I am not going to drudge up the half decomposed discourse around whether games are art or not. They most certainly offer up a huge range of experiences that other mediums do not. Experiences that wrench the heart, that cause tears of joy, that get you to rethink your very existence, that cover that period in time where developers started having kids and birthed the dad game. And then there is Horse Magnifier. A game where you magnify horses. A game that I like quite a lot!

I fear that someone might learn about a game called Horse Magnifier and say to me “what could possibly be good about a game where you magnify horses and literally nothing else?” First I would tell you you’re wrong! You do not only magnify horses, you also shrink, flip, and twist them, so hah! Who’s got the last laugh now?

It is, at a glance, a simple puzzle game. On the left is a horse, distorted in shape thanks to having been magnified. On the right is another horse, the same JPEG of the same horse, unchanged. In the middle is a lens, or multiple lenses sometimes, of which you have to move into just the right position over the right horse so as to match the visage of the horse on the left. You have to be pretty precise, and occasionally lay lenses over one another to get the desired result.

There aren’t a huge number of levels right now, only 18 so far, as it was made as part of a game jam, but there are seemingly plans to bring it to Steam and for there to even be a level editor. Even as small as it is, I am just pleasantly charmed by it. I spoke of the experiences that games can offer, and one thing I think the medium actually struggles quite a lot with is comedy.

You’ll find comedy in games, sure enough, just in the same way a character might make an annoying quip in a Marvel movie. They might even be jokes that actually make you laugh! Yet a movie having a joke does not make it a comedy, and much can be said the same of games. I think the issue that arises is that the question of how you make gameplay funny is quite a difficult one to answer.

There have and continue to be games that have managed to figure it out, recent examples like Baby Steps and Thank Goodness You’re Here! certainly prove that. I’m just glad there’s still games like Horse Magnifier, smaller in scope and scale, that are around to get me to laugh much in the same way a horse does the thing. You know what I mean.

You can check out Horse Magnifier over on Itch.io right here.