Talking about what certain elements in the game may represent -like I did at the end of the previous post– feels uncomfortable. Usually I don’t ever think about this, let alone attempt to express it in words. Representations in our games are far more open-ended for me than my words may imply. It’s not like I have an idea and then try to express it. It’s probably more often the other way around: I’m struck by what an image, a sound, a gesture does to me and I keep it, and collect some and remove others until a sort of story appears that feels consistent.

One of the things that draws me to this medium as an artist, is exactly its capacity for multiple meanings, depending on who’s playing. I am curious how other people see the things I put in the game. I have no expectations.

But I do realize that some people may have trouble making any sense at all of our work. In such cases of course it’s better if I give a few hints as to how I see it. Then at least they get something out of it -hopefully something they find interesting.

Still I find it difficult. I’m so used to silently trusting my emotions that I really need to force myself to express in words how my work makes sense to me. And the words always sound so limited, so inadequate and far too definite.

But it’s not because I can’t express its meaning properly or that I might even say things that are completely wrong, that our work would be in any way obscure. All of our work is completely clear to me. In fact, it’s more clear than anything I could ever say in words. There is no room for the absurd or the weird: everything in our work makes perfect sense to me, more sense than anything anywhere. This is probably the main reason why I make this stuff: to try and make sense of things.

It’s strange how easy it is to forget how truly remarkable contemporary videogames technology is. Being able to control a character and navigate a virtual world borders on the miraculous. And yet, most of the time, when interacting with a videogame, we manage to all but completely ignore the realtime 3D wonder that we are witnessing.

The history of videogames may, in part, be responsible for this. We have experienced the evolution of the medium from simple abstract presentation to astonishing photo-realistic detail as a history of ever more sophisticated dressing up of structures and content that have essentially remained unchanged. The tendency to dismiss this “cosmetic layer” in videogames is great.

There is also, of course, the demands that conventional gaming makes on our attention. We often simply don’t have the time to take in a landscape, or empathize with a character. The game relentlessly confronts us with one obstacle after the other, because it is fun to overcome them. And while that may make sense for symbolic board games or abstract arcade games, it is a terrible waste when it comes to finely detailed presentations.

And finally, the aesthetic success of the rendition may end up feeling so natural that we don’t notice anymore. Especially because experiencing this presentation requires activity. The experience quickly becomes mundane: navigating, finding places of interest, avoiding collisions and falls, etc. In a way, the realism of the simulation prevents us from enjoying its aesthetics and being impressed with the amazing thing that we are actually doing.

I fear that we may be throwing away the baby with the bath water if we don’t start paying attention to this raw material soon. We are so caught up in either providing very conventional fun for our audience or in exploring the “essence of interactivity” that we fail to see the forest for the trees. The really amazing thing about our medium is right in front of our noses. We just need to focus.

I want to address this in Bientôt l’été. Of course, a modest project like this cannot hope to rival the wealth and fidelity of big budget titles. But if independent creators do not embrace the medium of realtime 3D, how can we ever hope to expand its artistic reach? I’m gambling that having only a few high quality objects against an otherwise empty or abstract backdrop will suffice to convince the player of the reality of the place. But above all, I will give the player opportunity and time to allow him- or herself to really feel the presentation.

There will simply not be any game goals to distract the mind away from the content: all interaction is completely voluntary and there’s no extraneous rewards. But more importantly the game’s themes are aligned with the visual presentation: the places and characters are expressions of the content. The beach you walk on, alone, is your barren soul deprived of a mate. The wind that pulls at your clothes is the passion that rages inside. The entire space station is the inside of your skull. And meeting another person is really about meeting another person, being with him, needing his presence, enjoying his company. While his holographic state tells you that he will leave you. It’s inevitable.

Editing the text for the dialogues in Bientôt l’été, I’m struck by how much I adore the self-pitying childishness of the language of love. Of course Duras has a way of playing this up. And maybe I am more sensitive to the charms of feminine naiveté -or is it playing at being naive for the sake of self-glorification?

There’s also a strange sort of joyous humor in the exaggerated expressions of desperate infatuation. Not in the least because of the polite form that Duras often uses to address a lover.

Je vous aime comme il n’est pas possible d’aimer.
— I love you like it is not possible to love.

Avant vous je ne savais rien de la souffrance….
— Before you I knew nothing of suffering.

Rien d’autre arrivera dans ma vie que cet amour pour vous.
— Nothing else will happen in my life but this love for you.

Votre corps va être emporté loin de moi, et je vais en mourir.
— Your body will be taken far from me, and I will die from that.

And then there’s the wonderful playing with cruelty, the purpose of which may be to provoke pain in the lover which will then count as proof of love.

Quand j’écris, je ne vous aime plus.
— When I’m writing, I don’t love you anymore.

Je préférais que vous ne m’aimez pas.
— I’d prefer you didn’t love me.

Je crois sincèrement que j’aurais pu ne pas vous aimer.
— I sincerly believe that I could have not loved you.

Parfois dans la journée, j’arrive à m’imaginer sans vous.
— Sometimes during the day, I manage to imagine myself without you.

I hope players will enjoy this sort of language as much as I do. I have no idea if this is supposed to be good or bad writing. I only know I find it incredibly endearing. It makes my heart tremble, brings a tear in my eye and a smile on my lips.

Even though my motivation could probably be called artistic, I don’t feel comfortable considering myself an artist. I was trained a designer and I still very much create from a design perspective. I never considered design to be in any way inferior to art, though. I even went through a period, in art school, when I thought that making art today was simply decadent and that every talented creator should be designing instead, to make the world more beautiful. Design could go places where art could not. It could penetrate daily lives, and bring joy to people who might otherwise never visit a museum, attend a concert or read poetry.

I am now a lot more tolerant towards the idea of art creation, and I am happy that some people do, but my choice to make videogames is still in part related to this desire to bring art to the world, rather than expect the world to come to the art. And that feels like design work.

It’s not just a matter of creating a Trojan Horse wrapper around the art to smuggle it into the homes of unsuspecting gamers and then let it escape once inside. It’s a lot more complicated. I want to present the content of the piece in such a way that different kinds of people can get something out of it. This is a tricky thing to do, because adding an element that might make it easier for one group to enjoy the work, may harm the joy that another group finds in it. Finding the balance between a large amount of such decisions I consider design work.

If I would be a real artist, I imagine I would choose the most optimal way to express my content, that is to say the way that makes this content most clear to me. But this is not how I think when I make videogames. Sure, most of the production time, I only have myself as a player, to test the effect of the design on, but I continuously imagine how other kinds of people might respond. For that purpose I read many accounts that people make of playing games, to get an idea of how they enjoy them and come to an interpretation. And I attempt to make my expressions more inclusive.

As a result, my work will never be perfect. There will always be something wrong with it for someone, and another thing for someone else. This disqualifies it from being art in my very personal definition as that in which nothing is wrong.

However, inclusiveness and wide appeal is a very difficult thing to accomplish for me. And this often requires more resources than we have available. Ironically, if I fail to achieve my creative goals, if I make something that only a small and non-diverse group of people appreciate, but appreciate thoroughly, if I fail, my work becomes art.

There’s something self-indulgent about Duras’ work. She allows her characters to dwell on emotions, to wallow in a certain melancholia. But it feels like an wonderful luxury. And incredibly beautiful in its fragility. The characters flaunt their weakness as an insult, a challenge. And so their weakness becomes their strength, the ultimate weapon.

And that strength is very seductive. I used to roleplay Duras-style a bit in art school with a girl friend. She was very good at it. Using the polite form while expressing intimate feelings. Speaking of oneself in the third person. Saying things twice, first in third person, then in first. It was a lovely game.

It’s very easy to make fun of this writing style, to parody it. But since her subject matter is always love, the joke is always on the joker. Maybe love is perverse in Duras’ work, maybe it is selfish, maybe it hurts. But she has lived it and that puts her in a position where no mockery can affect her.

The experience of beauty in art gives me a sense of belonging. Through art, I feel a connection with life, with the cosmos. A connection that cannot be expressed in words. And that may not even be true. But somehow, this feels irrelevant. Somehow, beauty is more important than truth to me, more real.

As a result, I actually feel rather comfortable with life, and its companion, death. I don’t really ask myself The Big Questions about the meaning of life. I know what the meaning of life is. Art has taught me it. And now I am in a position where I can have a dialog with reality, rather than panicking about it in fear of the unknown -or devoting all my energy to ignoring it. And that is what art has become to me today: a dialog with the cosmos.

It strikes me how, when put in these words, my life with art seems similar to the life of religious people with their belief, with their god. They also have a feeling of certainty, and they rely on this faith, to explore their relationship with reality throughout life.

Maybe the way I like to focus and concentrate with art is similar to prayer for religious people. I don’t actually believe in any particular creed, even though I adore the beauty in especially Christian art and mythology. But I have never been comfortable calling myself an atheist either. My spiritual relationship with art feels like a sort of blasphemy against atheism. And I like that a lot!

Beauty is addictive. One can develop an almost physical need for it. This need manifests itself especially after confrontation with less beautiful expressions. Ugliness is easy to ignore. But experiencing mediocre art can be draining. After a session of unfulfilled longing, I feel the need to touch real beauty. To energize myself again.

I can feel a habit forming. I don’t need high doses. But without some beauty, once in a while, I’m only half there, I only half exist.

It’s easy enough to forget, though. It’s quite possible to go through extended periods of life with not much beauty in them. You don’t miss it. But once you get the habit, some way, and you feel how beauty intensifies the experience of life, you become frightened of losing it. So you keep going back.

Also because you know that when you do lose it, you won’t remember. A dose of beauty once in a while makes you smarter, more perceptive, more sensitive (maybe only because of the focus required to experience it). Without beauty, you’re simply not smart, not perceptive, not sensitive enough to notice that something is missing.

Even though I want Bientôt l’été to be fairly accessible, to some extent its interaction is about experiencing art. Or at least similar. At least in my experience.

Regular entertainment affects one quickly and directly. We read, we watch, we hear, we play. We are immediately moved. We get it. Without much effort. Without even paying much attention. Or, in a way, we can’t avoid paying attention. Such entertainment is loud and/or spectacular. It attracts attention. It’s jaw-dropping. It’s awe-some. It’s epic!

This, however, is not my experience with art. At least my best experiences with refined works. It’s perfectly possible to stroll by a painting and not feel a thing. One can read an entire novel and not be moved. The most heavenly music can serve as a sing-along background when doing the dishes. It’s only when we stop and pay attention and allow the work of art to function, give it space in our mind and heart, concentrate, and are silent, that the true deeply felt bordering-on-religious-ecstasy, cosmic-transcendental art effect can take place.

Art does not jump up and grab you by the throat. Even in an humongous piece like Saint Peter’s’ basilica, we can see a never ending stream of people pass by, completely unmoved by the all to obvious splendor of the place. It’s perfectly possible to not feel a thing if you don’t allow yourself to.

As such the experience of beauty feels similar to that of love. But that’s stuff for another post.

The mechanic of closing one’s eyes to interact in Bientôt l’été is almost a direct expression of what experiencing art feels like to me. Or at least of creating the conditions for such an experience. Stillness. Concentration. Attention. Focus. Perhaps a bit of tuning, trying to find the emotional frequency where the signal is at its clearest. Sometimes walking away and then trying again. From another angle. Looking at a painting is almost like closing my eyes. Almost like eating it. I stare at it and I absorb it. I’m no longer looking at the object hanging on the wall, but feeling the presence that my brain is projecting on the inside of my skull. My entire body becomes a sensory organ. Directed inward! The imagination as a form of sensing?

I don’t want to see your face. Turn away from me. You are me. I don’t want to see me.

I feel a tension between my desire to entertain people and my reluctance to manipulate them. On the one hand, I’m interested in “good game design”. I want players to enjoy themselves and I want them to be drawn to my work. I have no problem with seduction. I want players to become immersed in my work, to imagine that they are somewhere else. But I don’t want them to lose themselves.

I want them to remain alert, to be who they are and allow the aesthetic experience to come from the interplay between their world and that of the game. Not because I feel they should be critical but because in my experience the awareness of being manipulated heightens the joy.

I’m not sure why that is. Or even if there’s anybody else who feels the same. Maybe it’s related to the joy we find in seeing people experience joy. Or maybe it’s because awareness of what the art is doing with us, reminds us of the author’s hand. And then we suddenly feel a connection with this other person. And the fact that we most likely do not know this other person (he may even be dead), gives the experience the magical, almost transcendental aspect of feeling close to the unknown.

When I observe my reactions to stimuli, my pleasure is doubled: first I enjoy an experience, and then I notice that I am enjoying the experience and this surprises and delights me. The initial experience is like a spontaneous reflex but in the awareness of this event, I become human. It is this realization of being human, of being a creature that can feel joy, that brings about the second layer of pleasure. I think that’s what happens when I am moved by art.