Among games.

IndieCade was a wonderful festival. Happy faces, joyful games, spirited political engagement, parties, fun, everybody loving each other. There was not a single quiet moment.

Not a single moment for silence. For a little contemplation. For some quiet observation. For taking in serene beauty. For allowing the cosmos to flow over you.

However unique IndieCade may be in other respects, it has the energy and noise in common with all other public game events. And why not? Games are fun. Games are for people to have fun with each other.

So why don’t they reject us? The IndieCade jury tried to by refusing to nominate Bientôt l’été. But then the staff made us part of the Official Selection. So our game was there, in a hot tent on a town square packed with computers and humans. The loudest of them attracting the attention. As always. Of course.

It makes one wonder. Would videogames have evolved more quickly if there had been a more serene way of celebrating them in public? The fun party atmosphere obviously benefits loud and colorful games, encourages casual interactions and makes it impossible to concentrate on anything.

Videogames are not games. At least they don’t have to be. But when they are not, they become weak. The beauty of the videogame medium is its intimacy. Videogames are best enjoyed by solitary players, at home, when everything around them is silent. This is a fragile form of beauty, an intense collaboration between man and machine, a strange form of electro-human meditation.

How does one celebrate such a solemn event? How does one celebrate quiet? Peace? Beauty? Calm? Focus? The things that our civilization needs much more of?