The Pacific Ocean in Venice, Los Angeles, is oriented in the same direction as the North Sea that was the model for the beach in Bientôt l’été. It’s also a West coast. Meaning that the sun sets in it and it is lit from the opposite side in the morning.

But it’s very different in other respects. Where the waves on the North Sea form a complex choreography that starts already far from the shore, here the water surface is calm overall but for a narrow strip near the beach. As if to compensate, the waves are often much bigger than those in Belgium and the North of France.

Since the dizzying dance of the North Sea waves that inspired Bientôt l’été is missing here, I wonder if people who are more familiar with this type of coast will be able to appreciate the reference in the game.

Another difference is the air. Breathing along the North Sea is exhilarating. There is a very distinct smell to the sea water and breathing too deeply can make your head spin. Here, the smell is much more faint.

And then there’s the sound. The much more chaotic wave patterns combined with unrelenting strong winds make of North Sea beaches very noisy affairs. You often have to scream to one another to be able to understand. Not here. When a wave crashes, you certainly hear it. But then it subdues. It becomes so quiet that you can hear the foam fizzing on the sand.

The seagulls too are quiet things here. While in Europe, the screaming of the gulls sends mortifying chills down your bones, here a gentle peep once in a while is all you get out of them.

I guess I’m starting to understand what is so pacific about this ocean.

The sea has no meaning.

Some people seem to have a problem with Bientôt l’été being meaningless and lacking closure. I honestly don’t know how to respond to that criticism. Other than admitting that perhaps the whole design is a mistake and it’s probably just bad art. This would be unfair, however, towards other people who thoroughly enjoy the game, despite its lack of closure, etc.

What can I do? I can’t add meaning where there is none. That would be dishonest. I can understand the human desire for closure, but I somehow feel that closure is perpendicular to the nature of the interactive medium. It’s one of the reasons why I love this medium. There doesn’t need to be an end, a conclusion, a final word.

I actually see this desire for lack of closure in a lot of modern literature, not in the least Marguerite Duras’ own work. But the novel, while perfectly fine in many ways, remains a form that is limited by the linearity of language and even the physicality of its medium, the book. At some point, the reader will reach the last page, read the last word and close the book. It doesn’t matter how unfinished the writer might think the story is, how open-ended, how much there remains to be said. The end happens, undeniably.

No so in videogames, not if you let them be what they are: computer programs. A computer program is something that a user starts up and shuts down. We do this without thinking when using an email client or a web browser or a word processor. But when we’re using software for entertainment or enlightenment, we suddenly lack the willpower or the sense of responsibility to do the same. Suddenly we cannot decide anymore for ourselves when we’ve had enough, when we’re done. We want the program to tell us that it’s over, that we should close the application.

Given the desire in a lot of art in other media and the unique potential of this medium, this seems a shame. But people are people, and “we cannot want what we want” as Schopenhauer knew. We just want. And when we don’t get what we want, we are disappointed.

Would Bientôt l’été be better with an ending or with a clear meaning or a story? It would certainly feel better, it would make us, as players, feel better. But would it be better? In my experience, deep aesthetic joy is always accompanied by a sense of mystery. Something lacking in my understanding, something that goes beyond what I know, something that I do not know and that I cannot really learn but only be aware of. The awareness of this lack, of this mystery, greatly heightens the aesthetic pleasure. I guess it is the opposite of kitsch, where extreme familiarity renders something that in and of itself may be pleasant to look at, a thorn in the eye.

I think the lack of meaning and the lack of closure makes Bientôt l’été more beautiful. Less satisfying, perhaps, but more beautiful. And more memorable. There will always be a reason to return to the beach or the café, a sense of lack, of missing something, of incompleteness. Maybe that will be the ultimate “message” of Bientôt l’été. Who knows?

Bientôt l’été has been selected for IndieCade in Culver City, Los Angeles, USA. Alpha version 3 will be playable at the festival from 4 to 7 October. We will also briefly present the game at the conference during the Project Next session on Sunday at 3 pm.

Hopefully I can continue posting to this blog while we’re away.