If I could say “Read Duras the way I have,” there would be far less reason for me to make this videogame. But I can’t say that and believe that you will. Some people, sure. But from what I read about her here and there, many not.

Bientôt l’été is not about Marguerite Duras, it’s not a videogame version of one of her novels, nor is it an attempt at a faithful presentation of her style. Bientôt l’été is driven by my experience with reading Duras. The things I have learned while reading her work. The beauty I have felt. Not only the literary beauty of the text, but also the beauty of the real world that her work points out.

Bientôt l’été is also an expression of admiration for the artist, and a posthumous nod of sympathy for a woman whose flamboyance served as both the flame under her extraordinary gift as the target for mockery and derision by the less talented, the less interesting.

I would like to say what it is that I enjoy so much in her work. But I can’t. So I’m making this videogame to try and capture and express the feeling.

Not just that. I also want to share these feelings. To inhabit this world with you. With words, one can never be sure. But in a videogame, I feel we can get closer. It’s about experience, about shared experience. And videogames can be poetic on a sub-rational level that is far easier to share than the joys of French literature.

At least that’s what I hope to achieve, what I aim for. It’s probably far too ambitious or hopeful to be realistic, let alone find a significant audience, but if even a fraction of this comes across, it’ll be worthwhile. If only because knowing that there’s people out there that can share this emotion, will make me a happier person.

In a way, Bientôt l’été is fan art.

The contrast between nature and man is enormous at the seaside. There is the obvious difference in scale between the immense mass of water (playing with the moon of all things), a sky above that stretches out in all directions and the insignificant human body and the buildings and infrastructure created for its comfort. But what struck me even more is the inadequacy of the human senses when confronted with the raw natural elements.

Outside, there is too much noise to hear anything and too much light to see anything. It’s only when we find shelter in a café that we can use our senses again. Inside, we can hear and see.

This maps very nicely to the situation in Bientôt l’été. Outside, you are on your own, endlessly seeking, cold, exposed to the elements. And inside you find another human being, to see, to hear, to touch.

Another strange effect of the seaside is that spending time outside makes one dizzy. Maybe the sea air contains more oxygen or some other gas that affects us. Or it’s the continuous motion of the sea that gets to us. The waves, the clouds, the seagulls, the wind: all is in motion all the time, spinning around the poor human head. The roar of the ocean, the hissing of the wind and the shrieking of the gulls seem almost designed to drive a man mad. Not to mention the blinding light reflected by the enormous surfaces of sand and water.

Seeking refuge in a mundane man made establishment suddenly becomes refreshing, soothing. Nature may be beautiful, but it’s also terrible. We seek comfort with each other, warmth, love.

When we fall in love, we are overwhelmed with strong emotions, we feel so very much alive. The blood races through our veins, we are short of breath. And we don’t mind if other people see us cry -in fact we’re secretly proud of our deep emotions.

But this intensity never lasts. It couldn’t. It would probably kill us.

Most love stories are about this period, the beginning of a relationship, about falling in love. Bientôt l’été is no exception. But I still hope to capture part of what it means to be in love, to love. Steadily, far away from the distractions of falling in love.

To be grounded in life, to live with love as a permanent presence, a tenderness that makes us feel at home. And a little bit sad too, somehow. A smile holding back tears. We know that even this will not last forever. But it’s the very best we can do in life.

Sometimes it feels strange to be working on something that I doubt will find a large audience. It feels wasteful to be spending so much energy on something only a small group will appreciate. Not to mention self-indulgent, self-important.

There seems to be a correlation between popularity and convention. The more popular something is, the more conventional it turns out to be. I’m not opposed to many conventions. I quite enjoy them, like everybody else. But creatively I get impatient with building things that have already been built before, and much better than I ever could.

Some of our games are more popular than others. The ones that sit more comfortably with the conventions of the medium. Bientôt l’été will not be one if those.

Sometimes I wonder what the point is of making something that only myself and a handful of people will enjoy.

I guess such things contribute to diversity. And I do find diversity important. Especially now, in a time of Following and Liking, when we’ve all become numbers to each other. Maybe Bientôt l’été, simply by existing -even if not many play it-, can function as a reminder of being human. Which is not necessarily something lofty, something grand. But it is more than being a number.

Bientôt l’été will be another disaster to show on festivals and fairs. It’s quiet, it’s subtle, it’s slow. There’s not even a whole lot to see. To enjoy it, you’ll need to concentrate, you’ll need to carefully monitor your own feelings. It’s about stopping, being still, musing more than thinking, allowing things to float through your brain to see if they touch something. That’s when it grips you.

It won’t jump up and demand attention. It doesn’t even want to exist without you. It’s an introverted game.

It deals with the kind of emotions that push an otherwise bright and gifted woman to drink. Not depressing thoughts or fear, but the sort of nervousness that passion can arouse. When you know that your body is too small and too inadequate to deal with the storms inside.

So you sit in silence. And you try to find a way to share the gleeful despair that love brings.

The sea is a metaphor for everything.

Bientôt l’été might be the first game we make in which the avatar is just a representation of the player. Usually things are more ambiguous, and the character you control serves as both the virtual body you use to explore the virtual environment as an independent character that is part of the fiction, someone you play the game with, not as.

In the earliest prototypes of Bientôt l’été, I was playing with such ambiguity. I loved the emotional effect of having the character walk away from the camera, becoming small, against the enormity of the sky over a flat beach. But when I started implementing interactivity, trying to express the introverted contemplation I so adore in Duras’ work, this stopped making sense. In Bientôt l’été, you need to be close by the character. You play their role. It is you who takes walks on the beach and collects things. It is you who meets a stranger in a café for an intimate conversation.

The background story of the space station, does add another later to your identity, though. You are not really playing this man or woman in the coastal town. All of that is a program running on a holodeck somewhere in space. You are actually playing a space traveller engaging in a romantic game with another space dweller.

On the other hand, one could say that the whole space situation is just a metaphor and not an actual story. I love the ridiculous complexity of this medium. It feels so natural!

When I think about it, I have to admit that what is most important to me in my work, is that its players enjoy it. So I’m not as different from other game designers as I sometimes flatter myself to be. They may call it fun, and I may call it joy. But that’s only a difference in nuance, if it is one at all. During the actual work, we have the same goals: we want to make something that gives pleasure to the player .

I’m far more satisfied by a player finding joy in my work without getting any deeper meaning out of it, than I am by someone who “gets it” but didn’t find the experience enjoyable. In fact, I don’t really have any message to share, or any insight -the interactive medium forces an author somewhat in such a position, anyway. I find joy in certain things and I try to share this joy with others in my work.

If there is a difference with designers of more conventional games, then it’s simply that I find other things fun than they do. But given the variety that already exists among even conventional games, isn’t this just a matter of adding to the range, rather than a subversion of the format?

Some of us find pleasure in running races or solving puzzles, others prefer shooting alien invaders and playing saviour of the universe, and once in a while, some of us like taking long walks along an empty sea shore. Since there’s already plenty of my colleagues involved in providing opportunity for the former, I’ll happily try and cater to the latter. So that everyone may have some software that amuses them.