By Teresa Hung
Right away when you visit this site, you will notice a small cartoon
elephant wearing red-rimmed sunglasses. This elephant is Snout. He's
the one moving back and forth somewhat frantically across a small
square within a table of colorful square links to puzzles, shockwave
animations, and other random projects. You can watch Snout in a lengthy
(maybe ten minutes) animated clip in which he dreams that bulldogs
(funny-looking dogs) are attacking him, and so he goes to visit his
therapist who attempts to remedy him but only gets strange results.
The whole clip is rather strange, but unpredictable and entertaining.
This animation was probably the best part of the site. Other features
include a short animation of the dying of a flower, another interactive
window in which a shrink, who also happens to be a rabbit, will respond
(in speech bubbles) in psychoanalytical speak to your questions and
remarks that you type in. There is also a simple car game you can
play. Basically you steer your car down a straight road, and soon
you come upon other cars, which you must avoid, and soon the road
is clogged and you are forced to crash. And that is the end of the
game. In another game, which is similar to Nintendo's Duck Hunt, you
try to shoot this rabbit, but he will dodge your bullet every time
and make a smart comment about your poor marksmanship. In the Interview
with Mister Big, your mouse pointer turns into a microphone, and every
time you mouse over this alligator's mouth, he will mumble in a low
voice something unrecognizable in response to an interview question,
usually a question that is suggestive of something potentially humorous
relating to Mister Big.
Some of the projects are clever, but most of them I've seen before
(or something like it). The site, it appears, was created by one guy,
except for one other guy who put together some accompanying music
that resembles the stuff you commonly hear in video games.
I probably gave away most of the surprises of the site in this brief
description, but this partly is to prove my point now. There doesn't
seem to be too much to the site that kept my attention for more than
a couple of minutes, aside from the entertaining animation clip of
Snout and his nightmare and therapy story. Perhaps it might be interesting
to check out to see what this one guy has come up with playing around
with Flash and Shockwave and smart remarks, but I don't think it's
a site that I would revisit.