Textural Videogames UNIVERSES OF EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE
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PLAYING THE GAME P R E S E N T S
Textural Videogames
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Textural Videogames: Universes of Emotional Experience Published by Connessioni Future – Non-profit organization. Copyright Š 2016 by Connessioni Future. All rights reserved. Printed and distributed by Lulu.com, ID 18192602 ISBN 978-1-326-51844-8 All product and company names are the properties of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged. This publication is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein.
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Table of contents IX Textural Videogames
Paolo Branca XIII Foreword
Filippo Lorenzin
Essays 3 Paul Booth Decides to Write about
The Stanley Parable Paul Booth
5 Rhizomatic Poetry
Federica Fiumelli 7 [open-ended-concept-game-writing]
Giulia Incani 9 Being in the worlds
Paolo Mele 11 Death in trial and full version:
The Graveyard Adela Muntean
13 (By)passing the scheme. Videogames beyond convention
Claudio Musso
15 Artificial feat. Real
Giorgia Noto 17 Bursting the Balloon: The Incredible Machine &
the Pedagogical Potential of Metagames Michelle & Marc A. Ouellette
21 [‘video’ʤɔko]
Giuliano Tarlao 23 ICO: Teenage Symphonies to the Gods
Francesco Tenaglia 25 Capitalist Logic in Animal Crossing
Stephanie Vie
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 29 Animal Crossing (Dōbutsu no Mori) 30 Autopret 31 Creatures 32 Fract OSC 33 Ico 34 Little Computer People 35 L.O.L.: Lack of Love 36 L.S.D.: Dream Emulator
37 Myst 38 ΘRΑΩLE 39 Progression 40 Proteus 41 Spore Creature Creator 42 The Graveyard 43 The Incredible Machine 44 The Secret of Monkey Island 45 The Stanley Parable
Indiegames: Interviews with the Authors 49 Autopret
Interview with Sander van der Vegte 51 Fract OSC
Interview with Richard E. Flanagan 53 ΘRΑΩLE
Interview with ceMelusine 55 Progression
Interview with Alex Kriss
57 Proteus
Interview with Ed Key 59 The Graveyard
Interview with Tale of Tales 61 The Stanley Parable
Interview with Davey Wreden
Credits 65 Project Partners
Textural Videogames Paolo Branca
The text you are reading is integral to an investigation that Playing The Game has carried out since its onset, formalized by the homonymous event that took place in October 2012 in Milan. Playing The Game is an interdisciplinary platform whose centre of activity is the investigation of videogames; it fosters their creative and innovative vocation, enabling research into their peculiar potential, in the process uncovering the relations they develop with other forms of culture. Alongside its research and study activities, every year Playing The Game organizes several events aimed at involving both industry experts and the general public. By doing so it broadens access to the featured works using clear strategies, stimulating debate and open discourse around the themes investigated by the platform. In October 2014, Playing The Game presented the third edition of its yearly event within Pirelli HangarBicocca’s prestigious area for the opening of the Milan Games Week 2014; the core of the event was a selection of videogames belonging to a 30-year span of time that defied the most typical videogame criteria: the accumulation of points and the passing of levels. One of Playing The Game’s objectives is to encourage public perception of videogames as culturally relevant media. That is why the choice of the venue for the event was so important, as Pirelli HangarBicocca is one of the most prominent spaces for culture and dialogue amongst disciplines in Italy.
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Textural Videogames at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan Games Week 2014. Photo by Riccardo Scarparo.
X  Textural Videogames
The section dedicated to the best critical essays (gathered through an international call for works) is essential to this publication; the selected texts have been written by a diverse range of personalities and are meant to investigate the issue from multiple points of view. Besides these contributions, the volume you are reading includes a number of interviews carried out with independent videogames developers whose works were exhibited at the HangarBicocca. The term independent videogames, often used in opposition to mainstream videogames, defines products conceived by single individuals or small groups, generally without support from the publishers – the large companies that finance and promote videogames; this means that independent developers deal with both the project art direction and its technical realization. The idea to entitle this publication Textural Videogames was inspired from one of these interviews, specifically the one given by ceMelusine, creator of ΘRΑΩLE. In this interview, the developer hopes for a more textural, rather than mechanical, future game culture. The term textural, thanks to its evocative though not perfectly defined nature, is a very appropriate adjective to define a varied host of videogames that transcend the quantified and objective-oriented dimensions of gaming. With this work, Playing The Game wants to be at the forefront in witnessing the new perspective through which the medium is looked at, one perfectly represented by the thriving production of independent videogames that go beyond the cultural imperative of the accumulation of points to become environmental software, emphasizing exploration and experience. This volume is therefore a tool that has been able to record theoretical and critical stimuli regarding the gaming scene, a cultural phenomenon that requires to be acknowledged.
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Playing The Game invites all to contribute, sharing impressions and pointing out games to be focused on in forthcoming initiatives. The research will move on into unexplored territories and it would be a pity not to be a part of it. Paolo Branca (Milan, 1981) deals with projects related to videogames. Under the moniker VjVISUALOOP he has created audiovisual performances, videos, artwork and interactive installations. His work has been shown at exhibitions including Playlist in Spain and Belgium, Italians Do It Better!!, at Venice’s Biennale, Atopic Machinima Film Festival in Paris and at the Nam June Paik Summer Festival at the Nam June Paik Art Center in South Korea. Founder of Playing The Game, he authored Super Mario. L’icona Nintendo e i suoi mondi (Apogeo, Gruppo Feltrinelli) and other editorial initiatives; he has taken part in several festivals and events in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, Turkey and the US.
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Foreword
Filippo Lorenzin Videogames have always been focused on the competition, with rules designed to reward player skill: for example, in certain titles you have to accumulate more points than the opponent, in others to be the fastest or to pass unscathed past the obstacles set up by programmers. This is true for various videogames: in Pong (1972) and Grand Theft Auto V (2013), through to Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Chrono Trigger (1995), to name just a few of the best known. In all these cases the player has had to deal with systems and logic drawn from the quantification of his or her efforts and ability. This stems from the fact that videogames are computer programs and, as such, their logic can only be based on the numbers and the division of experience and narration into many levels and distinct zones. There have always been, however, videogames that have experimented with the intimate structure of the medium and offered ways of interacting that went beyond the levels that have to be exceeded, or the annihilation of opponents. For example in Myst (1993), exploration is at the core of the gameplay, while in Animal Crossing (2001) there is no real goal to reach in order to win. In Creatures (1996), the player must take care of digital characters without the imposition of pre-determined purpose, and in ICO (2001) the narration of the story is not limited to very specific sections. In these and other titles, in short, fulfilment systems and the fragmentation of experience are denied to make room for other modes of interaction.
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Creation and development of these resistances to Boolean logic are phenomenons which aren’t new for those who study the history of relations between men and technology: the cultural context that must assimilate the logic resulting from a new instrument gives rise, voluntarily or not, to elements that could, by virtue of a special structure, clash openly with those which are taking over the traditional methods. A willingness to return to a mythical bucolic world without the accompaniment of constraining rules, from the beginning, the introduction of industrial machines that have revolutionized practices and attitudes hitherto uncontested: the rhythms of open space are not marked by mechanical systems and it is the illusion that accompanied the Western industrial technology development – a vision that we can recognize today in countless and varied guises. Thus, quantitative logic is a control manifestation and vehicle of a culture intended to dominate the lives of individuals: the social context to which we belong is steeped in products and items using numbers to define the actions and human behaviour. This problem became apparent with evidence in recent years with the introduction of the Internet and especially social networks in our private lives: the fetish of notifications and the number of contacts rule a more or less consistent part in our relations front and away from our screens. It is no coincidence, then, that in recent years the number of videogames that seek to weaken the mechanical system of points and levels has increased exponentially: there is a need to respond, exceed this number and return to a world in where one can act and play without anxiety of the preset goal, the only yardstick of our ability. A major factor to consider is concerning the companies that develop these works: they’re very often independent teams that, perhaps for a necessity dictated by the desire to differentiate XIV Textural Videogames
their offerings from those of the larger developers, produce innovative titles that push the concept of videogame to shores which are not explored enough. We’re not on the other hand discussing a topic for a closed audience: the industry has noticed this trend and videogames like Journey (2012) and Kentucky Route Zero (2013) have achieved great success with audiences and critics. The 2014 edition of Playing The Game is designed to be a precise and unprecedented attempt to highlight an interesting and unexplored situation: as the entertainment industry reaches its greatest level of economic success, there lies at its interior an attempt to eliminate the quantification of the ability, or the logic on which it is based and which is, to a certain extent, the maximum embodiment. Filippo Lorenzin (Padua, 1989) is the curator of Playing The Game. He studied at Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice and at IUAV. An independent curator and critic of contemporary art, he’s mainly interested in the relationship between art, technology and society, following a cross-disciplinary path converging disciplines including anthropology, psychology and history.
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XVI  Textural Videogames
Essays
2  Textural Videogames
Paul Booth Decides to Write about The Stanley Parable Paul Booth
Paul Booth wakes up one day and thinks about writing something about a videogame called The Stanley Parable. He sits down at his computer but even the words to write about the game escape him: I’ve finished The Stanley Parable but I wouldn’t say that I’ve beaten it. Or, rather, should that be, I’ve beaten The Stanley Parable but I’ve never finished it. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure that words like “finish” or “beat” should be applied to The Stanley Parable at all. The “game” takes place in an office building with character Stanley, whose sole job is to press the buttons on the keyboard that he is told to press. A narrator intones what Stanley is doing and the player has the choice to either follow what the narrator instructs or to deviate from the narrative by following her own pathway. There are multiple ways for the game to end, but none of them are “correct.” Or perhaps all of them are. Paul Booth is understandably confused because The Stanley Parable is a comment about the nature of playing videogames, but is also a game, but is not a game, and is also not a comment about playing games. By connecting Stanley and the player through first person POV, The Stanley Parable ties what Stanley does to what the player does. In a traditional videogame, players learn what buttons to press, in what order, and at what length, in order to progress through the Essays 3
game. Looked at from this angle, videogames train players how to be better button hitters. Paul Booth is concerned about writing that last sentence because it makes it sound like he doesn’t respect the complexities of gaming, but actually he believes good videogames can encourage critical thinking, adaptive learning, and ethical decision making. But he decides to keep the sentence as the piece is about The Stanley Parable, which does all of these things. In Learning, Education, and Games, Schrier writes that players spend time “making ethical choices and reflecting on the consequences” of them (p. 146). And in the Journal of Games Criticism, Heron and Belford write “within this strange design are many insightful observations about the structure of the concept of the videogame.” In my experience, choice is paramount and choice is meaningless. Paul Booth suddenly realizes The Stanley Parable is actually about more than videogames: it’s about life and the way that we make meaningful and meaningless choices everyday. And that often, that’s the same choice. Paul Booth hits save. Paul Booth is at DePaul University. He is the editor of Fan Phenomena: Doctor Who, and the author of Game Play, Playing Fans, Time on TV and Digital Fandom. He is currently enjoying a cup of coffee.
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Rhizomatic Poetry Federica Fiumelli
Exploration. If only one word were necessary, it would be this one, as it perfectly describes the purpose of the 2014 edition of Playing The Game. The Stanley Parable is a perfect demonstration of how gaming and artistic practices can converge and collide. A paradox. We will follow the story, or not, we have a choice, we don’t, the game will end, it will not end. Quoting Groys: contemporary art is where the paradox is revealed, and the greatest difficulty in dealing with the contemporary is precisely to accept paradoxical and contradictory interpretations as true. The seventeen selected videogames shortcircuit the mainstream vision of gaming. No levels, no accumulation of points to win the game. The inner linguistic codes of play are subverted. As obsessed as we are by accumulation of downloads and views through the likes of Facebook and Instagram, the imperative here is play for the sake of playing. Exploration. It is a return strong. So close to experiencing, the experience of art willed by Dewey. The latter said: “It is not the perfection the ultimate goal of life, but the incessant process of perfecting, maturing and refining.” In these videogames, there is no purpose or goal other than the process, the experience. Players become flâneurs in the dream environment. Surrealism is in your reach on the screen. A Flâneur – a player free from consumerist programs that prioritize the ongoing challenge to gain a high score. Essays 5
From urban explorer to videogames explorer. Quoting Elisabetta Orsini “The game is therefore a poetic ability to find everything in nothing.” And if the spirit of the game has a spherical nature (from spinning tops to marbles and balls), Playing The Game chooses to break the linearity, consequential points-levels, and proclaims the absolute and swirling movement of the decadent explorer. A fictional construction of worlds in the world. Similar to how Léger spoke on how avant-garde cinema ran contrary to film work based on the script or the star, experimental videogames today are a reaction to the consumerist routine: “It’s the imagination and the game against the commercial order of the others.” Walk around and explore things, similar to “linking” in L.S.D.: Dream Emulator, persons, animals, objects of various kinds will appear as if part of a strange dream. Thus, videogames as poetic rhizomatous game celebrate the vanguard in its convergence between art and videogames. Federica Fiumelli is a student at the two-year specialization of Art Education and Cultural Mediation of the Artistic Heritage, graduated at DAMS in Bologna. She collaborates with many web magazines, from Vogue to WSI. You can read her blog at quellochevedoio.blogspot.it She wakes up and continues to dream, writing. Precipitously.
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[open-endedconcept-game-writing] Giulia Incani
i enter admin and password. i enter the room. i’m invited to a private match. you can play only if you are a sniper. and all you have are twenty-five hundred shots. i accept. i press always “X.” i do as when people who could not write, they gave their consent by signing with a cross. but a cross is like another only when you do not have an identity. my profile is low. i selected its characteristics from a neatly pre-packaged database – order: system, architecture, style, order. closed circle. illusory as the classical order. imperative as the orders of power. game and power. their zero is a rule. 0\1 – the only possible terminal language. game\power. both controllable, programmable, quantifiable, reversible. their fractal structure is divided into self-sufficient writing modules. data have discrete characters because their nature is discontinuous, as the virtual space. their identities are indivisible, changeable, variable. their ability to copy is without loss. each rounded up order is indicative of manic disorders. each rounded down order causes a bug. a bug is a virtual lapsus. a memory loss that disrupts the logic of algorithmic syntax until it crash. the disorder of a system is uncontrollable. the order of a system is tactical. every tactic is military. every military is mutilated. we are all mutilated. we play war. we restock prosthesis. we are armed. with each loss of signal we remain unarmed – without arms. the virtual space is the one of our disharmonious-disarm. there is no time – in our times of guerrillas of keystrokes. without tools – terms – language – openings – the identity implodes taking Essays 7
responsibility away in the smooth space of digital sinking. expatriation can only be cultural. we play anyway. we play-risk-press. it is our holy simulacral rite. the affection it produces is discreet as a given and as a highly replaceable temporary object. and meanwhile the power triggers its aesthetic-instrumental strategy. it is a bomb with special effects. we run to the shelters in the more possible remote sites. at the end of the games – congestion is real. i played in defense or attack? i get out. in this room the connection lags. Giulia Incani lives and work between Padua and Venice, where she graduated in Painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti. Among the most recent: many thorns, some videos, various writings and few drawings.
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Being in the worlds Paolo Mele
Since their birth, computer games have by and large developed a common narrative: accomplish missions, complete levels, achieve scores. It is the very nature of the algorithm behind it: ask the user to grapple with the challenge, compete and possibly solve (win) it. Manovich writes: “Playing videogames creates a continuous loop between the user (who looks at the output and performs actions by entering input) and the computer (which calculates the output and returns them to the user). The user tries to build a mental model that simulates that of the computer.” Today, however, the game very often transcends this purely recreational and competitive dimension and also becomes a work of art. One example is Mountain, an app created by David O’Reilly, the same animator who gave life to the game that Theodore struggled with in the film Her, helped by OS Samantha. O’Reilly is famous for his minimal and effective animations: no special effects and defining details in Pixar style, but simple geometry and raw renderings. It is as if the animation liberates the idea of emulating the real and strive for perfection, just as happened to the painting after the advent of photography. The key of aesthetics is coherence, argues O’Reilly. Coherence transcends time, as does the metaphysical mountain of the app of which there is “no control, time flows, the nature is manifested.” In the same school of uncompetitive aesthetic coherence there is also the app Polyfauna, created by the band Radiohead: a journey into a world inspired by the first experiments of “computer-life” and imaginary creatures of our subconscious. Essays 9
Domenico Quaranta identifies three main aesthetic trends in game production: one is photographic, which tends to immerse us in the plot, one is abstract, more pop and surreal, and a third way that he calls “baroque” “referring to the aesthetics of polygonal 3D games, but trying to subvert the tendency towards photorealism in different ways.” Mountain and Polyfauna are part of this tradition, which in many ways was already mapped out by the creations of the collective Tale of Tales. However, despite increasing accessibility and growing interest in the world of the game, many hurdles have yet to be overcome. If not by artists, then by developers, and not least, the users who are showing that there are different way of play and being in the world. Or rather the worlds. Paolo Mele is a Ph.D. student in Communication and New Technologies (IULM, Milan) and visiting researcher at The New School (New York). President of the association Ramdom, and an active practitioner in the field of contemporary art, he has worked for several national and international organizations.
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Death in trial and full version: The Graveyard Adela Muntean
Since characters were inserted in videogames, death has been an important feature of these. Dying meant losing points or restarting a level; it was an element that created interruption, promoting repetition and ultimately frustration. A rare exception that provides whole new ways to look at digital mortality is found in The Graveyard: in the trial version, the meditation on death actually creates the plot of the game. The screen drained from all color fetishizes the moment before death in a subtle way, treating it as a scene in itself. If you buy the full version there is a chance that your character will die during play. The game is obviously symbolic and our challenge is to notice and interpret the visual and sound metaphors to further understand the meaning and the nuances they create. In The Graveyard we are reminded of our fragility in a situation of self-reflection: our character is an old woman on the verge of death. Rather than focusing on practical things, our attention is driven to observe the poetic elements: the slow movement of the clouds that are obfuscating the sun create a vivid play of light to contrast the black and white image reducing or enhancing the character’s shadow, the only element that accompanies the woman who is otherwise completely alone. The sound of the wind suggests emptiness, the sound of the crows is associated with death, the ambulance suggests danger and the barking dogs may predict the occurrence of an unforeseen event. Essays 11
The chirping birds, the cicadas and the falling leaves suggest the peacefulness of the graveyard. As the old woman grows tired, her steps shorten and slow down and the short distance to the bench seems endless. When she finally reaches it and sits down, the sounds of the elements around her are drowned out by the dying character’s auditory hallucinations and flashbacks and we listen to a song which has different meanings depending on which part of the story is heard: in the trial version the lyrics even offer some background stories, recalling memories about characters that otherwise never appear in the game. The full version allows us to listen to the song twice, as this is repeated after the woman’s death so that the verse “Fell down into a dream” symbolizes her being released. During the game, all visual and sound elements are repeated in short loops suggesting the inevitable eternity of death. Adela Muntean has participated in several film, television and digital media projects, workshops and conferences: her latest works were presented in Holland within the framework of LPM – Live Performers Meeting, in France during the Sophia Digital Art Festival and in Italy, Milan.
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(By)passing the scheme. Videogames beyond convention Claudio Musso
“Do you know what happens to me when I die? I stand there waiting to start over.” Solo (Nirvana, Gabriele Salvatores, 1997) If there are still cultural products capable of representing the complexity of an era, videogames should be considered one of the cornerstones of our collective imagery. The aesthetics of videogames, the practice of videogaming, the many and varied influences of videogames on all contemporary visual cultures – from cinema up to graphic design – end up being essential data for those who wish to examine the present reality or realities. If the videogame is a medium, it bears, as such, features that go beyond the limits of its “frame” (or its “screen”), so much that they are able to affect and modify deep-seated habits, behaviours and practices. This in particular refers to its output; but what happens when you challenge the internal rules? By inverting the established point of view, those who develop videogaming systems break the conventions and parameters that their medium is founded upon (passing from one level to the next, continuous repetition, specific objectives, etc.) employing instruments that are dear to conceptual art, thus opening up new possibilities for reflection. Are videogames as a medium destined to disintegrate from within? Is the existence of the videogame jeopardized by experimental products that break Essays 13
the established norm? Those who will have the ability to reach the last level will discover the answers; what matters is that there is a burgeoning of actions that contrast with the primigenial categories, serving as opposition to oppressive or coercive values that are extremely remote from playfulness. Gaming as either fun, hobby, or competition under specific rules is united by sabotaging quantification of the recreational experience. Claudio Musso is an art critic, independent curator, and lecturer. A Ph.D. in Art History, he writes for Artribune and Digicult Journal, has lectured on the relationship between art and technology, and collaborated with international festivals including roBOt Festival and LPM – Live Performers Meeting.
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Artificial feat. Real Giorgia Noto
It should be remembered that the advent of the year 2000 was accompanied by the euphoria of entering the new millennium, imagined years before by Kubrick as a futuristic time in which man would have colonized other planets of the solar system. In reality the passing of the year 2000 resulted in a different perception of the idea of the future. A less and less remote, closer event, in which the Web, then a magma of chances, embodied most of the expectations that were invested in the future. Because of a paradoxical subversion of the perception of the Internet and of all related technologies, it has become increasingly clear that over the years this has turned up to become an increasingly natural fact, rather than artificial. A core that is configured as a valuable learning and awareness tool, and alternative means for reaching out to the wider public. Internet related technologies offer different levels of interaction and a high potential to subvert the same logic they are characterized by. The intent of Playing The Game this year was played on this same level. This overturning of convention is the login password, declined through the experience of videogames. Those focused on a particular aspect: to evade the usual gameplay strategies, ie the accumulation of points to win and the grueling fight against an X enemy, the PC or another user. Narrative, experiential games, artifices where the reference to the physical world is pervasive and ongoing (Gino Roncaglia), in close relationship without antithesis or mystification. Following this perspective, the work of director David Dufresne with the documentary-videogame Fort McMoEssays 15
ney proves innovative. Presented last September at the Milan Film Festival, it was filmed in Canada in Fort McMurrey, a place running low on a source of income: oil. The filming of the places and people took place in the most usual way, while the platform provides a new context. A videogame where the viewer is invited to participate, to play. The more you interact with people and objects through the tools that are made available, the more you collect information in order to propose solutions. The artificial lends the real its best features and stands as a survey instrument, a participatory praxis and accumulation of knowledge. Giorgia Noto graduated in Conservation of Cultural Heritage. She is currently part of the cultural association Seven O’Clock in Rome. She participated in the Course for Curators of Aurora Fonda in Venice and has been Assistant Curator for Cantieri d’Arte, Marco Trulli and Claudio Zecchi. She writes for Artribune and Living-Adamis.
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Bursting the Balloon: The Incredible Machine & the Pedagogical Potential of Metagames Michelle & Marc A. Ouellette
After more than twenty years, The Incredible Machine provides not only an example of a game that defies cultural imperatives for accumulation and conquest, it also provides a commentary on games, in general. In other words, The Incredible Machine (TIM) is an exemplar of a metagame. Thus, TIM anticipates and confirms Espen Aarseth’s (2004) assertion that the “gameworld is its own reward” (p.51). Indeed, playing the game, and especially replaying the game, suggests that Aarseth may have under-estimated the multiple and simultaneous means through which this occurs. While he cites the progression through game levels as the means through which a game offers, but also limits its rewards, this applies only to one cognitive and affective response to the regular play mode. However, in playing both modes, we found that play requires the five steps of the Programmer’s Algorithm: define the problem, plan a solution, code a solution, test and debug a solution, and document that solution. Moreover, playing through the puzzles allows greater freedom in free play mode by virtue of this approach and its lessons, starting with the hints. These invite a dry run to begin the planning based on the tools and the space. Conversely, creating Essays 17
a puzzle requires the same operations, if not in the same order in an iterative sequence since coding the solution only works after testing and debugging the solution. The solution is formalized and documented once the replay button appears. Thus, the real reward lies in understanding how to manipulate the elements, in either mode. The game world really is its own reward and more. One can go to a new level, get a password to skip levels, watch it or show friends. TIM teaches its elements, but also about games and programming. Creating a puzzle demands a test. Learning to test teaches how to think and enact in the free play mode. Most important, this skill is transferable. It becomes a lesson about games, in general. In this way, TIM offers a pedagogy for how to manipulate systems of logic through the ongoing, active deployment of practices and methods of that system. As Michel de Certeau writes, this kind of resistance “redistributes its space; it creates at least a certain play in that order, a space for maneuvers of unequal forces and for utopian points of reference� (p.18). In place of a narrative, it offers a means of evaluating the products of that system. Most important, though, it includes as its very kernel a means of developing alternatives to that system.
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works cited Aarseth, Espen. “Genre trouble: Narrativism and the art of simulation.” First person: New media as story, performance, and game. Eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2004. 45-55. de Certeau, Michael. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steve Rendell. Berkeley: U California P, 1988. Michelle & Marc A. Ouellette are both award-winning educators. Together they have written Married, with children and an XBox: Compromise in Video Game Play, which appears in The New Everyday: A Media Commons Project, and the upcoming Make Lemonade.
Essays 19
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Giuliano Tarlao The abandonment of hierarchical design patterns, opens the possibility of new connections of unexplored meaning for the discovery of the landscape. If paradigms surrender under the pressure of new emergencies, disappearing, they make possible an unprecedented scenario. This possibility given by rewriting the rules, fully expresses the utopian potential: not what can not be done, but what can still be realized beyond the social and cultural contradictions of our environment. The “place” (tòpos) to reach doesn’t necessarily have a name nor does it necessarily lead to a location. This favours the result of zeroing codes constituting a narrative, it loses any certain reference within a story. How? For example, with the disappearance of the “subject” of history. And the resulting drift of sense. By changing the “power” and the presence of a basic element of the narrative it generates an amount of alienating charge. Teleology comes out well from the structure of the story, which is devoid of the subject, and is no longer necessary. The sense of the game is game. Playing is playing: a dimension where there are not certain and purposeful actions, but random ones. In which time is not a variable that negatively feeds back as looming instance, but simply as an essential part of the experience. And as such, it can’t be quantified, or bartered. The programmable outcome becomes evanescent and the principle logic of non-contradiction is a new form of being in the great stream of narratives of which such as the novel, the tale, the film, and of course the videogame, belong.
Essays 21
The subject, the story, the protagonist, become secondary elements and essentially inactive within the ecology of the monitor. This means reconstituting a horizon of priorities; an environment that is designed to be first and foremost a way of thinking is not fragmented in separate rooms, but designed as a flow of communicating content, thus bringing the matter further, towards a quality of experience. This is the hope of a playful approach – educational of this kind, against a player, a user, a human being, especially if young: fostering the development of an intelligent intellect. Giuliano Tarlao (Grado, 1980). Performative artist. Graphic designer with the 3pietre concept. Co-founder of the Local exhibition space.
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ICO: Teenage Symphonies to the Gods Francesco Tenaglia
It’s simple: ICO is a boy with horns, led to die of starvation in a half-empty huge fortress because according to local tradition its peculiar anatomical condition predicts doom. He does not die, but finds Yorda, a diaphanous and seemingly vulnerable girl who speaks an unknown language. They will have to escape, foiling the attacks of ghosts, the predecessors of ICO who have been killed there and that try to kidnap his new friend. The prison from which they are escaping is a puzzle thrown into this world in the form of architecture. Guns and cars, swords and horses, lasers and spaceships are far away: the atoms of reality are recombined in a titanic pastime that the protagonist, our doppelgänger made of pixels, challenges using skills that we, the players made of flesh, have gained in more stylized labyrinths. The reunion, the suture between our game and ICO’s one is the save point: a couch that emanates pulsing light, modern and irreconcilable with the surrounding, perhaps similar to the one that hosts us in front of the PlayStation. There, only when the two children sit together, we reflect all ourselves in a funny mise en abyme and we are safe. ICO is nerd sublimation. The sacrificial victim, an outcast from the social sphere, is redeemed through a keen instinct for play: because wit and sensitivity, here, beat brutality and prestige. Essays 23
The stake – as often happens in the Japanese videogames – is the end of solitude. There can be no cynicism: the friendship conquered by ICO and Yorda is graceful, told in an elliptical way (“the beach scene!”). Our hero, by the way, will be able to decipher the runic language of his ally when we start the game a second time. There are two demiurges governing this Bildungsroman. The first is obvious: the Queen, mistress of the castle. She craves the vital energy of the daughter, Yorda, to stop the consumption of age. After all, she’s important for us: she is the tormentor, the raison d’etre of the toy that without her would disintegrate into nothingness. The other is a benevolent, hidden entity. We sense it only in the direction that, when you enter a new room or you look around, suggests the way focusing on useful details or when – raising the point of view to dizzying heights – shows us the beauty of this prison that grinds the time. Ours and that of the young couple. Francesco Tenaglia is born in Abruzzo and lives in Milan. He is interested in music and art (writing for Kaleidoscope, Blow Up and other magazines). Recently, he curated Vapore at Spazio O’ and co-curated the series of talks and screenings Lions After Slumber at CareOf.
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Capitalist Logic in Animal Crossing Stephanie Vie
With no overt goal but extended play, Animal Crossing may appear neutral but it lends itself well to critical analysis. Here players roam, collecting fruit, shells, and other items; exchanging those items for “Bells”, the in-game currency; and eventually exchanging Bells for special collectible items. It’s a game that lends itself to hours of dabbling as players wander, poking around and learning more about the game space. However, before the player can explore, he or she is immediately forced to purchase a home from the game’s proprietor, Tom Nook, and is assigned a home loan. Until the loan is paid, any items the player attempts to exchange for Bells is applied to the loan. Thus, the game shifts away from a pure “sandbox” game, where the user is free to choose any appealing path, to a linear path of forced gameplay; the player cannot move forward except by paying off the loan. While the player could refuse, most activities will be inaccessible until the loan is paid. For example, a player who has not yet paid off his loan cannot purchase a fishing pole for catching fish, so he must either pay off the loan or find a friend who can connect via wireless and give the player a pole. The player immediately loses agency in the game and only by fulfilling the set path presented may he move beyond and gain greater agency as a player. One way to read Animal Crossing as a game imbued with power relations is to analyze it as a tool for replicating capitalist structures through game “play.” The scare quotes are intentional as many Essays 25
actions available to players become tedious: digging for fossils or shaking fruit off trees to sell, doing errands for the townfolk and hoping to be rewarded with Bells. Through its intentional mimicry of work, Animal Crossing can be read as a space where players are indoctrinated into a capitalist society of toil and drudgery, ultimately working toward a series of bigger, better houses and special items to display in one’s house. Any form of transgressional rhetoric – violating the forced gameplay and not participating in the material side of the game – results in a game world that is stunted and arguably less satisfying because so much of the world and its associated actions are cut off. The game literally forces players to become complicit in the capitalistic framework that underlies the game or else punishes the player for refusal. Stephanie Vie is Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at University of Central Florida. She researches online social networking and computer games impacts on literate practices. Her work has appeared in First Monday, Computers and Composition, and e-Learning and Digital Media.
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Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames
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Animal Crossing (Dōbutsu no Mori), 2001
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development Animal Crossing is a simulator of everyday life set in a living, constantly changing world. The player can carry out a large range of activities, including fishing, catching insects, and the management of social relations with the other inhabitants. Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development is the largest internal division of Nintendo, a Japanese consumer electronics company, and its main purpose is to develop videogames.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 29
Autopret, 2014 unpublished
Sander van der Vegte, Rejected Games Autopret is an open-world driving game where you can freely create streets, cars and other elements of the game world, creating your own rules without any constraint. The player can also influence the game environment by typing words using his computer keyboard. Sander van der Vegte is a Dutch game designer. Rejected Games is an independent software house founded in 2012 by Lukas Hoenderdos. Autopret’s team also includes Laurens ’t Jong, Sjan Weijers and Yorick de Koster.
30 Textural Videogames
Creatures, 1996
Millennium Interactive Ltd. The game is based around taking care of alien lifeforms. Tasks include breeding, helping them explore their world, and defending them from other species. The creatures undergo a complete life cycle, from childhood to adolescence, on to adulthood and eventual old age. Millennium Interactive Ltd. was a software house, founded in 1988 and based in Cambridge. The company was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 1997.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 31
Fract OSC, 2014 Phosfiend Systems
In Fract OSC the player explores a virtual world by deciphering musical riddles. The whole experience is based on listening to the sounds coming from the mysterious alien land in which the games’ protagonist finds himself wandering. Phosfiend Systems is a Montreal-based indie studio founded in 2011. Members of the studio are Richard E. Flanagan, his wife Quynh and the programmer Henk Boom.
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Ico, 2001 Team Ico
Ico is an adventure game characterized by a sophisticated level of immersion. The narrative develops through minimal dialogues, the charm of the environments, and the lighting of the scenes. These aspects alongside the fine management of virtual cameras in addition to the care taken for all artistic aspects, make it a milestone in the history of videogames. Team Ico is a Japanese videogame development team led by game designer Fumito Ueda.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 33
Little Computer People, 1985 Activision Publishing, Inc.
In Little Computer People the players interact with a virtual character who lives in a house in which carries out daily activities. The game is focused on the relationship with the virtual character. Each copy of the game has its own different virtual character. Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American company founded in 1979 and was the world’s first independent developer and distributor of videogames for gaming consoles.
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L.O.L.: Lack of Love, 2000 Love–de–Lic, Inc.
L.O.L.: Lack of Love revolves around the player’s control of a single living creature placed on an alien planet. The player must cause the creature to evolve into a new form by communicating with others, establishing symbiotic relationships with them, and thus helping them. Love–de–Lic, Inc. was a Japanese company founded by Kenichi Nishi in 1995. After producing RPGs and adventure games the company was closed in 2000.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 35
L.S.D.: Dream Emulator, 1998 OutSide Directors Company
L.S.D.: Dream Emulator is a surrealistic exploration videogame based on a real dream journal that had been kept for a decade. The player navigates through a succession of psychedelic dreams. Each dream can last up to ten minutes, after which the player will “wake up”. OutSide Directors Company is a Japanese company which has been founded by the artist and composer Osamu Sato.
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Myst, 1993 Cyan, Inc.
The plot of Myst takes place on a island, in which the player assumes the role of the Stranger. It is an adventure game where exploration of the virtual world takes top priority, to the point that the player can never die during the game. Cyan, Inc., also known as Cyan Worlds, is an American videogame developer, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 37
ΘRΑΩLE, 2014 ceMelusine
ΘRΑΩLE allows the player to be a seer and foresee the future. Most of the interaction is focused on the choice of archaic symbols (such as animals, a tree, and a well) that each prophecy is derived from. ceMelusine is a Canadian game designer and interactive media artist who lives and works in Vancouver. He is member of Silverstring Media.
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Progression, 2014 Alex Kriss
The narration of Progression occurs entirely in the form of text, in which the player actively participates making choices. The game is structured in such a way as to be repeated several times in order to finish it: the defeat of the protagonist is useful for the purposes of the plot and interaction. Alex Kriss is a clinical psychologist and writer based in New York City. He received his doctorate from New School for Social Research.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 39
Proteus, 2013
Ed Key, David Kanaga In Proteus players freely explore a multicolor island without any stated goal. The music and sound effects are a key component; they are not part of a written and immutable score, instead they change reactively during the game. Ed Key is a British programmer with experience in the commercial games field. David Kanaga is a composer and improviser of linear and interactive music.
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Spore Creature Creator, 2008 Maxis Software
Spore Creature Creator is an editor that is part of Spore, an evolution simulator. It was released a few months before the main title. At its core, the software gives the user the ability to invent original creatures editing features related to their bodies and skills. Maxis Software was founded in 1987 by Will Wright. Most of its titles are simulation-based, like The Sims, the best-selling computer game of all time.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 41
The Graveyard, 2008 Tale of Tales
The Graveyard is an interactive experience in which you take the role of an elderly woman who visits a cemetery: you can walk, sit on a bench and listen to a song. The minimum possibility of interaction and the theme suggest a reflection on the possibilities of narration in video games. Tale of Tales is a videogames development studio, founded in 2003 by Auriea Harvey and MichaĂŤl Samyn. The studio is based in Ghent, Belgium.
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The Incredible Machine, 1992 Dynamix, Inc.
The Incredible Machine is a puzzle game focused on Rube Goldberg’s machines: mechanisms designed in a deliberately complex way. In free mode the player can use all the elements provided by the game to create systems without goals. Dynamix, Inc. was founded in Eugene, Oregon in 1984 by Jeff Tunnell and Damon Slye. The company was closed in 2001.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 43
The Secret of Monkey Island, 1988
LucasArts Entertainment Company The plot of The Secret of Monkey Island is focused on the adventure of the young protagonist in a world populated by bizarre pirates, maps, and duels in the moonlight. The player interacts with the elements and characters of the game environment, progressing the storyline by relying on his own mental abilities rather than swift reflexes. LucasArts Entertainment Company is an American videogame publisher founded by George Lucas in 1982.
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The Stanley Parable, 2013 Galactic Cafe
The Stanley Parable is a first-person adventure that experiments with the traditional modes of storytelling in videogames: a narrative voice relentlessly describes the activities of the player within the game world. The surreal atmosphere in which you have to interact raises questions about what’s actually happening, while the plot itself undermines the typical clichés of this videogames genre. Galactic Cafe is an American software house founded by Davey Wreden and William Pugh.
Descriptions of the Exhibited Videogames 45
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Indiegames: Interviews with the Authors
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Autopret
Interview with Sander van der Vegte What inspired you to develop Autopret?
My preferred method of designing a game is to concept a mechanic, prototype it, and make sure that it is fun to play. For Autopret, I combined this methodology with elements of Grand Theft Auto, Animal Crossing and Scribblenauts. The concept of Autopret started with the idea what would happen if you take the fun and freedom of driving a car in Grand Theft Auto, and combine it with the small and simple tasks of the friendly environment you see in Animal Crossing. By playing around with the functions of Unity 3D, I was inspired to add certain functionality to the game. And that’s where Scribblenauts comes in. Developing an open world environment and having to design the world itself takes a lot of time. Allowing the player to type in a word to affect the world was a good solution. It gives the player freedom, adds value to the open world part of the game, and it reduces asset creation. It was perfect. The interaction between the player and Autopret isn’t based on achieving a certain score or passing levels. How did this choice come about?
Playing for fun is a perfectly justifiable, and objectives merely enhance it. It is added value, but not a requirement. With that approach I focussed on a different motivation for players, and found it in exploration. A different form of exploration is reaction. The cause and effect of things. Autopret is build on cause and effect. The amount of conIndiegames: Interviews with the Authors 49
tent the player can play with is limited in the current version, yet offers a huge amount of variation. It is up to the player to become creative with it. Do whatever, and enjoy it. The game motivates the player to combine objects, almost like a crafting tool. What do you think is the future for experimentation with new gameplay mechanics and modes of interaction?
There is a big change going on right now. There is a popular new genre emerging based around crafting and exploration, obviously fuelled by Minecraft. An entire generation is growing up with this game, and experiencing it as their standard. When this group of people starts developing games on a professional level, we will see an increase of games that are not based on score or level progression. I’m looking very much forward to that. The future of gaming is looking bright. Sander van der Vegte is a multidisciplinary game developer living in the Amsterdam area. His knowledge and experience is predominantly about game design, but he doesn’t shy away from art, programming, producing and project management.
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Fract OSC
Interview with Richard E. Flanagan What inspired you to develop Fract OSC?
Fract OSC was inspired by many things, but the core inspiration was a love of music-making, specifically electronic music. There’s something so intrinsically satisfying about making music, and when presented in the right way, it can be such a fun and playful experience. It was that idea of music-making as play that made us make Fract OSC. The interaction between the player and Fract OSC is not based on achieving a certain score or passing levels. How did this choice come about?
We wanted to echo the experience of musical exploration, which is such a personal journey. So we wanted to design a certain degree of openness – not only in the physical space and world itself, but in the path that each player took. There is a progression to the game, both in the puzzles and the overall structure – it’s just that the path that the player takes to get there can be quite different. And while there isn’t a score, there is a sense of achievement that you get by putting things and bringing life and sound back to the world. What do you think is the future for experimentation with new gameplay mechanics and modes of interaction?
It’s hard to say – but we are excited about the possibilities now that game designers are stepping away from the conventional screen. Indiegames: Interviews with the Authors 51
Fract OSC was originally developed by one person, Richard E. Flanagan as a student prototype while studying game design at the University of Montreal. He continued working on it while looking for a job in the games industry, and submitted it on a whim to the IGF – Independent Games Festival. Much to his surprise, it was chosen to be part of the Student Showcase and went on to win the IGF Award for Best Student Game in 2011. He decided that he wanted to develop Fract OSC into a commercial release, so he brought his wife Quynh Nguyen on board to make it happen, along with their programmer Henk Boom. The team was also fortunate enough to get support later in development from Indie Fund, which has helped them get to the finish line.
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ΘRΑΩLE
Interview with ceMelusine What inspired you to develop ΘRΑΩLE?
There is this big monument that I pass on my way to work everyday called the East Van Cross. It is a really weird symbol and I often find myself thinking about it. One time when I was doing this, I started to wonder how to make a game where the player was some sort of mystic symbol reader. After that I realised that a game about being an oracle was a perfect fit for this. The interaction between the player and ΘRΑΩLE is not based on achieving a certain score or passing levels. How did this choice come about?
I don’t really like making games about scores and achievements as I believe that these things don’t usually give substantial value to a game. Mostly, they feel very hollow to me. I want to make games that offer the player something more than that. What do you think is the future for experimentation with new gameplay mechanics and modes of interaction?
I feel that a lot of the current “best design practices” are very stifling. My hope is that game culture will start to embrace work that is not super mechanical in nature, towards something more textural.
Indiegames: Interviews with the Authors 53
ceMelusine is a game designer/interactive media artist from Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the creator the east van EP and a member of Silverstring Media (Glitchhikers, Patient #). His work revolves around surrealism, horror, the sublime, semiotics, and the computer glitch. He also spends a lot of time wandering aimlessly around his neighborhood. ceMelusine once got lost in the woods behind his childhood home. He was never seen again.
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Progression
Interview with Alex Kriss What inspired you to develop Progression?
My aim was to make a post-modern dungeon-crawler; I was curious about the multiple meanings behind games that push us to delve deeper and deeper into ancient and often scary places. The “progression” happens on different levels: the physical descent into a dungeon, the psychological shifts in the characters, and even the gameplay itself as the player proceeds. (Also, I wanted to teach myself how to use the game-development software Twine.) The interaction between the player and Progression is not based on achieving a certain score or passing levels. How did this choice come about?
I thought it would be interesting to use familiar role-playing game tropes within a weirder, less familiar type of game. So while there are “levels” to the dungeon, and you accrue experience points as you play, these things don’t behave in the way you might expect. The goal is not a high score, but a kind of emotional illumination. And ultimately the game is about making meaningful choices, not reaching the last level. What do you think is the future for experimentation with new gameplay mechanics and modes of interaction?
I’m really interested in the resurgent popularity of roguelike games. That so many people want to play something randomised, brutally difficult, and highly repetitive is, I think, pretty fascinating. Indiegames: Interviews with the Authors 55
There are a lot of really fun roguelikes out there already, of course, but there’s much room to explore their psychological implications, in the same way that I tried to anatomise RPGs with Progression. So something like that might be next for me. Alex Kriss is a clinical psychologist and writer based in New York City. He received his doctorate from The New School for Social Research and completed his internship training at Columbia University Medical Center. He edits the psychology blog inkblot and his work represents a pluralistic focus on psychoanalysis, attachment theory, existentialism, and the intersection of mental health with popular culture and public policy. Progression is his first videogame.
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Proteus
Interview with Ed Key What inspired you to develop Proteus?
I wanted to make a game about just existing and travelling around a world, capturing feelings of mystery and wonder at ancient monuments and the natural world. At first this was going to be some kind of sandbox RPG, but after talking to David Kanaga about reactive music, we suddenly realised that it might be possible to have a game purely about exploration – of both the landscape and music. I’ve always loved walking in hills and forests, and this is a creative response to that which we were able to refine over time to include influences from Taoism and the Romantic tradition. The interaction between the player and Proteus is not based on achieving a certain score or passing levels. How did this choice come about?
For me, scores and levels have always been a secondary part of videogames. It’s more about the sense of discovery and the dynamics of action between the player and the game. David has a good phrase on this, which is “musical playspaces” – the idea that games are a kind of musical dance performance.
Indiegames: Interviews with the Authors 57
What do you think is the future for experimentation with new gameplay mechanics and modes of interaction?
The future looks bright! There are lots more people pushing the boundaries now than ever before. I don’t like to make any predictions beyond that though! Ed Key grew up in Cumbria in north-west England, and after graduating from university spent several years working as a programmer at various UK games companies. In 2009 he quit and started working on small “indie” projects, one of which turned into Proteus. Ed Key has now moved back to Cumbria and spends his time working on new game prototypes and planting trees as a nature conservation volunteer.
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The Graveyard
Interview with Tale of Tales What inspired you to develop The Graveyard?
A combination of admiration for Michaël’s catholic grandmother who was completely unafraid to follow her husband in death and fond memories of solitary visits to a cemetery in his hometown where he was struck by the coexistence of death (of people) and life (of plants and animals). The interaction between the player and The Graveyard is not based on achieving a certain score or passing levels. How did this choice come about?
It wasn’t much of a choice. We enjoy playing videogames but find it annoying when our experience is blocked by tests. We don’t want to be tested. We just want to play. The Graveyard is designed to be an experience. A tool to help you imagine being (with) another person in another place. Any sort of test would distract from that experience. What do you think is the future for experimentation with new gameplay mechanics and modes of interaction?
None. Videogames have stagnated as a medium and are locked inside of a niche of obsessed addicts who refuse to see change. Furthermore history is over, the apocalypse has happened. All that remains is wait for the final annihilation. Unless the terrorists win. Then there will be hope. In the meantime we play to pass the time and marvel at the doomed beauty of this planet. Indiegames: Interviews with the Authors 59
Tale of Tales is a videogames development studio, founded in 2003 and run by Auriea Harvey and MichaĂŤl Samyn out of Belgium. Our goal is to create elegant and emotionally rich interactive entertainment. As artists we focus on beauty and joy. We want to create art for people. That is why we distribute our work online, and cheaply. As designers we hope that videogames can be as diverse and meaningful as any other medium. We want to create playful experiences that appeal to both gamers and non-gamers. We try to design expressive interfaces to access engaging poetic narratives through simple controls.
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The Stanley Parable Interview with Davey Wreden
What inspired you to develop Stanley Parable?
I actually started developing it in order to get hired! I wanted to get a job at Valve and this looked like the easiest way to get a job. Creatively, however, the game was primarily inspired by other games, such as Dear Esther, Radiator, and The Path. I saw what was capable in these games by stripping gameplay down to its absolute minimum, and wanted to see what I could do using similar techniques. The interaction between the player and Stanley Parable is not based on achieving a certain score or passing levels. How did this choice come about?
It was less of a choice and more of a technical constraint. I didn’t actually know how to do anything in Source other than create empty hallways and insert sound clips. So the core design of the game sprang up around these limitations, trying to do something interesting with a small set of tools. The goal for me was to try to make something interesting using the smallest number of interactions possible. If I had had more tools available to me that I knew how to use, the game might have turned out very differently! What do you think is the future for experimentation with new gameplay mechanics and modes of interaction?
I honestly don’t know, I try not to think about what will happen in the future because I want to be surprised. I savour the experience of being thrown off guard by a new kind of gameplay design that I Indiegames: Interviews with the Authors 61
had never imagined before, so I tend to not think about what kinds of new innovations are coming down the line. It’s a very exciting time for me that there are so many surprises coming in the near future! The Stanley Parable was developed by Davey Wreden and William Pugh. Davey was a film student who decided that games were more interesting to him than film, and set off to write a game that would bring a little happiness into the world while also being deeply depressing. Today he lives in Austin, TX. William started designing Team Fortress levels while living in a country town in England, and wrote Davey on a whim. The two of them accidentally ended up working together, and today William pursues both game development and acting.
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Credits
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PLAYING THE GAME P R E S E N T S
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