Here's a link to an excellent new interview with gametrekker Jordan Magnuson: 'I released a new notgame from Cambodia today'. The notgame, a powerful interaction with Cambodia's genocide, speaks for itself, and really deserves a play through (it takes about four minutes, and only requires holding down the space button, so no excuses about complexity or lack of time): The Killer. As one reviewer on Newgrounds states, 'This game [. . .] says more than all the news on TV'.
Asked in the interview why so many of his 'games' deal with such dark themes, Magnuson's response was a powerful reminder of why we need art in the first place -- to help us see the world truly, and remind us of all we have forgotten about each other, about pain, about life. To help us feel rightly, and encounter rightly:
Yes a lot of my games and notgames deal with dark themes. Some of them deal with death, killing, genocide. I don’t think these are the only themes that games should be addressing, by any means, but I do think they are important themes that need to be addressed precisely because of the thoughtless and insensitive ways that games have addressed them in the past. When you think about it, nearly all of the games we make are already about death, already about killing, already about genocide.
But the expression of these things in our games has become so abstracted and dehumanized that we no longer recognize them for what they are. Death, as perceived through most of our computer games, loses almost all of the meaning it has had in the context of human lives and relationships throughout history. Thus, when it comes to the most significant themes in human experience, computer games have the tendency to strip meaning and significance out of those themes, strip empathy and understanding away from the people who play them.
I’m not saying I’m against RTS games, or chess, or even first person shooters. I’m just saying that for every game we have that makes life and death abstract to some extreme degree, I think we also need a game (or notgame) that solidifies them, humanizes them, reminds us of what we used to know about them.
I've already posted about my brother, a computer game developer who is traveling the world (Southeast Asia, anyway) creating "notgames" about his experiences.
Calling him a computer game developer is not entirely correct, however. My brother is an artist -- someone who seeks to creatively interact with the world around him. Someone constantly searching for meaningful ways to encounter reality, and ways to convey that encounter (that meaning, if you will) with others.
As an artist, he's never been limited to the computer game (or interactive) medium.
Among his many other talents, he is an exceptional writer, and I highly encourage you to read his most recent travel article, Cambodia: Like No Place I've Been.
I link to it here because it's a powerful exploration of a land torn by conflict, and the ordinary, joy-filled people who live on despite a horrific past and a difficult present.
How is it that the world can simultaneously be filled with such bright beauty and dark violence?
On a side-note, I first learned about Cambodia through the award-winning young adult novel, Children of the River, which is well worth a read.
If, as Marvin Olasky suggests, social justice is created from millions of individual acts of relational justice, then maybe global understanding is created from combining millions of moments of individual understanding. Of one person stepping out of his or her comfort zone to encounter the Other.
And encountering the Other is exactly what game designer, Jordan Magnuson, hopes to do. Travel the world, and create computer games (or notgames) about what he sees and experiences. About how he is impacted.
This is something he has already done -- very effectively, I believe -- with such games as Freedom Bridge, inspired by his two years spent living in South Korea. But now he wants to do it on a wider scale, and is asking for your support.
Now, there are many, many reasons that this excites me, but I'm going to share two of them. One, as I have stated elsewhere, I believe in creativity. I believe that creation is, perhaps, the single greatest weapon we have against destruction -- against war, and hatred, and violence. Pacifism is powerful because it requires creative resistance. It requires humanity in the place of barbarism.
I believe that the creative process, even when it isn't used to convey explicitly peace-related themes, helps us retain our humanity and draws us together in community -- the broad community that binds us together as beings who long to communicate, create beauty, and make meaning, and the more specific community of those who have shared a specific experience, whether that experience involves looking at a van Gogh, attending an opera, or playing a computer game. Art binds us together.
Which is why kickstarter (an online site that allows you to contribute directly to creative projects) is so exciting to me. Not only can you be involved in the process of experiencing art, you can actually help create it. You can enable individuals to share their creative visions with you, and with the world.
So I am excited about Game Trekking because it's creative. But I'm also excited about the specific way in which it is creative. I'm excited that it's a project dedicated to encountering and understanding the unknown. I'm excited that Magnuson will have the opportunity to see and listen, to explore and ponder, to change and be changed. I believe that, in itself, is priceless. But it doesn't stop there. What I'm really excited about is that Magnuson, being the artist that he is, will then be able to share those experiences with us. Share them in a way that is deeply impactful, using a medium, travel gaming, that has never been used before.
Now, I will admit that I'm a bit biased when it comes to this particular project, gamemaker, and person. After all, he's one of my favorite people, one of my favorite artists, and one of my favorite thinkers. I find his ideas compelling and his conviction inspiring. He's one of the very few people who has the power, in a 60 minute conversation, to actually change my perspective on a topic, and broaden my worldview.
Magnuson is a person of integrity, living and creating out of a strong sense of necessity, compassion, and humility. So when I tell you that his creative contribution can actually impact the world, I truly, wholeheartedly believe it.
"I want to travel around the world and communicate the things I experience. To help me understand the world better, and maybe, just maybe, to help increase understanding in a broader context. Perhaps that's arrogance, but for me it's hope."
So what are you waiting for? Become a backer. Because choosing peace, creativity, and understanding, even on the small scale, is always a good thing.
I've mentioned my brother before, a game designer and critic who believes that computer games have the potential to be profoundly powerful. He's an artist who's fascinated by the ways in which the interactivity of the gaming medium can help us reconsider, and recapture, our humanity.
I don't know if you're someone who likes computer games, or someone who finds them completely superfluous. Regardless, I challenge you, as a human being interested in conflict and resolution, and the human condition of struggle, hope, and despair, to go ahead and spend two minutes "playing" Freedom Bridge. The game gets its name from the bridge connecting North and South Korea over the Imjin River. It loads in your browser, and all you have to do is click on the screen and use your keyboard to move.
Believe me, it's worth it.
If you want to read more about it, there's an article in Resolution Magazine.
And here is some of the response it is getting:
One of the most intense interactive experiences I’ve ever had. I went on and watched some short documentaries about Korea afterwards in order to process the tension it had left me with (mitsche, FlashPunk Forums).
One of the best video games I’ve played all year (Fraser McMillan, Resolution Magazine).
An excellent demonstration of how you can use the medium to really have an impact (Brooks Harrel, college student with a ‘starving artist’ passion for game design).
Short, to the point, and beautiful (benedict, FlashPunk Blog).
Very much worth the quick playthrough! (GameSetWatch).
I often take issue with games this short and message-centric, but it was very effective (Bryan Suchenski).
Here, despite being the barest representation possible, is something far more deeply affecting than the biggest budget “emotional experience” being crafted today (Eolirin, Raph Koster’s Blog).
Best flash game ever? (multiple posts on Twitter).
My brother is a game designer and critic who believes that computer games are the next great artistic frontier.
There are many reasons why this concept fascinates me. As someone who's interested in the power of creation as opposed to destruction, there is something deeply intriguing about a medium that is by default interactive, requiring both the maker and the player to engage in the creative process.
In literary criticism, we often discuss the idea of the reader as a co-creator with the author, for the reader's interpretation shapes the imaginative reality of a text, some would argue, as significantly as the author's words. Interactive art, however, takes this idea to the next level, creating a reality that is blatantly dependent on the involvement of both the designer and the player.
In some senses, there can be no passive game players. Such a paradox defies the rules of the game's own medium.
What is the point of all of this in the context of peacemaking? I'm still trying to figure that out.
But I think there are hints in Esquire's 2008 article on game designer Jason Rohrer, titled "The Video-Game Programmer Saving Our 21st-Century Souls," the subscript of which reads, "Jason Rohrer's solitary and stubborn quest for a future in which pixels and code and computers will make you cry and feel and love."
And there are hints in Adam Cadre's 1998 interactive fiction, Photopia.
And perhaps there are hints (though I'm sure he would deny it) in my brother's recently developed game about terrorist hunting. A game which ends with Noam Chomsky's words, "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
, which is well worth a read.
