The beauty of Kian Bashiri’s You Have To Burn The Rope is that it can be interpreted in many different ways. If you haven’t played this little flash gem, do yourself a favour and check it out now.

The game has become something of an internet sensation and has provoked much debate regarding what message it is trying to convey. From Hardcasual’s commentary and distaste with YHTBTR’s interpretation (or lack thereof) by the general blogosphere to Rock Paper Shotgun’s rebuttal, the bottom line is that the game has people talking and contemplating the nature of games and how/why we play them.

Kian Bashiri offered an explanation of his game in an interview with Indie Games:

“Well, it is a joke. And I don’t want to say too much about it, because dissecting a joke always makes it unfunny. Part of it is this really silly idea, and part of it is this statement about how games are too hard and complicated. It’s also a subtle reference to how some games are kind of patronizing toward the player, like too easy.
But I never set out to make it this way, it kind of turned into this with time. It started out as an attempt to make a game that spoiled the whole experience for you before you played it. Funnily enough, people really don’t read instructions…”

So gather from it what you will, either way it’s clever piece of satire and it’s not often you can say that about a game — it deserves all the attention it has been getting.