penguin's picture
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for https://www.soupy.space/issue/ache. check it out !

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Comments

sergiocornaga's picture

I like how mechanically

I like how mechanically similar this is to your last upload, switching between three scenes containing text, with limited control over what's happening visually in each. I also find it interesting that that's what I first picked up on too, rather than finding the monochrome static aesthetic familiar or something.

sergiocornaga's picture

Apologies for only

Apologies for only commenting on technical aspects of your nice secret esoteric personal game!

penguin's picture

not at all, thanks for

not at all, thanks for playing ❂

clyde's picture

What I notice most in this

What I notice most in this game is how successful it is at avoiding the default tones of the tools and form with which I imagine it was put together. Like Sergio mentions, it feels like the techniques and tools of https://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/11079 were re appropriated, but the design choices here give the game such a different tone. I like how the abstraction into monochromatic layers of silhouetting static counter-intuitively make the forms feel more like human bodies by avoiding the lighting on materials. Also, the slow-motion avoids the janky movements of the ragdolls.
I read this piece as being about embodiment and I like how the abstraction of the images and the player-controlled camera-changes reveal something about the design-problems of expressing embodiment in a computer-game. ihavefivehat has done a lot of work in this area too; their pieces often feel as if they are trying to make the movement in computer-games feel physical and viscous through image/collider obscurity and large quantities of small objects with simulated physics. Here though, embodiment is expressed more with slow intimate movements and abstracted reflections or shadows. When I move the camera around, I find myself having to reorient my mental image of the scene in order check the body's position almost like using reflections from a spoon or something to wipe a smudge off my face. I don't often think about the embodiment we receive from looking at our reflections (I mostly think of the sense of touch and general sense of current health), it's an interesting angle to it. I was surprised that switching the camera was intriguing for me for as long as it was, I think this was largely due to the reorientation I mentioned mixed with the changes to the audio-layering.
I don't think that I would have empathized with the human-form as much if not for the text and the small amount of agency given to me with the arrow keys. Everything here felt necessary and having https://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/11079 to compare it to reveals a lot of intention.

penguin's picture

thanks for these thoughts..

thanks for these thoughts.. i'm especially glad that you found intrigue in switching the camera.

spiral's picture

I think it's going to be

I think it's going to be hard for me to 'correctly' understand the intent of this but I think that's OK. I have a strong impression of something important being said, though!

This game made me reflect on cycles of behaviour, namely relating to disassociation. The only progression in the game is very short, and loops back on itself in a "back to square one" sort of way, and the relation of the scenes can only become understood by going through it several times. I don't know how long it took me to realize what exactly was going on with the controls, but I think it's brilliant how it begins with you far removed from your own sense (the body), and then ends up so zoomed in for the third scene that you can't easily tell the trees for the forest. That is, only by setting motion in the third scene and seeing the results in the first two was I able to realize the strong disconnect between the viewing of self and the control of self.

Again, I feel unsure in understanding the intent correctly, but to me what this game shows is the difficultly of aligning two different modes of affecting the self: the first is recognizing a problem, and the second is being able to do anything about it. Being able to recognize a problem without being able to control yourself is frustrating in how trapped you feel, but also being able to change things while the problem is forgotten is just as useless.

penguin's picture

i'm thankful that you shared

i'm thankful that you shared this reflection. i can relate to the difficulty you describe.

spiral's picture

I'm glad I said something

I'm glad I said something then :)

quasiotter's picture

you're on fire

thank you

everythingstaken's picture

yes

yess

penguin's picture

no you !

no you !

sergiocornaga's picture