There tends to be something very mechanical about the behavior of synthetic characters in videogames. This is caused by their logic being driven by the very rigid processes that we can feasibly describe in computer code. One could argue that we just need to multiply our efforts and resources to make these characters look and behave more like the creatures they are supposed to represent. Or one could reject the desire for realism entirely and simple stick to non-human characters, or characters presented in a simplified visual style so that their rigid behavior doesn’t seem odd.

Both approaches have their merits and I do want to see people exploring them. But ultimately, wouldn’t we all be better off if we could simply accept that the creatures on our screens are synthetic? They are not really humans, not really animals, not really plants. Nor photographic representations of them. They are just fabrications inspired by such creatures that may recall such creatures in our mind. If they possess some kind of life, then they are an entirely new form of life. Simpler perhaps than we are, but still quite useful in our artistic endeavors.

If we just accept that these fake characters will have fake behaviors, we will enjoy our videogames much more. A well done simulation is of course a beautiful thing to witness. But if our synthetic actors don’t quite succeed in imitating our behavior exactly, maybe we should just cut them some slack. After all, they only have human-created systems to fall back on, unlike our own organic systems which we did not make ourselves. I think they’re doing pretty well given the circumstances. They have God nor evolution, and yet they have life and manage to move and amuse us from time to time.

Addressing item after item on my to do list is going remarkably well. But I’m a bit anxious about what Bientôt l’été will be like after all these changes. I don’t have time to play it. I just continue to add and fix individual elements without knowing very well how this will impact the whole.

This is kind of exciting because the game remains an unexplored mystery for me too this way. But it’s nerve-wracking to not know. Chances are I won’t be able to thoroughly play the game before release of the next test version. So I will become one of the alpha testers myself. Let’s just hope the program doesn’t start crashing.

I am happy with the opportunity that the new point-and-click navigation on Bientôt l’été‘s beach offers to just watch the game and think, dream, empathize. We’re often so obsessed with interactivity when making videogames that we underestimate the power of doing nothing, the luxury of just being able to watch something and allow all our energy to flow to our thought processes.

I click a distant point on the beach and my avatar starts walking towards it. I release the mouse, lean my head on my hands and watch. The waves float in, texts appear, a solitary gull in the sky. The world is alive. There is nothing movie-like about this experience, despite a superficial similarity.

I watch my avatar from the back. Nothing in her body language betrays any response. But I know how this sight makes her feel, how the words touch her. How she wants to see more, feel more, even if it hurts. There is a strange sort of self-indulgent pleasure in emotional pain. It almost feels addictive.

I’m very pleased with this game. By reducing the activity, I think I have managed to capture the wonder of the very core of many videogames. We often forget how truly remarkable it is that we have these synthetic characters traversing virtual environments. This fascinates me so much more than any sort of gameplay.

My vacation is over. I want to get a second alpha release out of the door by the end of next week. Before the distraction of the Game Developers Conference in Cologne.

A lot of things have changed already. I want to hear some feedback now.

(Spoilers below!)

The mechanic for collecting phrases on the beach is different. Now it just happens automatically as phrases float in on the waves. And only after they have been collected do they appear in the sand. I liked the previous system with the phrases moving over the screen as you walk past and standing still to collect. But this appears to be completely unintuitive and subtle hints don’t suffice. So rather than ruining the experience by explaining the mechanic with hands and feet, I just removed it. It’s funny how the collection mechanic has gradually disappeared from the design.

The interface for speaking the phrases in the café has changed as well. Instead of clicking on the lines of a list with all collected phrases, the phrases are now tied to the fields of the chess board pattern on the table. So you speak the phrase that belongs to the field where you put down a chess piece. This makes the chess aspect a lot more prominent. I’m curious as to how people will respond to that.

I also want to tweak the networking system a bit and enable Apparitions and café exterior changes. Apparitions are items that appear on or next to the beach. There’s always only one. Some are small, others gigantic. Many refer to Marguerite Duras’ work and life. They are the places where you can collect chess pieces. The exterior of the café will also be different in every session. It starts small and becomes bigger in a few steps. And then it shrinks again. Here too, the buildings refer to Duras: there’s a café, a villa, a hotel, a casino and a colonial mansion.

I had originally considered finishing the visual aesthetics of the game first, so that I could spread screenshots and movies early. But after the results of the first alpha test, I’m eager to test the changes and additions. So I’m focusing on functionality for now.

Maybe Bientôt l’été will be the first entirely sincere game that we have made. And perhaps this is why, despite of being highly artistic, personal and experimental, it inspires a new direction towards a more accessible style.

All of our games have had a humorous, ironic aspect. Even The Graveyard with its solemn theme pokes fun at gamers’ expectations and parodies the try-before-you-buy system. But adding such contrary, ironic things ends up confusing many players. And even if it amuses some, it does so on a meta level, outside of the fiction and the simulation.

So what is the point? It’s insincere. To create something and then to mock it. Players can do this on their own if they like.

Mixing humor and sincerity is confusing. I personally enjoy such ambiguity. But it always disappoints me when other people don’t. When they take things seriously that we added in jest. Or when they simply don’t think our jokes are funny. They are beside the point anyway. So I should just leave them out.

I don’t think Bientôt l’été is ambiguous. It was made from a much more confident position than any of our previous work. The notgames community has in no small way contributed to a certain feeling of comfort I now have with the medium of videogames. I no longer feel I should acknowledge the videogame context in some way by adding ironic references to conventional game design. I just use the medium for what I want to make. And I only care about things made previously in this medium that I appreciate.

As a wise man once said: “Irony is for cowards.”

If we could figure out what it is that makes pop culture so popular, perhaps we could use its techniques to maximize the emotional effect of sincere works of art. Pop culture seems to always go hand in hand with business. It’s the desire for profit that drives it more than anything.

But despite of that, the public can still be touched by popular movies, books or music. Touched more even, than by works of art that were made solely out of kindness and a desire to bring beauty into this world.

We could look down on those simple souls who cry during a romantic comedy but feel nothing when reading Duras, hearing Wagner or seeing a Bernini bust. But could the themes and techniques that move the masses not be exploited for more elevated purposes? If we could make high art with the same impact as popular art, we would unite people with good taste and people with bad taste. And bring joy and beauty and sense and meaning to everyone.

A popular art that is produced in sincerity, and not for commercial gain, does not seem to exist today. But does that mean it is not possible?

There is often an element of deliberate contrariness in our initial ideas for games. We have resolved the conflict of this with our more classicist aspirations as a desire for balance: if we see too much of one thing in the world we will add a little bit of the other.

Even The Endless Forest, undoubtedly our most joyous piece so far, started as an “anti-game”: an mmo in which you play a deer and you can’t talk.

Perhaps it’s not necessarily contrariness that motivates us as curiosity. There’s often a “what if” question at the origin of an idea. What if you play an old woman and you cannot do much but walk and sit down? What if Little Red Ridinghood is actually looking for the wolf, knowing full well it will be her end? What if John the Baptist was given an opportunity to consider Salome outside of his professional duties as a prophet?

Sometimes a perfectly valid artistic choice is not the wisest decision in terms of accessibility. The French language in Bientôt l’été and the inspiration from Marguerite Duras is a recipe for disaster in an Anglo-Saxon dominated context like videogames. I admit there’s a certain f* you sentiment involved in our preference to shoot ourselves in the foot rather than be sensible.

Despite such contrary beginnings, we then always try to make the experience as nice as possible. We take pains to set a mood, to give the player sensations of being somewhere else, feeling something else. When actually making the game, we don’t want to challenge expectations any more. We just want playing to feel good.

So why don’t we just drop our jerky modernist reflex of being contrary? Wouldn’t our life be a lot easier if our games started with an idea that is already nice in concept? And then we simply build further on that. To make something that is simply nice. Maybe that is my new ambition.

Total immersion in a virtual reality is not the ideal state for appreciating interactive art, like videogames. When the game world starts feeling natural and real, it begins to disappear. And nothing in it stands out any more. Or the simulation overwhelms. With the same result.

We are dealing with synthetic images here. And with multimedia. We don’t need to simulate reality. And we can immerse players in sound too.

We need to create sufficient space around the important elements, so that the player can recognize them and pay attention to them. These elements in turn will respond to the player. And a relationship between the two will grow.

This cannot happen when everything in the game demands equal amounts of attention. The important elements need to be isolated sufficiently so that they can charm the player. And become his partner, or a comfortably recognizable feature, in the exploration of the synthetic environment.

Modern art, contemporary art works quite well when it offers an alternative to a conservative mainstream. This is what happened in the early 20th century. Salon figuration and even forms of classicism were still very much alive when cubism and constructivism and dada and De Stijl happened.

But now that modern art has become the mainstream it has lost much of its charm. There is nothing to rebel against anymore. Yet modern art is stuck in some weird state of permanent revolution. Hence to constant “redefining” of art, or the “subversion”, or all the “post” genres. Contemporary art feels like it continuously needs to question itself, to question what art is, and what its place is in society.

But I know what art is. And I just want to make art now. This stuff is difficult enough without questioning it or subverting it. I know what art can mean to people and I just want to make that. Not for any sort of elite that enjoys subversion (of nothing). But for as many people as possible. And I think videogames are the most suitable medium for this. Even if these videogames need to stop being “games” in order to really reach people.

Bientôt l’été may be the most explicit art game we have made so far. And yet is also functions as a transition to the games I want to make after this, “beyond” art.

The key to both is focus. By stripping everything away that is non-essential, even at the expense of realism (perhaps especially so), the mind of the player is allowed to appreciate even minute things. Things that may go unnoticed in a richer context (like the footsteps in 8).

A simple context allows the player to enjoy every element in it, and allows the creator to concentrate on these few elements. To make them beautiful and meaningful and charming. This does not only apply to the environment or the graphics in general. But also to the interaction design.

We have known for a long time that conventional rules-driven, goal-oriented play distracts the player from engaging with the actual content of the piece: the virtual world, the characters, the philosophical theme, etc. But simply removing such interactions, or even taking care that the player cannot engage in any remaining activities in a game-like manner, is not enough.

I believe now that the amount of interaction needs to be as minimal as possible. Perhaps even to the point where the game becomes slow. To create the opportunity to enjoy what is really going on in this world. A lot more processing should be devoted to generative systems that make the world feel alive. It’s much better to play a limited creature in a rich world than to be an all powerful hero in an essentially static decor.