The Company of Myself: Art For Loners

Back in 2009, the recently released The Company of Myself struck a chord with lonely gamers and soared to popularity.  As of today, Kongregate lists the game as having been played over five million times.  (The Company of Myself has also been played millions of times on websites like Newgrounds and Armor Games.)  By combining a heart-wrenching story with a thought-provoking mechanic, The Company of Myself managed to achieve a relevance that hasn't yet faded.

That's as much as I'll offer before throwing out a spoiler notice.  If you haven't experienced The Company of Myself, go play the game.

Two aspects of this game stand out as deserving the title of 'art': the story and the gameplay.  Oddly enough, however, neither would feel particularly interesting or emotionally impactful without the other.  But I'll get into that later—for now, let's start discussing the game.

The Company of Myself depicts a session between a therapist and his patient Jack.  During their time together, Jack explains how he no longer needs anyone as well as remarks on the mysterious way his girlfriend disappeared from his life.  The twists lies in that Jack has no idea he killed his girlfriend—or that this is the last time he will see his therapist before entering a high security mental institution for the rest of his life.

"Teamwork" at its finest.

Describing this story doesn't do it justice; while this plot sounds cliché, the excellent execution prevents this game from devolving into an amnesia-induced murder mystery.  That said, the execution lies in the gameplay; if developer Eli Piilonen had written a novella instead of developing a game, The Company of Myself probably wouldn't have been discovered by millions.  Some of the writing, particularly in the opening monologue, feels melodramatic and whiny.

Yet the combination of story and gameplay works perfectly.  The Company of Myself utilizes a mechanic in which the player character creates clones of himself. This idea originated in Lemmings, and has been further explored through games like Cloning Clyde. But The Company of Myself uses the mechanic to establish a point: Jack has learned to do everything by myself.

Standing on his head = love

The game eventually shifts to a flashback in which the player controls both Jack and his girlfriend Kathryn.  Jack cannot create clones of himself—instead, the puzzle must be solved by switching between characters.  This systematic 'teamwork' presents Jack as a character who depends on his romantic relationship.  After all, these levels cannot be beaten without using both Jack and Kathryn.


The flashback ends on an ominous note as Jack flips a switch that removes the platform from underneath his girlfriend.  She plummets downwards as Jack wonders what happened to her. Although few people realize this until they reach the ending, this level requires the player to serve as Kathryn's murderer.  The gameplay makes this abundantly clear—when Jack falls, The Company of Myself enters a fail-state that is only resolved by restarting the level.  Unfortunately, the final flashback level requires Kathryn to have fallen, thus implying her death.

...yup.

The ending, in which the player realizes Jack has been talking to a therapist, tethers the story to the gameplay.  After Jack suffered a mental breakdown that cost him his short term memory, he was sent to live in solitary confinement at a hospital.  Because of his loneliness Jack grew to think of himself as a loner, his thoughts manifesting in The Company of Myself as imaginary clones.  The therapist then reveals how Jack killed Kathryn, adding terrible significance to the mid-game flashback.  Finally, Jack buried his girlfriend in a green box—the same green box the player needs to reach in order to complete each level.

The Company of Myself stands as an example of an art game because of the powerful link between gameplay and story.  The graphics are not particularly beautiful, and the music is competent but not overwhelmingly impressive.  Yet The Company of Myself did something no other medium could, and as such I consider it art.



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