Guru Meditation
by Eric March on May 27, 2009 at 4:59 pm
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App Name: | Guru Meditation |
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| Developer: | Ian Bogost |
Version: | 1.1 | |
| Publisher: | Ian Bogost |
Size: | 314 KB |
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| Category: | Health & Fitness |
Price: | $0.99 |
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Aw, yeah, now we’re talking. Speaking of retro, we’re going to go back to the grandaddy of the console industry, the Atari 2600, a system Ian Bogost knows enough of to write a book about.
First, about this app and its roots: Commodore Amiga alum will recognize the name of this app instantly. Guru Meditation Error was an oft-seen, flashing-red-bordered error message Amiga users would be presented with whenever something made the system crash hard. The error message has its roots in the days when Amiga was a company unto itself, not a brand of computer, headed up by CEO Jay Miner, and they made peripherals and games for the Atari 2600. Their most notable pairing was a game called Mogul Madness, which was sold with an accessory called the Joyboard, which is the ultimate predecessor to modern foot-actuated controllers for games like Wii Fit or the upcoming Tony Hawk’s Ride. (Yeah, that’s right, this stuff ain’t even remotely new, and I’ll thank you to kindly get off my lawn.)
However, when Amiga turned their intentions to developing a video game system, programmer RJ Mical developed a simple game for his own personal use (it was never released to the public). It was called Zen Meditation, and the object of the game was to sit on the joyboard absolutely motionless. It helped him relax. The game became a bit of a running joke when Amiga’s investors, Hi-Toro, in watching the video game market collapse in 1983, asked Jay Miner (who also designed the Atari 400/800 series of computers) if he could convert the game system they were working on into a full-fledged computer. They did so, and the joke became the basis for the Zen Meditation Error the Amiga would present when it crashed: After all, the point of the game was to sit absolutely still and do nothing, and that’s exactly what the Amiga was doing when it crashed.
It follows then that Guru Meditation for the iPhone is Ian Bogost’s attempt to bring that concept to Apple’s pocketables. It’s really quite simple: You find yourself a nice quiet place where you can relax, then start the app by tapping on the set of hands holding a device on the screen. (Yes, those are hands. This is 2600-caliber graphics here, people. Realism need not apply.) From there you place your thumbs where the virtual thumbs are on the screen, sit perfectly still, and chill. The on-screen guru will slowly begin to rise off his mat, and will eventually begin to bob as he hovers several inches off the ground. A timer will begin to count up to keep track of how long you’re able to keep your zen on for.
Guru Meditation on the iPhone does do things that the 2600 never could: It utilizes the accelerometer to make sure you’re sitting perfectly still. Any sudden movements and your guru will come crashing back to his matt and the game is over. It also monitors the microphone input on the iPhone (Touch not supported here) to make sure you’re in a relatively quiet environment. It can put up with some level of moderate, consistent background noise (if you have a fan going, for example), but any sudden noises will set it off and once again your guru’s butt will be reintroduced to terra firma. At the start of the game you’ll be shown a noise meter to let you know what the current noise level is at. If the noise meter isn’t allowed to settle down into some consistent pattern you won’t be able to start the game until you’re in a properly quiet environment condusive to meditation — that’s the whole point of this, after all.
I can’t really call this a proper game because … well, you don’t do anything, and that’s the whole point. There’s no winning, though you can “lose”, and the timer could be considered a score, and so you score higher the longer you’re able to do nothing. But it’s not interactive in the same way games are — it’s just the opposite. I guess you could call this an uninteractive game. But in wrestling with what category to put this — games? Health & Fitness? Entertainment? — I ultimately chose the intermediary, because it’s not a proper game, and it’s not really intended to be entertaining in the way you’re thinking. Although it’s got nice, chunky retro 2600 graphics and sound, its ultimate, underlying purpose is to help you achieve something of a meditative state condusive to relaxation and mental focus. You can chant the Mukti mantra if you want (y’know, the whole Ohmmmmm chant) — in fact, if you’re into that whole Yogic meditation thing (you hippie, you), you can give this helpful article a read on the proper way to exercise the mantra.
And about those graphics: You may be wondering, why the retro makeover? An homage to the Amiga and the origins of the whole Guru Meditation thing? Well, yes, in large part, but there’s a more directly relevant reason: Ian Bogost is also a hobbyist Atari 2600 programmer and originally developed this game as a homebrew cartridge that runs on a real Atari 2600. In fact, from this link, you can buy either the game cartridge itself for collectors and retro enthusiasts who already have a 2600 and a joyboard, or you can buy the entire kit, which includes the game, manual, Amiga Joyboard, and a 2600 console, so you can recreate the whole RJ Mical experience using the original hardware. The iPhone version is patterned exactly after the 2600 version to the extent that, except for the accelerometer, touchscreen and microphone features, everything you see and hear in the iPhone version is exactly as it is, or can be fully reproduced, on real 2600 hardware. (The iPone version does differ a bit visually from the 2600 version in part for fairly obvious reasons.)
Obviously, Guru Meditation isn’t for everyone. You’re either going to like it for its ability to assist in meditation and/or its faithfully-reproduced retro 2600 visuals and audio, or you’re going to think it’s utterly useless because you don’t go in for all that hippie crap and/or retro is lame. Whatever your preference, it’s a buck, so you’re not out much even if you are on the fence.
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