By: Rob
This is the second part (part one here) of our look at Ed Key and David Kanaga’s Proteus, currently available to preorder for Windows with OSX and Linux versions to follow…
‘Proteus’ starts with your character literally at sea, looking across a glittering ocean at a distant shoreline; the soundtrack a rolling, chattering musical instrument that’s familiar but difficult to place.
It’s a description that fits Proteus itself; the game’s bold subpoena-ing of designer Ed Key’s own favorite places (a few of which we looked at in part one) bringing a level of verisimilitude to bear on the island’s seasoned environment, while Kanaga’s music provides the closest the game has to a map – guiding and teasing mysteries and wonders from the player’s exploration of this undiscovered country.
The game itself is similarly concatenated. Key and Kanaga’s game doesn’t so much provide an experience as a canvas for experiences. The island doesn’t flood your senses, instead its abstract design aesthetic in particular encourages the player to bring their own memories and feelings to bear on the island. An example of this reader response was my story about the spinney behind my house as a child from part one but Proteus uses a number of techniques – both blocky and beautiful – to populate its island.
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By: Rob
This is part one of a two-part look at Ed Key and David Kanaga’s Proteus, based on several builds of the game plus an interview and email correspondence with Key himself. Part two will be released tomorrow.
Sat at the end of a long terraced street, the unremarkable new build home I grew up in as a kid was the gatehouse between a grey suburbia and a put-upon but utterly addictive spinney. The garden backed onto a haphazard cryptoforest – squeezed on either side by a deserted barracks and a new building estate – full of sycamores, nettles, shopping trolleys and endless adventure. I would have lived there if it weren’t for the monsters at night.
I never mapped this jungle, despite the benefits of being able to navigate its smelly, sickly streams or escape the yawning, pit-of-the-stomach horror of me and my friends realising we were utterly lost in its belly as the sun began to set. Why not? I think, despite the terrors, deep down I was aware they were nothing against the value this rich, story-filled space held as a mystery. The phrase ‘here be dragons’ is the most exciting part of any map…
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By: Rob
Convened to bring together videogame experiences, chat and comparison, First Play Sheffield‘s ‘World 1-1′ transported a dozen enthusiastic advocates to a bare pub function room. Gathered round an Arthurian table arrangement, we each had two minutes to talk about the game of our choice. And the modest setting offered some grand stories.
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By: Rob
Described as “…a computer designed to analyse and decompose Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Rambler’s Lullaby II”, on the page, The Machine’s chattering, clattering stream of data at first looks like book music for an organ or the kind of game listing I would have typed into my beloved Spectrum 48k.
It’s neither of these things, but the comparisons are interesting. Written in 1968 by author, filmmaker and Oulipoist Georges Perec, The Machine is in fact a radio play, adapted for live performance by Sheffield-based performance artists Third Angel in Sheffield just last month.
The play’s story borrows the forms and restrictions of computer programs, but it’s a lot more interactive than its monolithic title suggests. Not so much in the dazzling – and often very funny – back and forth between the computer’s separate processors as they attempt to fathom Goethe’s poem about solitude by (for instance) substituting its nouns for fairy tale motifs, as in the audience’s slow assimilation into its subroutines and algorithms…
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By: Russell
Thanks to all who came down to Overlap Season 0, Episode 2 at Brezza earlier this month.
I hope you all had a good time, I certainly did and it was great to see the responses to my game-making challenge (a selection can be seen in the image above). With ideas ranging from multiple personality issues to blind brothers in love (with each other) it was certainly an interesting look into stories that tell complex stories, but remember to keep the player engaged.
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By: Matt
Russ Stearman is our guest host for the second episode of Overlap’s pilot season. Here’s his introduction to the event which takes place on 11th October in Sheffield. There’s more info at our announcement for Overlap S0E2.
This Tuesday we’re looking at ‘The Secret Agent’ of stories and videogames. We’ll be exploring the idea of who’s controlling who and to what effect. Based on the title, you might be mistaken for thinking it’s a look at the stories of a certain Mr Bond and his ilk, foiling world terrorism and certain destruction. I’m sure there’s a whole other talk about the portrayal of super spies in games, but my inspiration comes from a different (although equally explosive) source.
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By: Rob
Following the hugely successful and only slightly uproarious Episode 1, the second in Overlap’s pilot season of live events investigating new and forgotten forms of storytelling, ‘The Secret Agent’, will take place in Sheffield, UK on Tuesday October 11th from 7.30pm.
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By: Rob
Luridly splashed across the headlines of 14 years, Grand Theft Auto has evolved from the exploits of a literally faceless psychopath engaged in a ‘race n chase’ for a crime lord to the ambitious tale of a Serbian emigre in New York-alike Liberty City. Mouthy, assured and occasionally inspired, the scripts of the main storylines would brighten the corners of all but the gutsiest of B-movies. But here, in this most influential of videogames, they’re a sideshow. The true Rockstars of Grand Theft Auto are neither the celestially-named producers nor the sidewalking, starry-eyed avatars. They’re the players.
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By: Rob
This Wednesday at 8pm GMT, Matt and myself will be repeatedly falling through an orangery to our doom on Jet Set Willy Online. It’s our first Overlap Gamesquat and we’re dropping in on Ovine‘s multiplayer version of Matthew Smith’s classic for a game and a chat about whatever storytelling subjects are on your minds. You’re invited.
Jet Set Willy‘s plot might be a simple one, but the stories it produced in its players still ring as loud as a miner’s hangover. For a decent proportion of kids growing up in the UK during the eighties the attic bug (which, incredibly, was a result of an in-game arrow which flew beyond the ZX Spectrum’s video memory to smash into game data), code card, POKE’s, April showers and apocryphal yacht trips were their first experience of everything from hacking and user-generated content to story remixing and fan fiction.
Lots to talk about just on JSW, then, but you can think of Willy’s mansion as the setting more than the subject – we’ll be chatting about all sorts and it’s really just a chance to say hi, shoot the breeze about storytelling and struggle to jump over pirouetting kangaroos.
If this sounds like fun, download the client then look for the ‘Overlap’ game on the JSWo homepage from 8pm Wednesday. Feel free to bob us a line in the comments if you’re coming along.
By: Rob
Frank Rose’s book The Art of Immersion
is ostensibly a field guide to new storytelling across the web, film and TV. Featuring explorations of landmarks from Grand Theft Auto’s Liberty City to Mulholland Drive’s ink black asphalt, it’s an attempt to work out where we are and where we might go as storytellers and audiences alike.
All the same, charting this new landscape is a little like mapping sandcastles on a beach. One of the few defining characteristics of new story forms such as ARGs is their mayfly-like lifespan. Happenings such as The Dark Knight’s Why So Serious – which saw players descending on New York bakeries to pick up layer cakes as part of a recruitment drive for the Joker’s gang – are devoured by fans before the icing is even set. Even the millennia-old granite of Lost’s colossal four-toed statue quickly crumbled upon its discovery by the show’s marrow-sucking audience.
Smartly, The Art of Immersion avoids the need for FIFA or Madden-like iterations by remembering it’s a book. There’s a hero in game designer Will Wright and his brave and foolhardy war cry of ‘support the user’s story’, while Immersion’s narrative line cuts through the Dickenian morass of platforms with airport thriller gleam.
Our interview with Frank, recorded before his keynote at Sheffield Doc/Fest earlier this month, looked at the part he played in the tale as well as offering a chance to discuss games, stories and the places in between.
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