Kamma. n. What is done, what one does; deed, act, action; (i) work, occupation; activity, performance; (ii) act, deed, action or actions of moral import (producing for the agent an inevitable result or consequence in the same or another life; the action appears to exist in some sense until the effect is completed); — Abridged from the Margaret Cone Pali dictionary.
Whereas heretofore 'art games' have predominantly concerned themselves with their abstract capacity (can games be art? can a game make you cry? &c.), the Asphodel project is interested in the concrete achievements of game design as a unselfconcious, fully realized medium. We are especially interested in the particular formal qualities that characterize modern art, namely, a shift from mimesis to absolute audiovisual phenomena, developing over time; i.e. from representation to action.
Recall: the hegemonic art-games of the 2010s compulsively reproduced a worthy but essentially monocultural commitment to social realism. Engaging in ‘serious’ criticism and soliciting critique in return, art-games wanted to be ‘taken seriously’. A serious game was a legible game, totally dedicated to a single gesture, playable in a single sitting, and taking a side on some serious issue of public import or theoretical concern. It was a simple work, which proved in its simplicity its total accessibility, its relevance, its social importance, &c.
Conversely, the emerging modern game need not prove its place: the laborious attachments of academic game studies are dead. A game will be whatever it must be, and do whatever it must do, to achieve its desired effect. Complexity in form and structure consequently prevail over single-minded plain-spoken (plainly-played) realism, as our beloved medium finally comes to a long-delayed maturity. We no longer make “Videogames for Humans” — we make computer games, for computers.
We at Asphodel therefore propose a certain program, a certain plan of action: a preliminary blueprint, for something terribly inhuman . . .
I. Game-forms are intermixed freely. A game entirely from one perspective, with a conventional mechanical vocabulary, is generally inadmissible.
II. Sound is complex and dynamic; music is concretely-integrated or absent.
III. There is no particular reward for unusual personal dexterity.
IV. Nostalgia is anathema: all sorts of effects are permissible for their own sake, but strictly forbidden when they are used only for pastiche, or to pay-homage.
V. There is more than one mechanical focal-point, each existing for its own sake. The well-ordered 'gameplay loop' thus gives way to chaotic game dynamics, in relation to which the player’s experience emerges organically — not as a primary object of design.
VI. Symbols do not demand an audience, but rather, enjoy a concrete and autonomous reality. A gun might represent violence, but it is first and foremost a gun.
VII. The setting is strange and alien: dreamlike magical realism has displaced dreary social realism, nonetheless mantaining a feverish intensity.
VIII. Conventions from the apparently-disjunct traditions of art-games and genre-games are interlaced. We draw no categorical distinction.
IX. Play follows format: technical affordances are carefully controlled.
X. Games are credited to pseudonyms, personal names, or groups – never to a company.
In the coming years we intend to compile a list of new games which well-accord with these principles, numbered by release date (K1, K2, &c). Already, Institute fellows are working on several such games. If your project likewise operates along these lines, let us know: we would love to see your work, and (if you'd like) afford you a place on the K25 list. Yours faithfully . . .