Session Information
| Title | Making Absurdist Games as a Response to Our Current Reality |
| Presenter(s) |
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| Time | Saturday, October 13, 11:30a-12:30p |
| Location | MSU Union Ballroom |
| Format | Speaker |
| Description | For the past year or so, I've been exploring the idea of absurdism in games, partly as my only sane response to an insane world. Absurdism from a philosophical point of view doesn't just mean nonsense or anything goes, but specifically the condition where one knows what they're doing is futile but they do it anyway. They've resolved to fight, to struggle, to persist in the face of insurmountable obstacles, as exemplified by how Albert Camus describes Sisyphus in The Myth of Sisyphus, which sort of launched absurdism as an offshoot of existentialism during WW2. The underlying question is why someone doesn't just give up. Camus argues of Sisyphus that he's actually happy because he's owning the rock by being fully aware of his condition, and is therefore saying a big FU to the universe and doing it anyway rather than giving up. Giving up in this case would be admitting defeat and is tantamount to committing suicide.
This talk will give background on absurdism and then describe how I have been exploring this idea with students, having students make absurdist games and explore the idea with me to help define what they are and could be, often as distinctly different than our normal design guidelines for good games. Ultimately, an absurdist game should allow players to discover and realize an understanding of the nonsense systems in place and then ask of them to laugh giddily as they decide to keep playing anyway. |
Mark Chen (PhD Education, University of Washington; BA Fine Art, Reed College) is an independent games scholar and part-time professor of interaction design, qualitative research, and games studies at the University of Washington Bothell. He runs