I couldn’t resist spending $.99 to downoad Ian Bogost’s Guru Meditation for iPhone, which is a port of the Atari VCS meditation “game”.
It is the opposite of a traditional game, in that the goal is to basically sit very still and do nothing. The iPhone version requires you to keep the phone level and stil while in a quiet environment. As you keep your thumbs on the screen and sit still, the little guru starts to levitate, clouds drift by and time passes. If you move, the guru drops. In a strict sense, it is a bit unzenlike in that there is a bit of lust-after-results in making the little guy levitate, but it does make you sit still and stare at a single spot. I have had a few problems with it, namely that I think the accleorometer calibration is a bit too touchy — it is extremely difficult to stay that still. More importantly, the application takes input from the microphone to ensure a quiet environment, which unfortunately makes this impossible to use in a coffeeshop, on a bus or anywhere where there’s too much ambient noise, which is too bad, because these might be exactly the environments in which one might want to use it, especially given some of the rationale for the iPhone version:
The iPhone offers a unique opportunity for a true relaxation game, since it makes such constant demands on our attention—telephone, email, text messages, Twitter, etc. Guru Meditation for iPhone literally makes it impossible to pursue other activities while playing. As such, it offers a convenient secondary commentary on the often overwhelming values of “connection” that today’s portable communication devices embrace.
Despite these limitations, the app offers an interesting…err…meditation..on the use of electronic devices, connection and activitiy in video games and offers an interesting alternative to the twitch culture not only of games but of texting, twittering and chatting on these devices.
