At least on first analysis this game ticks a couple of boxes for me in terms of continuing interests for exploration when I’m making these games of mine…
Repetition and variation
It’s another step in the series of Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment games, each of which (at least after the first, or perhaps including it) has been about re-exploring the core ideas involved with some newly introduced constraint/perspective. So this game is naturally in conversation with all the rest as a way of thinking about what remaking the “same” game over and over again is like. It’s part of the project that includes PONGS and BREAKSOUT in that way, also things like SNAKISMS and Sibilant Snakelikes too. The value in this case is the contribution to a larger exploration of what we can say about the nature of games by repeating ourselves with variation, another kind of Exercises in Style thing that reveals features of the medium/platform/technology/rules/design/etc. through (semi?)formal experimentation.
Translation
The game is another instance of translation from one medium/platform/form to another. In this case it’s closest to the translation approach between v r 1 and b r 1, it’s a translation between platforms while keeping the core design principles/underlying concepts stable. In this case it’s a translation between a Phaser-based, retro-gaming experience of the punishments to a UI-oriented, jQuery-based version of the same experiences. As such it’s about revealing features of the underlying technology and form, about looking at how design reacts to its materials. How do you make a chair out of wood? What about out of concrete? Right?
User interface and expression
The game is part of the trajectory of the It is as if… games, though perhaps more in keeping with It is as if you were playing chess in that it’s not at attempt at speculative design, but more specifically about how the interface can express different kinds of experiences/performances. I guess It is as if you were making love fits this bill too - an unfamiliar/”wrong/” experience presented in the language of UI. So this game is about the ability of interface elements to express the concepts drawn from Greek mythology: eternity, suffering. And perhaps Camus’s happy Sisyphus for all we know.
Let me at least review the previous ideas in the context of having made the game…
Repetition and variation
I think this is part of things in one sense but not another. I’d somewhat imagined this game as a remake of the original game, but in fact while making it I don’t feel that I’ve been thinking in terms of how to make the UI represent the game. Rather it’s been about taking the original concept of the game (the myths) and looking at how to translate them into a particular interactive language - previously 8-bit-ish games, now Windows95-era user-interface. So it’s a continuation of the concept.
Which is good and fair - each of the series have varied the way that you might represent/think about the original myth in the context of a videogame or some other aspect? Well, perhaps Art Edition was more about the original game itself and the idea of layers of representation. But the others have been about the original myth transformed through some idea of videogames (CPU players, the ability to always win/succeed, the flexibility of which role you play). And this new one is a transformation/variation in terms of the actual user-interface representing the myth.
Translation
Clearly an important one. As above, not so much a translation of the original game as the original myth and concept for the original game. This is also true for a game like b r 1 vis-a-vis v r 1 for instance - it’s not a straight-up remake because that wasn’t possible, rather it’s readdressing the same idea (variations of Schneider’s u r 1) from a new vantage/platform/interface. And that’s what we have too - the idea of mythological punishments as interactive experience we can present (very well) on a computer, with this game being the translation of that concept (and the specifics of each myth) to the interactive language of Windows95 era interface design.
(As I’m writing this I’m getting tickles of my worries in today’s Process Journal entry about my use of language in the game and whether it strays too far into the actual language of the myths instead of staying in the language of the interface. But to which side does language belong? What’s right or wrong?)
In fact perhaps one thing I can just say (to myself at least) about the use of language is that I’m trying a number of different positions in this game, all valid. I don’t think the overall experience needs to necessarily have precisely one voice - it’s an experiment? So Sisyphus is effectively purely in the language of UI with no reference to the myth other than the metaphorical interactive level. Zeno is a lot like a Wizard, so sticks to UI language, but there’s more of a winky correspondence between the UI language and the myth language (a step, a goal, taking the next step). And then something like Prometheus or Danaids or Tantalus are much more about quite literally trying to represent the myth stuff in language AND interface elements - which is in part why the interface elements are perhaps less strong or those? Well I think Tantalus is quite smart actually, the correspondence of “disabled” elements and “withheld” objects is a nice one. But perhaps Danaids and Prometheus are less … well Prometheus is pretty good too really, the idea of “Accept” having a double meaning is nice, and the idea of a UI encouraging you to passively accept, as well as the disabled break free button to represent chains.
Okay okay, it’s pretty good, with Danaids still clearly representing the one I’m least happy with.
User-interface and Expression
Fair enough still too. The question of what kinds of ideas are expressible in a user-interface language (many) has definitely been part of this process. I feel like I’m just affirming what I already wrote which is maybe not the most revolutionary. The game was certainly a chance to explore how to use a UI expressively in perhaps a different way to its intent.
Importantly, I guess, it doesn’t rely only on the language/content but most of all on find interactions that represent the core nature of the punishment/myth. Zeno is the best example of this I think - the use of a Wizard format to convey the idea of an infinite “race” is pretty great. Took a while to find that as initially I was thinking about elements that can be recursive or “fractal”, but the Wizard is much more elegant than that.
Summary?
I don’t really love writing these things at the end, the summaries, because I guess I just want to be done with it. But I really do need to put together a proper bit of writing that I can put out there for people to understand. The uh… the… “closing statement” idea. Where I pull together the key thematic ideas and link to commits etc. etc. Would make sense. I can write that after release, but of course the further I get perhaps the less likely I am to write it?
Well just broadly speaking: I’m happy with where this game got to from the initial vision of the Sisyphus slider, and I’m particularly happy that was able to largely equal the design ideas of that first image with other experiences that are interesting in their own ways, and particularly Zeno. Always Zeno.