Not a story.

Trying to use games to tell a story is like trying to use Macbeth to tell a story. It’s perfectly fine a long as you’re telling the story of Macbeth. But don’t try to talk about your walk in the park with your dog or the love of Jesus Christ for Maria Magdalena. It’s not going to work. Macbeth does not offer the means to tell those stories. Because it already is a story.

And so is “game”. Game is that story about learning how to do something and then being better at it than others. You can set this story in different contexts -much like it’s plausible to make a Macbeth that takes place during World War 2, or in a hi-tech future. The game story is often told as the victory of an initially weak individual over evil. But it remains the same story -even when it is “subverted” by making you feel bad about killing the enemies. And trying to make all content fit that model is silly.

Bientôt l’été does not offer such a story. That’s one reason why a game format wouldn’t suit it. Maybe there’s no story at all in Bientôt l’été. I certainly didn’t write one. And while the texts come from novels that do contain stories, they have been removed from their context and cannot be put back.

I try to create a certain mood in Bientôt l’été. And there may even be a sort of theme. But as much as there is no game, there is neither a story. Bientôt l’été is just and only what it is. A sort of simulation, a virtual place, something to do, something to play with. It is potentially heavy with meaning, and it is probably capable of bringing tears of joy or sorrow. But it does this, or not, on its own strength, without relying on story or game.

Whether it does this successfully or not, I do believe that this is an important field to explore: the opportunity offered by the videogames medium for creating art that is not narrative, and that introduces a new way of dealing with content, of exploring reality.