Gallery One

As the saying goes, art is one of the few selfless things a person can do, or at least it was. Whether it’s a piece of music, a painting, a movie or a video game, art comes in many forms, but its underlying purpose is to transmit emotions and maybe awaken some feelings in the ones admiring it. On the other hand, even art has become tainted by the rush for money and fame, which is why it’s difficult to find artwork that reflects the author’s imagination instead of being a simple mirror designed for a specific audience.

Gallery One is an intriguing video game in which your only purpose is to walk around an art gallery and look at the artwork that’s displayed on the walls. In fact, it’s more of an interactive portfolio than anything else, so don’t expect anything remotely close to a story or engaging gameplay mechanics. Even so, it’s a very relaxing experience that can broaden your horizons.

The gallery contains the artwork of the developer, Michael Sandford, and it ranges from bizarre drawings, to comics and a few other experiments. Even if the actual graphics are obviously quite basic, it’s nice to see that all the artwork is presented in high-resolution, which allows you to really get a good look at it and ponder on what some of the pieces might represent.

To keep you from getting bored, there’s also the option to have short chats with other people you can find around the gallery. Each one of them has some kind of story you can hear, even if you cannot respond back or create some kind of overall narrative. On top of that, it’s also possible to stumble onto secret passages that lead to hidden rooms where additional artwork is displayed.

As mentioned before, don’t expect an awful lot from the graphics from a technical point of view, but the game looks very clean and smooth. Each drawing or comic is displayed in high-resolution, and you can even read the text to catch all the jokes. The music is decent as well, or at least non-intrusive, which is also a good thing.

In the end, Gallery One is a classic example of art with no other purpose than to make the viewer feel something. It may not be too much of a video game, but there are enough interesting drawings in there to keep your mind in limbo for quite a bit of time.