Not fun, not profound
There are two reasons you might want to play Passage: (1) You think it might be fun; (2) You think it might be artful and deep. Let me disabuse you of those hopes.
There is no question of it being fun—it is an unremarkable, thin, tedious game by any measure, and the iOS controls make an already clunky interface downright unpleasant. You will not hear even its fans describe it as fun.
Is it art? Well, there does seem to be a certain class of people who find this game profound and meaningful. It is—Ill grant you—one of the very few games that deals with the tragic, ominous, and inevitable nature of death. But this treatment is quite cursory and minimal. Its hard for me to imagine anyone seriously "tearing up"—as some have reported doing—as the 5-minute game reaches its end. The road to this games "deep insights" is so tedious and banal, that whatever delight you might gain from experiencing its postage-stamp portrait of life, memory, marriage, material pursuit, and death is hardly worth the time it takes to reach it.
If this is the height of game art, then the state of game art is pretty dismal. No surprise there.
In any case, this app is not worth your $.99. Download it for free online. Be delighted or bemused—your choice. Pay for it and youll regret it.
Dimbleby about
Passage