Description of Bientôt l’été, attempt #4

Even more so than the previous description, this is how I might explain Bientôt l’été in person, to a stranger or a friend, casually.

Bientôt l’été is a videogame in which you walk on the beach. There’s not much else to do, or to see. It’s mostly about experiencing a certain mood. There’s not even much of a story.

As you walk on the beach, you can see phrases of text appear, short quotes from novels by French writer Marguerite Duras. Many of these refer to love and relationships.

In the second part of the game, which takes place indoors, the phrases that you saw can be used to communicate with another player. You sit on opposite sides of a small café table. To say something, you move chess pieces across the chess board pattern on the table top. All spoken text is in French. But there’s subtitles in English and some other languages. You can also drink and smoke and listen to old French songs.

The whole thing takes place on a holodeck of a remote space station. The person you talk to is a transparent hologram and talks with a machine-like voice. Also, when you close your eyes in the game, you can see very digital looking grids of pink and blue neon lines.

Once in a while you find something on the beach. When you do, you get another chess piece. You could collect all chess pieces and play online chess. But that’s not really the point, of course. It’s just a pleasant, atmospheric experience that may perhaps inspire some interesting thoughts about your life, about love, about loneliness maybe. Not in a dark and brooding way, but rather relaxing and meditative.

Perhaps it’s not necessary to explain the entire game. Maybe I should think about the highlights and only mention those. Either briefly, or expand on some details.