Videa Workshop Saturday november 20th 12h30 am *Shared notes pad [here](https://pad.public.cat/videa-piksel-workshop-shared-notes#)* *more references on petites singularités forum* https://ps.zoethical.org/t/workshop-jeu-videa-piksel-21/5201 This workshops will take place around 2 axes, a reflection on contemporary languages on contemporary video games from a feminist perspective, and the learning of video game programming by the free software Godot Engine. ### Problematic and Timeline Since the episode of “Gamergate” a few years ago, and partly thanks to the work of feminist academics such as: Anita Sarkeesian (feminist frequency), among others, we now have a better understanding of gender relations in video games. Since then, a number of video games have paid attention to the staging of female characters: (“The last of us” or “Child of light” for example, others are transforming certain aspects of “game-play”, “Never alone” or “Gone home”, or modifying their graphic approach to include elements more familiar to women. There are also a number of attempts to build more collaborative environments, to experiment with other formats, such as “Tacoma” (by the same studio as “Gone Home”) or Iconoclast (which offers a narrative choice based on principles of repair and collaboration) but so far there is still no attempt to develop a video game format that captures feminist and collaborative principles, by transforming the modalities of video games. https://ps.zoethical.org/t/elements-pour-une-comprehension-des-enjeux-feministes/2451/3 Furthermore and in my view one doesn't go without the other many critics have pointed how video games normalize colonial domination death and the politics of empires. "In video games studies, such postcolonial issues have only very recently assumed more prominence.[1] While the diversity and heterogeneity of video games allow for a number of ways to critically interrogate US imperialism and its legacies of colonialism and racism, I contend that few mainstream games have used this potential and that the vast majority instead reinforces imperial logics.[2] In this sense, video games work similarly to other products of mainstream US popular culture, many of which also centrally involve US settings, figures, or narratives—yet relatively rarely confront the country’s imperial legacies." "In addition to (re)narrating empires, the ludic elements of these games can equally be read in postcolonial terms: do specific gameplay aspects promote or subvert, for example, imperial and colonial ideologies of white supremacy or patriarchal capitalism? Often, it is specifically the combination of gameplay mechanics and narrative world-building that renders video games significant for such questions. For instance, the act of taking over—or colonizing—space is both a central gameplay element and a key narrative motivation in many video games.[3] In such portrayals, the narrative of settler colonialism and the myth of ‘manifest destiny’ often suffuse both gameplay and narrative, a legacy that ranges from literal representations in classic games like The Oregon Trail (1985) to more metaphorical science-fiction settings such as in the exploration game No Man’s Sky (2016).[4] Space in video games thus functions as something through which an empire can be played (or ludified), offering various ways to colonize and ‘claim’ space." source: https://usso.uk/playing-with-not-against-empires-video-games-and-postcolonialism/ ### Times are changing The gender balance in the game industry is evolving according in England for example there has been a [census study](https://ukie.org.uk/UK-games-industry-census-2020) Impressive characters are coming up and creating another scene, [Meghna Jayanth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Jayanth) for example Some editing houses propose different models https://rawfury.com/ ### Example of different approaches In these contexts some games propose radically different scenarios for example sable uses dramatically different interaction modalities, it is anexploration game where the player moves in a world where nomadic culture have left traces. She smoothly blends into with her environment and the games actively blurs the limits between the spaces the elements and the genres. https://www.shed-works.co.uk/sable In recent years some counsciousness has arisen and there are now a fez different games different games available on commercial platforms, [Spiritfarer](https://thunderlotusgames.com/spiritfarer/) for example is available on nitendo switch, it proposes a radically different modality of interaction with the character surroundings and offers to adress the emotions related to the loss of loved ones. A video game adressing the emotions associated to death is quite an important fact given the importance of killing in traditional video games. ### How to address these issues The problematic is known since a very long time and still scarcely adressed and mostly never adressed by mainstream video games. As Alfie Bown makes clear in an article already dating from 2018 on the momentous necessity of the video game industry to move from formally political to purposefully progressive, “progressive content is not enough... Video games communicate ideology at the level of form, and laying a progressive storyline over the top does not necessarily prevent a game from serving rightwing ideas.” Brown, Alfie. “Video Games Are Political. Here’s How They Can be Progressive.” The Guardian, 13 August 2018, www.theguardian.com/games/2018/aug/13/video-games-are-political-heres-how-they-can-be-progressive. ### Methods and Tactics: https://ps.zoethical.org/t/feminist-game-environment/1647 GAME PRINCIPLES To better understand what a feminist video game can be, a good start could be to state a few principles based on Exchange and collaboration that we could start from, such as: - Permeability of the environment where exchange between the characters and their context is rendered possible and visible. - Game principles that are not based on the personification of players but on the multiplicity of their actions. - Control and mastery is not at the core of the game, one action can and most probably has multiple effects. ENVIRONMENT/TERRITORY The term environment is already misleading as it starts from the principle that the character is clearly separated from its surrounding, which is most often the case in video games for technical and practical reasons, but clearly is completely different from what actually happens where bodies are in constant exchange with their surrounding both via their sensory aparatus and their microbiome, indentifying to a character existing in a separately organised environment is simply unrealistic. One of the ways we thought about in order to adress this issue in the feminist gaming principles is to propose a Dynamic Map from a territory in constant construction where the elements are permanently interacting with one another and exchanging accross categories. MOTOR ELEMENTS OF THE GAME The motor elements are the elements that make the dynamic of a game, they are the main things that we want to transform, because they are at the core of the gameplay. We have identified several points we wish to foster, that can bring different dynamics. Recuperation - by recuperation we mean the character arrives in a finite gamespace and she has to manage with aht is there to make the game happen, she cannot create new material at will, she cannot build a new universe city or else, she needs to work transforming what is already there. Reconstruction - The idea here is to work from memory to unearth data and information. Transformation Permeability MODALITIES OF INTERACTION Trace that follows the contact points of the characters in the game. Exchange furtif, Transmition of information between different beings Mutation Reproduction Symbiosis CHARACTERS Lombric: made from reproducible blocs that can spread through the game Roots: adaptative element that moves from ground to water Overflyers: Foireflyes and other unicorns who emerge from the different surfaces and transform their environment.pendant les différentes surfaces. Butinage, Etalement des savoirs échange des processus, Passage transition, création de ponts. Adapteurs. Ecosystèmes Nécro: Accumulation of goods from extraction. Each extracted layer provokes the fragility of the preceding structure. Leading to a closing up upon oneself.