Description of Bientôt l’été, attempt #3

Bientôt l’été is a videogame in which you take walks on an empty beach. The game plays in third person and you choose whether you want to play a man or a woman. On the beach, you see phrases appear, often related to love. All you do is walk.

There is one building on the dike. When you enter it, you sit down at a small café table decorated with a chess board pattern. Soon another character comes and sits across from you. This other character is in fact another player who, like you, is playing Bientôt l’été, somewhere on the internet. If you chose to play the man, the other player shows up as a woman, disregarding their own choice.

The phrases you saw on the beach are now available for you to use in a conversation with the other player. By moving a chess piece over the table top, you select what you want to say. All you do is talk.

The other player looks transparent, and so do their chess pieces. And their voice sounds like it comes from a loudspeaker. When you leave the café, you find a strange object, a different one every time. It looks a bit glitchy and when you approach it, it disappears. And if you walk very far along the beach, the sky becomes transparent and turns into a giant window through which you can see stars and planets, even during the day time.

As it turns out, the entire world your avatar lives in is artificial. The other player is real. But they are playing on another artificial world, far away from yours. When you close your eyes in the game, you get an impression of the computer systems that are running this simulation.

In a way, Bientôt l’été is a metaphor for playing videogames. And for the contact we have with other people through the internet, very far and yet close. I met my wife through the internet. She co-directed the game and designed the characters. So, in a way, Bientôt l’été is about us. Welcome to our world. Hope you feel comfortable.