offended you. I did find meaning in it but I also felt talked down to. I think pretentious is a valid critique, as a linguistic student (I'm not saying that to BE pretentious just to clarify my point of view) I think those who have a message shouldn't hide it in obscure language when those language forms aren't necessary to maintain the message. This is a philosophical piece, but when anyone uses such multi-layered language my tendancy is always to wonder if the metaphores are truely meaningful or just being used to obscure an actual lack of content.

Your comment back to me strikes me as more rude than my critique, or at least than my critique was meant to be.

Just because it is meaningful to one person doesn't mean anyone who doesn't find it meaningful is simple-minded or shallow.

I didn't find the HIM as TIME reference but more so some reference to the outside or a person on the outside? I didn't get the rape aspect though.

dsrtrosy
The one act is called "deliver us not" it is an amazing and funny work. I think it is part of a larger play but it's the only part I saw.

hollyrr33:

My reply was not to you. Three people so far have called the piece pretentious, and even if it's not how you intended it, the word is usually used dismissively. As though there's something inherently wrong with trying to express something and not quite getting there.

But I mostly agree with you about the text. I find it a little too ambiguous, and definitely too wordy. I'd rather the developers had found more ways to express some of these concepts through the gameplay, or at least cleaned up the poetry a bit. I think if the text were taken out entirely, it would still be an interesting game, and maybe even a better one.

But I don't think the writing is muddled because they're deliberately trying to be obscure. I think it's mostly because English isn't their first language, and they just don't have a mastery of the nuances that would make it more precise.

Personally, I loved this not as a 'game' but as an interactive poem. The way I see it, if something can generate this much of an emotional response and a controversy from so many people (especially in so short a period of time) then it deserves to be called art. Creating such a response is actually a very difficult feat and I am all the more impressed the creators of this game were able to produce such a discussion despite the fact that many of the people responding probably did not even realize that the 'game' was intended to be artistic when they began playing (at least I didn't).
I think that the difficulty of the controls actually added to the artistic value of the game. Although the controls were actually incredibly simple once you knew them, the lack of instructions forced you to experiment in much the same way as a newborn learning how to walk (or in this case flagellate).

I also admit that it was a bit frustrating to realize after several minutes that the game wasn't loading, it was just waiting for me to circle my mouse.

I interpreted those 'tadpole' thing to actually be other sperm who were attracted to me because they were looking for an unfertilized egg.

Is it just me or isn't that food which you're gathering actually the same species as you at a younger stage of development.

You're not shooting arrows at the other creatures, you're shooting sperm. But you're also being shot at which would mean that your actually hermaphroditic (this is how barnacles mate too).

You shoot your eggs off in all directions and then you die.

Try rereading them from the perspective of the creature at that stage of development. For example, the early ones which everyone has been interpreting as rape, I saw as simply fertilization from the ova's perspective. Also, while you're reading them, try to keep in mind that you're a short-lived, cannibalistic, hermaphroditic amphibious plankton like alien and so you have a slightly different perspective on life then we do as humans.

Of course, that's just my opinion and I'd love to hear what you all think about it.

Psychotronic
Sorry about the misunderstanding. I guess because of proximity I assumed you were replying to me. Thanks for the clarification.

creativeentropy
I had totally been assuming a relation to human gestation. Barnacles huh? I like that.

I sat at the first stage thinking it was still loading for quite a while too; long enough that it froze and I had to reload the page.

I still wish the language wern't so obscure.

You know, after playing it again, I've totally changed my mind. I think the poem was probably written separately, and the gameplay sections were spliced in-between, sort of as a metaphorical interpretation of the text. So part of what makes it interesting is that it's two different pieces of art (three, if you count the music) shoved together. Maybe a little awkwardly. Two different points of view on similar themes. At the least, I think it's an interesting experiment.

Well, I'd love to debate the philosophical merits of the game, but the technical merits of the game rather detract from that. Every time I've tried to play it, the game fails to load.

"Loading might take some time" indeed.

Jeremy, how far are you getting? Does it at least show you the loading screen?

If the game isn't loading for you at Komix' page, try this link at Armor Games as an alternative:
http://armorgames.com/play/764/coil

The game is only 1.5MB, so it really shouldn't take too long to download.

This person is in such a cycle of solitude, any attention is desired, from someone who has been watching her closely. The desire to be wanted, touched, yet under such tragic circumstances (rape?), her longing to be special, confounds her soul. She tries to take back her will, control over her own desires. She brings others for this person to see her. She doesn't need his/her attention, she can conjure her own. Every person that penetrates her, adds to the volume of her "self." She consumes them, as they consume her. Yet, is there something else that she truly desires? Yes. She sheds her strength. She enjoys her passivity. The realization of her innate longing to be violated again... if only to be touched once more by a dominant someone while she relinquishes control.

Its your basic Sado-Masochism year 1 story...

The birth represents this "rebirth" in her.

"if something can generate this much of an emotional response and a controversy from so many people [...] then it deserves to be called art."

So Fred Phelps and his crew picketing Heath Ledger's funeral is artistic?

Personally, if something is done or made with the primary purpose of provoking a response rather than expressing some idea or message, I find that idiotic or pretentious or both. I'm willing to give Komix the benefit of the doubt here, because there did seem to be a genuine effort to express something, though I think just a little more clarity in message would have helped immensely.

...and now I need to read it many more times.
I am no longer sure about my own interpretation, but the rape theory also leaves some questions unanswered.

Maybe both?

I had an exam today, so I'm not exactly the one to do any serious thinking at the moment, but I'll try to come up with a decent interpretation soon.

Cheers.

Bleh. I don't think the purpose of art is to provoke discussion. There's enough discussion as it is, and most of it is just noise. It's a lot easier to throw dust into people's eyes so that they think they're missing something deep, than to actually clearly express something important.

As a game, I found it frustrating, because so many of the levels could be beaten by just doing nothing or else waving the mouse around wildly.

help!!! can't beat level 2!!! help!!!

Having recently read a rather different sort of scifi/horror book that is also fairly provocative at times, I feel I have a much different perspective on this game/story. Piers Anthony wrote a book called "Firefly" in which an amorphous blobbous creature is absorbing people. Eventually, one of the main characters is absorbed by the creature, which also absorbs the mind and characteristics of the person. The resultant creature/person was very interesting. It really was more of an anthropomorphic, rather than truly alien, viewpoint.

Because of experiencing this book, I felt that the vagueness of the story in this game caused it to be more like what a truly alien (or animal) story would be like if it were poorly translated into human terms.

As for the gameplay itself, I found it extremely easy. Maybe because I'm part button-masher, part experimenter, but always observant, I stumbled on the ways to control the game very quickly, much like finding your balance on a bike. It was slow at first, but quickly picked up. Each stage had a different goal in mind, and thus had a different method of achieving it, so the controls were a bit different each time. (Having read the reviews AFTER playing, I understand now why it was called Coil and there were constant visuals evoking circles and rotational movement.)

I think this was a great little "pilot" of a game and would LOVE to see something more "fleshed out", as it were. I got through this game in around 5 minutes of actual reading/gameplay, but would love to spend 20 minutes doing additional stages!

My only real criticism is that the textual stages didn't have any indicator of how long it would be before the next page loaded, so I was never sure when I could click to continue. If the slowness was NOT a result of the stages loading, however, then whatever the holdup was needs to be addressed.

As far as I know, the stages don't load at all. You just move the mouse in a circle as soon as you're done reading the text, and the next stage will start. You can skip the text instantly, if you like. I think the confusion comes from the rotating arrow, which is sometimes used as an indicator that loading is taking place, usually from a CD. But in this case, it's trying to tell you what to do in order to move on. I don't think clicking the mouse does anything at all in this game.

From a game point: I found the controls confusing, but once you know how it works it is second nature. Very nostalgic of areas.

From an art point: What I think the story telling is a rape from the point of an egg and a sperm. Very cool game.

This is an example of the Grand Metaphor of passage through life, and so it will have many interpretations based on individual perspectives on life. I would like to give my interpretation of the text as it relates to the storyline of the gaming sequences.

Throughout the text, "he" is "that which causes her experience of life". Mostly, "he" is time, a transitional event, or her bodily functions. Also throughout the text, her thoughts and feelings are her own perspective on her bodily functions, her instincts. Level 1: All she has is existence as an egg, but that isn't good enough to journey through life, so she is fertilized. Note that there are many eggs around, and you can even watch as another sperm fertilizes one. Level 2: Basic cellular organization of her bodily functions. This creates the "he" inside of her. Level 3: We don't get to see her being born, we'll see this later. Her instincts are speaking for the first time. They say that her next phase is at the bottom of the ocean, far from the light. Note the tentacled creatures on their way up from the depths. Level 4: Here we discover why there are so many eggs. She is first to the sea floor, and then eats others before they complete their journey. The eggs seem to be good food, because we see other creatures eating them too. Level 5: Her organs have developed significantly at this point. You get a close up view and even control her movements by activating organs. She is now one of those tentacled creatures from Level 3, on her way out of the water. She still eats eggs, but don't be worried about that, as she will be later, because she actually has the desire to be consumed! Level 6: We get to see where the sperms come from. (And she consumes them to grow? this is the part I don't get). This loving act must be important, as she can't think of anything else while it lasts. Level 7: She is overwhelmed by the instincts of her life cycle, and just wise enough to be thoroughly confused by them. Her body is now full of eggs that must be released. She confuses them with the eggs she once ate and her opposite desire (release instead of consumption) ends up as the emotion of regret. All she does is lay her eggs in the ocean, but as her mind is forming a picture of reality at this point, she believes that she is trying in vein to correct earlier sins. She also doesn't remember that the cells long for death because her longing was replaced in Level 6 by lust. Level 8 (non-playable): Unfortunately for her, she is near the end of her life and won't have the chance to make sense of her existence and forgive herself. All she can do is be scared that her attempt to correct her sins was a failure, even though she does regret very much, she's out of time. She's just learned to live, so she wants to live; she's just learned to judge, so she expects to be judged; and time is up. Final Text: In what must be great relief, she recognizes this time as one of the transitions of life. She can go on her way, comforted that she gets to start over. The growing fetus images in the game play no part in my interpretation. They must be hints at what this metaphor describes.

Hope that's not too long for you.

I learned something writing it, hope you learned something reading it!

Am I the only one having problems at both the komix and the armor games site? Both just go through the armorgames logo, the logo with the creator's names and the loading splash. Then it just repeats.... maybe it's just bogged down from JIG traffic ;D

[Edit: Try making circles with the mouse over the game window. -Jay]

I don't think this is about rape. As others have suggested, it's far too easy to fall into that rut.

What if it's a whole lot more symbolic than that?

What if "he" is death, or the end of life's cycle and the begin of a new?

"She" would, of course, be the player character.

How in the world do you get pass stage 2. I have clicked and circled and moved my mouse until it almost came out and I CANNOT get pass!!!! This is really getting on my nerves and I really wanted to try this game beacuse stage 1 seemed so cool. Ah, oh well now the game is just annoying and the music is creeping me the heck out!!!

If David Cronenberg made a game, this would be it.

However... communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness.
I liked some levels more than others. The flying-with-arrows one was just confusing, and could use a do-over - the same with the final stage.

I loved this game on several levels

1. the story is descriptive enough for you to feel its emotion, but it's also just vague enough to leave you wanting more at the end

2. the game play, though short, was truly refreshing and unique. True, it took me a while to figure out a lot of the levels, but retrospectively that makes it all the more interesting

3. (this is more of an afterthought) just from reading all the comments here, it shows quite well how much we expect instruction-less casual games to be controlled by mouse clicks. more games should take advantage of the fact that we can do more than just moving and clicking with the mouse.

Here's a definition of "coil" from Wikipedia that may clarify the name of the game and the nature of the story:
'Mortal coil is a poetic term that means the troubles of daily life and the strife and suffering of the world. It is used in the sense of a burden to be carried or abandoned, most famously in the phrase "shuffle[d] off this mortal coil" from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Derived from 16th Century English, "coil" refers to tumults or troubles. Used idiomatically, the phrase means "the bustle and turmoil of this mortal life." "Coil" has an unusual etymological history. It was coined repeatedly; at one time people used it as a verb to mean "to cull," "to thrash," "to lay in rings or spirals," "to turn," "to mound hay" and "to stir." As a noun it has meant "a selection," "a spiral," "the breech of a gun," "a mound of hay", "a pen for hens", and "noisy disturbance, fuss, ado." '

I think I have figured out this species from a biological point of view.

They're SLUGS!

Why you ask? Here

Level 1: Fertilized the same way we are (except they are laid as eggs)
Level 2: Join back together like that same way we do.
Level 3: Now at this stage this creature is I dentified as living in water.
Level 4: The first slug to hatch eats all the other eggs.
Level 5: Same idea, just that now you can move.
Level 6: When slugs decide to mate they shoot "Love darts" at each other, fertilizing the eggs inside of them (Yes slugs are hermphrodites)
Level 7: They then lay there eggs.

This of course doesn't count for the story.

Slugs - now there's a unique idea, though I wasn't aware slugs had quite so many tentacles.

Texts, or at least as much as I can discern of them - these may encourage the discussions to be more specific, or at least not too wildly inaccurate
1:

When she awoke from the coil
Time didn't wait for her
it just watched her whimper
as it
crushed her
ego
cracking her
just enough
to reach inside

He whispered
as she was divided
This will make you remember
That I'm a part of you
Each cell is marked by my name
You can't ever leave me
I'm all that you have

When he released her
She could feel his wet hair run through her fingers
As she descended into the darkness
His face, distorted by their distance, faded into the night.
She was alone
Yet she could still feel him inside her
The feeling was comforting and familiar
But his presence scared her
She knew he was still there, watching her
Just out of the light
Waiting.

She would find herself reaching out to others
Taking small pieces with her as mementos
These are the things she felt were important,
The things that made these people signifigant.
Every aspect of her being was composed of others.
Her arms grew stronger with each embrace
And lips grew fuller with every kiss.

She would lead them to him
Watching as his hands reached
out to pull them away, their essence
consumed and nothing remained.
She would fantisize what it was like
To feel his hands on her body
Penetrating her and draining
Her into nothing

But time did pass
They fell into one another at first glance,
Their fingers intertwined as they walked.
This wasn't what she was used to
But from here on things wouldn't be the same
And even though the longing lingered
For once in her life she forgot about him

After the dust settled
And everyone had moved on
Once again she was alone
And she only had herself to blame
If she had just embraced her feelings when they called to her
Maybe she wouldn't have taken in so many
Of the things she later grew to hate
And maybe it was time to change
So she closed her eyes,
Pushing out every aspect of everyone she'd taken in
Back into a world she'd never asked to be a part of.

She could feel him in the room with her
Her eyes darted around searching for movement
In the darkness frantic and confused
Her breathing became fast and shallow
As her eyes welled up with tears.
He was here, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.
She was scared
Scared of all the things she would be leaving
Scared of how she would be treated
Scared of what she had done

As the room grew dim
She could feel his hand reach out for her
Touching her
In a way that was comforting and familiar
She was leaving
As he picked her up he pressed his cheek to hers.
"From here there is nothing, just as it was before
He pressed his cheek to hers he pressed his cheek

Many of the explanations reveal most of the meanigs of these stanzas, but leave the rest completely out. In particular I have heard no explanations that include text segment 5 at all, unless you've decided they're just fading away with time, which still doesn't adequately explain it.

I think it's best to just remove the gameplay from the poem altogether, since the life-form you play and the life-form acting out the poem are two very different creatures, though they are acting in very similar ways.

Anyway, I look forward to further comments.

I really liked the concept, but i wished the game's controls would be as responsive as i would have liked. It's nice to see a game sparking a debate like this. Turns out the ratings widget didn't stop people from commenting then, Jay?

No, I think you're right, AndrewBagel. I was a little concerned at first, thinking people would opt for the quick-and-easy route for leaving their impressions of a game. But I am very pleased with the discussion going on here.

I like the idea of de-anthropomorphising (if that can be a word for my purposes today) the story by looking at the creature as a slug or a barnacle (or a "short-lived, cannibalistic, hermaphroditic amphibious plankton like alien", which is by far my favorite!). But I still think my initial idea was as valid as any of the others, and by no means "too easy".

Rape can be used to imply many different aspects of control--for example, let's say the "he" in the text is "time" as depicted above. If that is the case, "he" is a greedy, controlling figure of time that pulls "her" apart, penetrates and dominates her, and eventually brainwashes her into bringing others (her children?) to him to victimize. I think that makes a lot of sense. IMHO.

I am loving that this has sparked so much interesting conversation and, like an earlier poster, am taking in all of the new ideas with great enthusiasm.

i'll tell you. it took me a minute to figure out the metaphor. but do you remember the person that made the comment about the play. how the three fetuses were discussing the "afterbirth"? well this is an exploration of how one person feels on their deathbed. "he" is time. "he" is death. this game uses the references to birth and the various stages of development to get across the point that upon the moment of fertilization, all we have is time and life. that's why "he" is so familiar. because, as a fetus, you are living a completely different environment. birth is a process that you go through to get to the next place. a so-called death of one life and going into another; much the same that people believe in an afterlife. and as the fetus in this game you go through all of the struggles that you go through in life to survive. you have to grow, eat, problem-solve, chase after love (which is what i got from the little arrow game), etc.
so this person, this female, she's thinking about how she could have spent her life. and how she can always feel him in her. because you start dying the moment you are born. so "he" can be both death and time.
the text and the game itself are parallels to one another.

Level 3 ain't loading D:

Ive seen a lot of people say that this game is "useless" or "stupid" or "pointless", but thats just it. This game doesn't have a point. Dont look at it like a game and base its worth soley on how good the graphics are or how well the controls work but rather like a book. It doesn't need a point because it tells a story. Like a virtual book. The story, some may say, is rape but I see it more like nympho-mania. Yes in the beginning she was forced against her will but afterwards she wanted more; craved more. Until a child was the result. The end. A rather dark a macabre ending if you put yourselves in her life. Overall, some great entertainment. And good at rousing discussion and debate also. A+ I say. But thats just one opinion...

finished the game,...
i think it's about unwanted pregnancy
maybe the girl knew the guy
but they know they're too young to have a family
so the baby was aborted =(
just a hunch

i am stuck on level four.
i just can't make the tentacles to grab the food..
the tentacles reach too shallow to touch the food inside
someone tell me what to do please?

There IS more to the quote at the end, if you complete the levels quickly enough, and it adds a bit of depth to the story. Find out for yourselves. No spoilers! ;-)

Are you sure speed's the key? I've now done it twice after reading your comment and am convinced I did it as fast as humanly possible. Are you absolutely, positively positive all you did was go fast? I'm tearing myself to pieces trying to figure it out, which is not a good thing to do when one is sick (though come to think of it that might contribute to my slowness).

Here's another perspective to think about: Does the cursor play any part in the story? It seems to me the controls change along with "she's" perspective of her life. This is especially apparent on the last two levels where on the penultimate level she is chasing the cursor while on the last level she is pointedly avoiding it as she "pushes out every aspect of everyone she's taken in," making me think maybe the cursor is one of the many things "she'd later grown to hate."

"1:
When she awoke from the coil
Time didn't wait for her
it just watched her whimper
as it
crushed her
ego
cracking her
just enough
to reach inside"

"crush her ego", could be readen like "crush her egg", like the sperm did in that level

Then, Coil is another name for the IUDs, the contraceptive device.

the music an the atmosphere reminded me the song "Lateralus" from Tool. In that song it says "Swing out the spiral..." , an coil in another word used for "spiral"..

this is more than interesting xD

Haven't read everyone's comments...too long for my taste. But to make this short, sweet and to the point:

this is the circle of life.

No matter the species, although someone said slugs and I genuinely love that idea...this is the circle of life. And it starts from the very beginning. Two lives unite. Life created. Life does what it needs to grow in order to reproduce. Life then searches for another life. Two lives unite. Life created. So on so on...

As far as the "poems" in between, they are just for the pleasure of reading, IMO

Level 6:

You want to get shot at. The point of the level is to get as many of your eggs fertilized. Not to shoot the "enemy"

Fantastic game, but the people on AddictingGames are really irritating. They gave this game like a 68% thumbs down, and they say (and this is a direct quote) "are those sperm?? wow whoever made this really needs to get a life and stop thinking about nasty things like a 12 year old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! really immature!!" I can't see anything remotely immature about this game.

[Edit: All I can say is, I'm glad you finally found us. Welcome to JIG. :) -Jay]

I'm not sure if this has been posted and it may just be a glitch, but upon completing the game, I immediately attempted a second go and the first level was changed.

The sperm I controlled lacked a head (it was just a tail) and, while this made it more difficult to enter the egg, I was able to "crack", but not divide, the center. At this point the psuedo-sperm went limp and I became stuck.

Probably just a glitch.

Or is there a deeper meaning to it? :D

First: Jay, it genuinely wasn't loading for me. I don't know why it wasn't because when I played it today it finally worked. Before it wasn't that I was stuck on the title page becuase I didn't know that I had to move my mouse in a circle (I had already read and tried that) but that it would never get there. It would just cycle through the few logos at startup. The weirdest thing is that it was doing it at both sites >_>

Anywho, it's not doing it now so, whatever. On with the critique! =3

The first thing I want to mention is that I LOVED the control scheme. It's completely intuitive, needing only a few seconds to figure out what you need to do and how to make yourself do it. Psychotronic said it best:

"You're essentially getting a new body in each chapter of the story. It's only natural that you'd have to take a moment to learn how to use it."

As for the analysis I think the best way to do this would be for me to replay it and analyze the text and game seperately for each stage and then after completing the "game" portion of each stage combining and re-interperating. I'll also adress the several different interpretaions held in the comments before mine. (the rape one most of all due to the fact that it was the first and, IMO, the most obvious one.)
(as you can tell this will prolly be a really big wall-o-text but I think it's important to take something this deep in small doses, breaking up each into as consise and understandable pieces as possible.)

~~~~~~~~

Well I've been working on it for a couple of hours and I'm not quite finished. I'll have it up eventually but I've got to get ready for work soon. I'll post my in-depth analysis when I get back from my job ^_^

I finished the game, and restarted, and I was just a tail of a sperm, with no head. Looking through,I see the someone mentioned that before, but no one responded. Any thoughts? A glitch, or another level, or a commentary? When you go to fertilize the egg, it starts to divide ad stops, your tail is just sticking out of it, and your tail begins to be pulled in one direction, although it is anchored in the egg so it can't move.

Any thoughts? I'm unsure if it is just a glitch or what, but I can't seem to be able to do anything with it.

"cracking her just enough to reach inside"

Maybe this was intentional, though from the few times I've done it there doesn't seem to be a way past this.

I think I speak for everyone when I say this is just something that happens and it doesn't really matter that much.

Well, I spent about 15 minutes on that friggin' stage 2, desperately trying to separate those colors... and got nowhere. A little bit of frustration is good for keeping you interested, but this is just too much.

the whole point of the game was to show you the mating riturals of this alien species, as the fetus is born she does what she must to survive, eat things she find as food. and when she gets to have kids of her own she knows shes been eatting her own kind. thats why she was sad and confused. but that is the nature of her specie.

oh and just BTW, the other thing that looks just like you is just another version, and the "arrows" shot at you are the sperm, if you look closey the more sperm is shot at you the bigger you grow. the point is to get both aliens full with sperm.

First time commenting, so please bear with me.

Ah, I got the headless sperm replay glitch too? :( Anyway this sort of reminds me of Fl0w with its theme on the cycle of strange alien life.

It's a strange but short game (too short)... People who said it was hard probably moved their cursor too quickly, because this game responds better to slow movements and patience. :)

While playing this a second time, I can see why some people commented that the game was from

an egg's point of view. The way I see all those hints of 'she', about "cracking her" with the sperm and guiding her down when "she descended into darkness", it's all about the egg and it's life cycle. The only confusing thing is the 'him'. :/ Sometimes 'him' seems to refer to the developing embryo (she, the egg, guided 'others' to his hands), and the sperm the next. The closest way 'him' could work is if the embryo refers itself as both 'him' and 'her'... It's pretty interesting anyway, because without the game portions it can be read as a human rape story. I think it was written like that on purpose... to provoke?

i cant get past level 2. how will i do that?

how do you get past the 5th stage?

I have just completed Coil and so many impressions/thoughts are spinning in my head I'm not certain where to begin. My first impression was that this was about a rape; however, the further I progressed in the game, the more I began to change the direction of my thought process. In the beginning, the text sounded as though one being was exercising absolute control over another, taking away one's dignity and will. As I continued to read the text, I envisioned a lonely, deeply wounded individual living vicariously through other's traits, yet hating what was taken from others. I could see a person who had been an unwilling participant at first, but realized a passion that could not resolve itself. A child enters this person's life: whether it is a random event, or a birth experience is not clear, but it is life and life-changing. It is simply the cycle of life. Therein lies the rub...life is never simple!

Never has a game inspired so much controversy and emotional intellect. I bow to the creators of this game for their brilliance. I have enjoyed reading the various perspectives and I rather like the idea of slugs and barnacles! In all the comments I read, one thing remains constant...the cycle of life. Whether the cycle is literal, as in birth, or an emotional coil or moral coil, it is "life".

For those of you losing hair on Level/Section 2:

Wait until they settle down because they settle into their own coloured groups - then get the mouse into the middle quickly. They only need to be apart for a second or so.

Hope this helps.

Gave it a bit of thought, and here's what I've come up with to explain it.

It is, at its heart, the story of a person's life.

"He" can be interpreted as "unlife" - both that darkness before -- and after a life.

The fertilzation is birth- exiting the womb. Splitting the cells into the three groups - okay, not so sure about. It's the only level of the game in which there is no clear and obvious protagonist - no actual character that you're represented as. It's wholly different from the others. (and surprisingly easy, by the way, guys, once you figure out how to do it (get them into three groups with short delicate movements, and then drive the mouse pointer like a wedge between them.))

The third level was startling and lonely- You're falling, and everything is either attacking you, or ignoring you unless you get in their way - Like the first day of school, or your first time in a new place - so frightening, because you're in a whole new world that you don't know or understand, and the people are mean and uncaring.
An additional note on the third level - being passive in the fall seems to be easier in the actual gameplay than actively trying to escape the attacking things. Children at a young age learn to be either passive or aggressive in order to get by. Some actively seek ways out of unpleasant situations, and they often do it in a way that gets them into worse trouble. The passive ones tend to get by with minimal trouble, just making slight adjustments as they go to adapt.

This is, at the very least, based on my own experiences as a passive student in public school.

The level is symbolic of the entire young life - all of schooling- or at least until she becomes more extroverted.

Level four -- "She would find herself reaching out to others
Taking small pieces with her as mementos
These are the things she felt were important,
The things that made these people signifigant.
Every aspect of her being was composed of others.
Her arms grew stronger with each embrace
And lips grew fuller with every kiss."

Life is better though, when you come to allow other people in. The level is symbolic of later years in life. Later High school, or college years, perhaps. She begins to look to other people to fill the whole in her life that was supposed to have been filled with experiences - until her whole life is made to be about her friends. Something that happens all too often with people who don't really know themselves- they measure their own worth by the worth of the number of people around them.

The next level, there are fewer 'eggs' and she has to seek them out, rather than them coming to her. They are more difficult to take in, and they disappear after a short time. Apply the symbolism, and it equates to a depressing scenario - the thing she defined her life by - her friends - is becoming scarce. People who get to know her aren't sticking by her. She begins to feel lonely, and still doesn't actually know who she is, because she has defined herself by the habits that she's absorbed from other people.
She is, literally, the sum of her experiences, and nothing else.

Then came the love of her life.

Remember "Love is a battlefield"? it applies here - It's uncertain whether the arrows the two throw at eachother are affections or fights. The male attacks with far fewer however. The impacts seem curiously heartshaped - though that doesn't fit in with the fact that whatever it is that she's doing is DRIVING HIM AWAY. In the end "When the dust settles" she's alone again, and sick to death of who she is, and what she's done.

She begins to shed herself of all the little eggs - all the habits and things she's taken from other people - sheds them, tosses them to the wind, abandons them, however you want to put it. And then - it's too late. She's thrown away all that she had - because remember that's what she'd spent her whole life doing, and when it was gone, she had nothing left. She began to waste away - and as death came to claim her,
"She was scared
Scared of all the things she would be leaving
Scared of how she would be treated
Scared of what she had done".

She feared death, but it had always been an inevitability.

And death comes, and finally it's okay. He's been with her forever, so intimately familiar, and she's carried away. Back into the darkness that there was before her life.

---

That's the best I can do in my current state, at least. Took me about an hour to write, and there was a ton of crap I didn't elaborate on well enough, and I'm sure plenty of flaws in my arguments.

I am, however, VERY confident this is one of the closest interpretations yet to the truth. When you really look at what's going on, hermaphroditic snails seems an absurd take on it.

Hope other people take something away from this game though. It is a brilliant piece of poetry.

I laughed aloud at mkelican's comment: Although I hate to bash people like this, this "game" really does weed out those who have more deep, intellectual and philosophical methods of thought as opposed to the unfortunate standard person we have today. I am obviously one of the unfortunate standard people!

I found the graphics appealing and the music atmospheric albeit repetitive. The mysterious text did nothing for me.

What really irritated me was the unresponsiveness of the "controls". I can see the point of having to work out what is needed on each level and even of having different controls for each level. But when the response to the correct controls is so minimal that it takes immense patience to figure it out and then to use it I become frustrated and bored. Thank you to everyone who posted walkthroughs and hints or I would never have finished.

Oh, and having an initial screen that mimics a loading screen with "this may take some time to load" over the top was another irritating touch.

It's a pity because there is huge potential here. But for me it was a thumbs down.

fairyhedgehog

From a genetics point of view:

There are many levels of the game that can be interpreted from a DNA standpoint where HE refers to the genetic data within HER, the egg/cells/embryo.

"Each cell is marked by my name"

This line immediately brought my attention to this possible metaphor. The genome is contained within every cell in the body. Or "my name" is possibly the DNA of the male counterpart, the sperm. So both her name and his name are in each cell.

"His whispering"

refers to the fact that the DNA is duplicating the message within her and is spreading throughout the organism.

But later, he is merely "waiting" - this is because she is more or less fully developed, and the cells have stopped dividing. But she still feels him inside her.

"their essence was consumed and nothing remained" - she is consuming them, not reproducing them, and thus she is digesting the DNA information contained within these other living cells and destroying what makes them unique - their genetic code; "pushing out every aspect" supports the same idea

And the last level (8) refers to genetically programmed death or apoptosis. HE is forcefully causing her to die - a scary but at the same time, perfectly natural thing for cells to do. Thus she it feels "familiar" to her. Since everything about her is really controlled by her genome. She is simply a vessel for transferring DNA from one body to another. And in a sense, this can lead to ideas on reincarnation, immortality, etc. However, if the organism fails to live, the genome dies with it. Thus they are very dependent on one another. In sexual reproduction, genomes are split and shared and recombined, and so it is a creative and cataclysmic process.

I wouldn't quite say we are "raped" by our genomes. However it is something we are forced to accept and forced to live with. And even if it is not the best genome, it is a very essential part of you! So feed it lots of food and help it survive. And maybe you will or have already provided a new body for it to inhabit. :D At least half of it.

(I study developmental biology, so it was a natural sort of connection to make. :) Thanks for the game, Jay.)

it makes me mad that they made this instead of tri-arachnid 2. the entire story was just a blank thought to me. this game was frustrating and requires patience (which i lack) with moving the cell. i did like the music and the artwork, but i would have much more enjoyed playing tri-arachnid 2

I was looking at this, and I zoomed in at the final page of words. There is a further line of text after "Just as it was before"
but it is very hidden and I can barely make it out

"He pressed his cheek to hers he pressed his cheek"

Oh, nevermind. I just noticed that I sawthis earlier.

Anyway, on the subject of interpretation. I agree with previous speculations that it might be a metaphor for birth, a metaphor for life. I think it might just be a work of fiction. Perhaps the captions between stages aren't referring to a third person, but to the creature we control. In the stage where there are two, the caption before read something about a new person, and the caption after reads that he left you or you made him leave or something like that. And the last level you are spreading your eggs again to restart the whole thing.
Basically, I think it is a story about these fetus-like creatures. But I can't decide for sure.

Can somebody please tell me with the answer to how "beat" "level" 2. Nothing happens!

To Kotenku...I enjoyed reading your interpretation immensely!! I did not elaborate as you did in my comments, but many of the emotions you expressed, I touched on. I spent a great deal of time thinking about the various meanings, but you articulated your thoughts beautifully! I will say it again...no matter the interpretation, Coil is about the cycle of life. The poetry was exquisite and I believe that, had it just been a game to complete, we would have left it at that...I wish more games would spark the discussion that this one has. Again...well written!

...Wow, so much debate.

I never thought of rape metaphors, as I just saw the main character as a fetus: growing, developing, eliminating competition, with the final fall into the water at the end signifying its final trimester before it gets unleashed upon the world. I thought of the text as a rapport between the mother and her unborn child, with maternal instincts meeting with fear.

Problem is, that doesn't equate any uses of "He" with Time, and nor does it include the heart-bubbling sperm-shooting dogfight before the final act.

I actually spent most of the game