Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: Luo Haoxi

Write without fear.

Floating Life (The Wreck) is a new work by The Pixel Hunt Studio. The studio used to be reluctant to create games that were only used for entertainment or escapism, and its founder, Florent Florent Maurin, called their work "reality-inspired games." The previous work "Bury Me, my Love" (Bury Me, My Love) discusses serious topics such as war and refugee crisis; "Inua-A Story in Ice and Time" (Ice-time Story) shows colonialism and the relationship between man and nature.

The studio's latest work, floating Life, is not such a "sharp" social theme. Although its theme is heavy, its brush strokes are very gentle and delicate. Instead of throwing questions out, it explores inward-how a group of ordinary people who have been injured can regain the hope of life.

Although the story is fictional, it is still "inspired by reality" with the nature of autobiography. The inspiration for the game comes from a car accident that happened to Maureen and his daughter a few years ago. "I experienced things that only happen in movies, and the light of life flashed before my eyes," Maureen recalled. " The screenplay was written by Maureen and his sister Coralie Maurin, who lost their father when they were young, an experience that shaped their personalities, emotions and relationships, and the story they hoped to tell through "floating Life." There is no doubt that this is a very personal independent game.

The game is a 3D visual novel and the story is not complicated. Zhu Nong is a failed screenwriter and is now an assistant to her mother as a big artist, but they didn't have a good relationship until she learned that her mother was hospitalized with a brain tumor. As an immediate family member, she needs to go to the hospital to decide on a treatment plan. On this day, her sister and ex-husband also contacted her again, and she needed to face the relationship with all her relatives and make the final decision in the development of the story.

Excellent screenplay, dubbing and translation make me seem to have seen a lot of plays. The Maureen brothers and sisters are French, so on the topics of family, family, intergenerational and kinship, I think of the French playwright Florian Zeller's family trilogy-"Father", "son" and "Mother". The first two films have been adapted into the film "Father trapped in time" and "son trapped in mood". French director Pascal Rambert Lambert's Sisters also explores sisterhood full of contradictions. On the topic of love and marriage, I think of British director David Haier's Skylight.

Intimate relationship and original family may really become an important literary and artistic creation motif of this era.

The summary of the plot is condensed in the introduction to the store page. (there are more spoilers in this article. If there is no customs clearance game, please read it carefully. )

A different way of playing this is a visual novel, or an adventure game. In the game, players promote the process of the game by clicking on the dialogue options and looking for keywords in the recall scene. The ways of playing games can be roughly divided into two categories-chat and memory exploration.

Zhu Nong chatted with his relatives in real life, which is a traditional visual novel. What is special is that, in addition to the dialog box at the bottom of the screen, the psychological confession of Zhu Nong appears at the top of the screen. Some of the words in these sentences are colored, and clicking on them will further reveal Zhu Nong's views and memories about these things, as well as new dialogue options that may be unlocked. Players will find that there is more text in these inner activities than in real conversations. This is what the game hopes to emphasize, exploring the heart is more important than external verbal expression, because inner activity is the basis of external expression.

Unlike the 2D style of most visual novels, the game is 3D, so it is not designed to allow the character to have more body movements in the dialogue, but through the movement and editing of the lens, with different sub-shot script composition, the performance of rich character emotions, many shots are really very beautiful.

The game design makes full use of the characteristics of 3D scenes. The second way to play is the core of the game-exploring memories. Zhu Nong and people's conversation, often in the middle of the conversation will have a quarrel, when the screen will vaguely appear a locked "correct option", can not click. Then, naturally, it broke up in discord, and Zhu Nong drove away, and then entered an animation: on the way out of the hospital, Zhu Nong had a car accident, accompanied by a slow motion at the last moment of her life. Various objects on the car floated past her, books, pens, mirrors, cell phones, lighters and so on. As if the lantern of life, each click on an object, we will enter a memory of Zhu Nong, a total of almost 10 paragraphs.

In these recall scenes, the world is still, similar to the "Cyberpunk 2077" super dream, the lens will be a fixed mobile line to scan the entire scene, we need to adjust the camera position and angle through the mouse to find the key words in the scene. They will tell us some details of the memories, which may be the mood of Zhu Nong at that time, or the introduction of the characters and objects in the scene. These keywords appear in groups, and only if you find the whole group, the next group will be refreshed elsewhere. Therefore, a recall scene often has to cycle through three or four rounds to find all the information.

Different scenes and keywords each recall scene is related to the previous quarrel, after the completion of the recall scene, we return to reality, time will go back to the previous specific quarrel, at this time, we will find that the "right option" is unlocked. You won't break down in that scene, and the plot can move on.

I find that many players dispute this mechanism, finding it boring and stiff to repeat car accidents over and over again, and some people find the scene uncomfortable (there will be PTSD). But I think this scene is at the heart of the game-I'll talk about it in more detail below.

There is a saying in the introduction to the game of memory, self and objects: "relive the past, change the present, and embrace the future." This has hinted at the core of the game-memory.

Memory is not generally believed to be related only to the past. In fact, memory is always about the past, the present and the future, and it connects them. Memories of the past are always remembered in the present and serve the future. This is not only the empirical and instrumental memory of "never forget the past, the teacher of the future", but also applicable to both individual and collective memory. Modern neuroscience has confirmed that an individual's "episodic autobiographical memory" (Episodic-Autobiographical Memory) of events does not store what actually happened in a part of the brain and is steadily evoked when needed. On the contrary, in the process of coding, storage, retrieval and arousal of memory, each link involves the interaction between the individual and the external environment, and different time, occasion, mood, social and cultural environment will have an impact on memory. When we look back on our childhood when we are sad and happy, we may have diametrically opposite memories. Collective memory is even more obvious. Think about the construction, addition and deletion of history (memory) in the long past. Obviously, the past is not only about the past, but also about the present and the future.

Of course, "floating Life" is only about personal memory, so it is also related to objects. In Richard Heersmink's paper "narrative self, distributed memory and things that evoke memory" (The narrative self, distributed memory, and evocative objects), the author points out that "Self is essentially a narrative structure realized by an autobiographical memory system", while autobiographical memory is triggered and constructed by objects full of personal memory, thinking about how we felt when we dug up toys from childhood. Our self is not a stable entity, living somewhere in the body waiting for us to find, but a narrative of who I am, which is closely related to memory (including objects that evoke it). Therefore, amnesia is to some extent regarded as a synonym for "lost self".

Maureen, the core creator of the game, Junon in the game, because she could not accept the departure of her loved ones, perhaps out of a psychological self-protection mechanism, she could not remember the Trauma experience, and the more she recalled it, the more she could not remember it, so that she even lost other memories. This completely hurt her memory and self. in the game, every time she failed to talk to others, it was not because the writer forced to set such a turning point, but because she could not evoke the memories related to each other. So that there is no way to say the "right words"-what the "real Junon" would say. In the game, it is through the objects that evoke memories that we are able to enter Junon's memory together, dig and explore in the memory palace, and help her retrieve the memories of her mother, sister, ex-husband and daughter, and then retrieve "Junon."

In Inception, the lead actor enters someone else's dream to steal a file stored in a safe, which is actually an understanding of the essentialism of memory-it is stably stored somewhere, waiting to be taken out. But can we try to tell the same experience in exactly the same way without writing a manuscript? In the recall scene of "floating Life", there is not a safe with standard answers, but only a different number of key words. We instantly use these memory fragments to construct Junon's memory. This simulates the current and randomness of the memory construction process.

If we listen carefully, when we find all the key words and the memory paragraph is coming to an end, there will be a background sound effect outside Junon's story, like pieces of scattered bricks coming back together. This is a sign that everything can be rebuilt at this time.

Wreck, the original name of the game "floating Life" is "The Wreck". As a noun, "wreck" has two main meanings: one is "Something that is wrecked or destroyed, and related uses", that is, something that has been destroyed or destroyed, and its related uses; the other is "The action or process of wrecking or destroying, and related uses", the act or process of destruction or destruction, and related uses.

The word is too relevant to the theme and content of the game. If the Chinese version is translated as "destruction" or "wreckage", although it reminds me of Sarah Kane's play "destruction", it is too literary and confusing. I guess this is why Chinese translations try to give people an imagination of "romantic freehand brushwork"-the simplified Chinese version is translated as "floating Life and thousands of things", and the Chinese version is called "fleeting memories". But as the meaning of the word "wreck" indicates, this is a very heavy story. There are vehicles severely damaged in car accidents, as well as people with serious health and mental impairment, and more importantly, this is not an easy and freehand story to recall the past, but to salvage traumatic memories from "wreckage, ruins".

How do you understand a car accident that repeats itself? In the iceberg theory of psychoanalysis, the human consciousness is compared to the part of the iceberg exposed on the ocean, which refers to the things that we are directly aware of; the preconsciousness is compared to the shallower part of the surface of the water, which we can think of as soon as we think about it; the subconscious is compared to the lower part farther from the surface of the water, which is something that cannot be recalled in a general way. For a creator like Zhu Nong, the traumatic experience was so intense that it sank to the bottom of the sea-amnesia.

How to treat trauma depends on the cultural environment of the society. In the framework of the middle and late 19th century, trauma was a mental illness, first defined as "traumatic neurosis" (Traumatic Neurosis) caused by railway accidents, and later defined as war-related "shell shock" (Shell Shock) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If expressed in the grammar of the philosopher Foucault, we can say that trauma is a deviation from normal, and the victim is an incomplete object who needs to be disciplined and restored to "normal" through treatment. This naturally leads to people's fear of trauma and avoids talking about it. But the core of the game is just the opposite-salvaging a shipwreck, rebuilding memories, and repairing wounds.

Now we come back to the key question: what exactly does the plot of the car accident mean?

Specifically, we can have two understandings of the turning point of the car accident, which has been repeated more than a dozen times in the game: realistic or symbolic.

If the car accident is understood as a real accident, then, as introduced earlier, this car accident refers to Zhu Nong's accident on the way out of the hospital, and then walk the lantern of life, dig up memories, and start all over again. There is no doubt that this is a narrative repetition, as if Junon is a character in the "death is coming" series, and the player's task is to pull her back from the brink of death. But saving her just once or twice, saving her more than a dozen times in a few hours is really annoying-"can you talk well! do you have to drive to death!" Moreover, if you understand the car accident on a practical level, how do you explain that it is supernatural to look back after each exploration of memory? Is it God? It is not harmonious to have such a plot in a "reality-inspired" game.

But if we think of the accident as happening at a symbolic or psychological level, the plot will be interpreted differently. That is, Zhu Nong never left the hospital from beginning to end, and the car accident, as the source of the trauma, was repeated in her heart, completely destroying Zhu Nong's self. Whenever the conversation comes to a critical moment, trauma is like that broken car, rampant in her inner world, crushing her family, crushing her love, and ruining her life and future. As the introduction to the game says: "otherwise, her story may end in a car accident." Does the "car accident" here actually refer to the coming, real-life car accident? I think it's better to say that her life has been destroyed in the previous trauma, and without the help of the players, she will never get out of the wreckage of that trauma. From this point of view, we can also better explain the backtracking of each time, all of which is the psychological and emotional reversal that takes place in Junong's inner world.

Reality or illusion? So we can retell the story: Zhu Nong went to the hospital and talked to different people. Although her traumatic memories almost completely engulfed her heart and destroyed her relationship with others, Junon rebuilt memories of her past life through objects related to memory. As she gradually found herself, her connection with her loved ones was repaired, and finally faced the trauma and reshaped the hope for the future.

This process did not rely on external control, discipline, or treatment, but Zhu Nong's own memory saved her. Players may mistakenly think that the objects that evoke memories are on the car, but if you look closely, you will find that those things have always been in the backpack of Junon, which is a metaphor full of optimism and power-those memories have not disappeared. The "magic props" that bring redemption are not far away, as long as you are willing to look for them, they are always with you, and the creator has his own strength and sunshine. Let these seeds take root and sprout.

The excessive fear of "abnormal" in social culture may make us accustomed to restraining our inner feelings and advocating that "Mount Tai collapses in front and remains the same", but suppressing trauma will not make it disappear. In the game, we see a lot of people who suffer from trauma in daily life, yes, it is not only earth-shaking events that can cause trauma. This definition of extending trauma to daily life is not to show human vulnerability, but to face and repair it in an admitted way. In recent years, the Chinese Internet has gradually begun to pay attention to the harm caused by the original family and intimate relationship. I think people are also beginning to realize the problem and seek change.

I have to admit that throughout the play, with the narration of dubbing, I felt cured. There are a lot of lines I want to take screenshots, and they seem to be saying to me. We follow the characters in the game to admit, explore, and repair her wounds, which can also be our own healing journey.

Write, the title of this article is taken from a small circle at the beginning of the game, which reads: "Write without fear." On the Internet, this phrase is often followed by another sentence: "Edit without mercy." That is, "write without fear. Edit mercilessly." Connecting means to encourage writers not to always worry about choosing words and sentences and even procrastinating, but to have the courage to write down the text first, and then spend more time editing and revising it. But in the game, this phrase has a more complex meaning, which is the "literary eye" of the whole game.

"Write without fear." First of all, of course, it is the original intention-writing. The heroine Zhu Nong is a screenwriter. The main interface of the game simulates MacBook's desktop UI, and there is no option to start the game. What players actually have to do is click on the writing software and create new documents, as shown in the game-"Welcome, writer!" As a result, the writer in front of the computer typed down a word, scenes, actions and dialogue appeared on the blank paper, and we officially entered the world of the game. When we pause or exit by pressing Esc in the game, we will also go back to the screenwriting interface, and we can see that our previous action dialogue in the game has become the text of the script.

The experience of being both an actor and a screenwriter is very special. After all, did we have the script first, and we just followed the show? Or is it that our actions are recorded before the script is formed? It embodies the classical theory of game narrative, that is, the narrative of the game is jointly created by players, mechanisms and game designers. Unfortunately, I thought I would really generate a complete script document after customs clearance, so that I could easily savor my lines. It is a pity that the production team did not design it in this way, and after customs clearance, we can only start over with different chapters. But after customs clearance, there will be a colored egg, and there will be a voiceover of the dialogue on the main interface, where we will know the real end of the game.

"Welcome, writer!" The biggest emotion came from seeing this sentence again after I cleared the customs: "Write without fear." After experiencing the happiness and sadness in the game and accompanying Zhu Nong step by step out of the abyss, I suddenly had a trace of understanding. This sentence here has nothing to do with writing skills, but to emphasize the meaning of writing. As psychiatrist Judith Herman said in his book Trauma and recovery: "individual trauma can be healed by telling others." When Junon returned to writing, and when the unspeakable trauma turned into words in the script, she was finally able to continue to live an active life.

At present, writing has a more important meaning-it can not only heal wounds, but also become a weapon against fear, despair, nothingness and anxiety. It can record people's experiences, reconstruct past events, give meaning to the world, open up a new space, and provide a fulcrum in unstable times. "Write without fear" is no longer just about writing, but about life:

Live without fear! Live without fear!

Postscript: video games, the world of connection between people is really small, but because of video games, we can connect with others.

It all started when I translated two The Pixel Hunt Studio articles on "bury me, my Love", one is producer Maureen's introduction to the concept of "reality-inspired" games, and the other is screenwriter Pierre Corbinais's experience on how to make the game script realistic. In addition, I also wrote an article about how I feel about burying me, my love. No, I am the "big fan" of the Chinese-speaking area.

Although "floating Life Thousand things" is localized in Chinese, as a minority independent game, the production team is not looking for distribution in China. It is some friends who like the game. Seeing that the sales of the game are not good, they voluntarily want to help them do publicity in Chinese-speaking areas, so I have this article. I also translated my article and sent it to Maureen, and agreed to go to France to play with him.

In this behind-the-scenes story, my experience is two words-pure. There is no intriguing interest entanglement, no complex interpersonal communication, just because people like video games, people from all over the world and strangers get together to do things. Although there are many ways to define independent games, I do feel an independent spirit here, whether they are playing games, playing games, or writing games, everyone seems to jump out of the mainstream and Toxic structural problems in the video game culture, and return to the true nature of the game: putting aside secular utilitarianism, heartfelt blessings, sincere sharing, well-intentioned mutual assistance, emotional connection.

I think this is also the true nature of "people".

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