Tuesday, September 29, 2009
I am back from Vienna, from the amazingly friendly Future and Reality of Gaming conference. I will try to sum up my impressions of the conference later, now I'd like to share the topic of my talk.
First, some personal history. Last fall, while living in Willow Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I rediscovered the weirdest game of the 1980's - Automata UK's Deus Ex Machina. I thought it would be a nice fun event to do a real-time playthrough of the game in the Gambit Game Lab, where I was a visiting researcher at the time. Each playthrough of the game takes exactly 45 minutes, as it is to be synchronized with the audio soundtrack.
The invitation for the event read:
DEUS EX MACHINA
A Bizarre Multimedia Experience straight from 1984
50 minutes of awe!
Projected on a moderately big screen!
Somewhere between Shakespeare and The Wall, between Breakout and the Holodeck, there is Deus Ex Machina.
Designed by the repeatedly failed visionary Mel Croucher, who not only wrote the game, but also played banjo, Korg Vocoder and a zillion of other instruments on the game's soundtrack, this is probably the first commercial art house game. It came on two cassette tapes, one with the game, the other with the soundtrack, which was to be synced with the computer program.
In many ways, it was a total failure, which brought its publisher Automata UK Ltd. to bankruptcy; in many ways it's an amazingly non-conformist take on computer entertainment, which left the reviewers baffled, disoriented and strangely pleased.
The game, whose treads the thin line between artsy and campy, takes the player through the Seven stages of man, each one a different minigame, hinting at comparisons with both Will Wright's Spore and Jason Roher's Passage. The soundtrack features compositions such as "I'm the Fertilizing Agent" and "War Crimes Are Easy" and bears eerie resemblance to trip hop, which was to arrive many years later. Also, it features John Pertwee of the Doctor Who fame and some other British actors who used to be famous in 1984.
A playthrough of Deus Ex Machina takes exactly the duration of the soundtrack to finish, which is why it is such a great game to play and screen with curious friends and colleagues. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum version of the game running on a emulator will be synced with an MP3 of the audio track, the keyboard will be passed around (you cannot win or lose the game, anyways) to anybody who wants to play and the rest will get carried away by the immersive 256x192 attribute-clashing visuals and insane soundtrack.
For the talk, I did an interview with the author/auteur Mr. Mel Croucher (he's still a witty, sarcastic and eccentric guy) and did a detailed analysis of the game. I will publish the whole paper when it's done, but for now, you should at least try Deus Ex Machina yourselves (if you haven't seen it yet). Download a ZX Spectrum emulator for your system, the game and the audio. I'm always surprised by how positive people's reactions to the game are and how much they love the music. Initial distrust and condescending smile always gives way to involvement, immersion and singing along.
Jaroslav Svelch: What were the ambitions with which you started Automata? Would you get into games design today or did you see more unexplored potential back then?
Mel Croucher: OK, let's begin. I had been trying to integrate computers and entertainment since the late 1960s, when I was lucky enough to have access to an advanced machine that was so big you could walk round inside it. Lots of valves, vacuum tubes and programs held on punch cards. I eventually got it to perform the nursery rhyme Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and flash a few lights in sync. Great days, when we thought we could tear up the rules and start over. Of course, nobody was in the slightest bit interested. I went off and became an architect, but around 1977, when I started Automata, the technology was getting good enough to allow some real creativity. My ambition for Automata changed as soon as Sinclair released the ZX-81, and I knew that computers were not for performing business functions at all, but would transform everything I was involved in. I was absolutely convinced that computers would facilitate the convergence of film, book, theatre and music, with the added miracle of interactivity.
JS: You've always been a pioneer of media convergence, combining audio a data, VHS and data, broadcasting data over radio. Do you think that now, we reached total convergence? Did it improve the conversation between media?
MC: By the time micro computers became available commercially, we (Christian Penfold and me at Automata) were broadcasting computer games over FM and AM radio for the handful of enthusiasts who had the equipment to receive the code and tape it off-air. Syncing computer games with pop videos also seemed a natural progression, just as soon as video recorders included suitable input sockets. I assumed everyone was at it in the piracy of their own homes, but it's only with hindsight that I see we were pioneers, albeit isolated in our own overconfidence, smugness and commercial arrogance.
JS: You were one of the few game designers who did not usually code - did you see it as an advantage or disadvantage? How did that contribute to the design plan of Deus Ex Machina?
MC: That goes back to being an architect. I never even thought about coding any game I designed, just as I would never have thought about pouring concrete, welding steel or fitting the drains to any building I designed. There are skilled people who do that, far better than me. Besides, it left me completely free to design Deus without any constraints - apart from the number of pixels on the screen, and the amount of RAM in the machine. Every time I asked for something to be programmed, the reaction was "it can't be done." But whenever I probed and asked why it can't be done, the answer was because it had never been done. That was no answer. I admit this had a lot to do with how Deus turned out - proving that what I wanted could be done. So, to answer your question, it was a huge advantage.
JS: Also, you were relatively older than many games people on the scene back in the day. Do you think it helped you or held you back?
MC: It helped. The context of Deus was the 80s, don't forget - a time of repression, depression, recession and political mayhem, and I already had the hinterland of a guy born in the 40s. The computer games scene was a continuation for me, not a beginning. And I had been running my own businesses for years. I had no starry-eyed expectations of how our stuff would fare commercially, just as I had no false hopes of what my political involvement would achieve. You'll never kill the ogre by being the boil on its neck, but it's a fun role to adopt. That's what a lot of my sci-fi writing was about. When I killed off Tamara Knight by giving her stomach cancer, it really upset some readers. They had got hold of the notion that a heroine wins in the end. Sorry folks, the fate of a boil on the neck is to be lanced.
JS: You were vocal about disliking violent games. Do you still hold this opinion? Although Deus Ex Machina is not mindless killing game, there is "metaphorical" violence being done to the main character. Is there something to "justify" in-game violence?
MC: I think people who enjoy violent games are pitiful. I think people who create violent games are lazy, ignorant and have poodle shit for brains. I disagree about any violence in Deus. The only metaphorical violence done to the main character is the ageing process. As for justifying in-game violence, I don't think there is any justification at all for so-called mindless violence. When violence is used in a dramatic narrative - from Shakespeare to Popeye - then it can become meaningful when associated with atonement, redemption and forgiveness.
JS: Was the idea for the audio soundtrack a continuation of including songs on tapes with games?
MC: Sure. I enjoyed doing the audio as much as I enjoyed designing the game. The only reason I ended up playing all the instruments was that I ran out of money, otherwise I would have got a half-decent band together. You should have heard the soundtrack in my head! I thought all computer games would have full-sync soundtracks by the mid-80s, and I'd better get mine launched first. I was wrong. I'm quite often wrong. I was right about CD-ROM becoming the medium that eventually allowed it - even though I was a quarter of a century early.
JS: How do you look back at Deus Ex Machina now? Are you proud of the game?
MC: I hoped it would be my Citizen Kane moment in video game history. I suppose it was more my Don Quixote moment. But as Frank Zappa once said, who gives a fuck anyway. Sure, I'm proud of it.
JS: Did you think it would represent a new direction of game design? Or did you consider yourself a permanent outsider?
MC: Excellent question. I've already said I thought all games would go in this direction. There's a scene in Modern Times where Charlie Chaplin finds himself waving a banner, leading a revolutionary crowd. He keeps marching forward to confront the oppressors, but the crowd has veered off in their pre-planned direction. They never even knew Chaplin was there. We were among the leaders in the computer games business for the first few years. When I quit, I guess I made myself a permanent outsider.
JS: How did you proceed in designing the game? Did you have ideas you wanted to express and tried to find suitable game mechanics for them, or did you have the mini-game ideas first?
MC: Everything was designed in advance, down to the last detail. Including the music and the marketing. I was completely Stalinist about it, and refused to listen to anybody else.
JS: In the 1986 interview you said you primarily wanted to entertain - but was Deus Ex Machina also something else? I interpreted as a warning against over-technicization of society...
MC: And you are right. It was not only meant to entertain, but to harness the anti-authoritarian sentiments that were alive and well at the time.
JS: I like the fact that the given the synchronization, the game keeps playing even if you don't want to, and thus it prompts total involvement. And in the end, you cannot win, because the game always ends, just as life. Was this a part of the design?
MC: Yes indeed. It still gives me pleasure when I discover a player has got their head around this.
JS: What does the percentage score mean exactly - what does it mean in terms of the story, if zero per cent is reached? That you're a non ideal identity in terms of the society's rules?
MC: I think you're reading the score thing a bit too deeply. It's a game. A game needs a mechanism to get people to replay. The metaphor of the score is incidental, and I hoped people would interpret it to suit themselves. Do nothing - you'll never win. Do everything right - you'll feel good for a while, you'll be regarded well according to society's rules, but you'll still never win. However, as the man says - Imagine if this was nothing more than a computer game and we could start our lives all over again, and do it better. That was the only meaning really.
JS: Did you feel limited by not being able to change the course of the game based on the score? - Was it a big design challenge?
MC: Given that I only had a hundred thousandth of the memory available to today's designers, I guess I was a bit limited. But the fact that the player is involved in a linear game was always part of the concept. One starting point, one destination, one time span.
JS: Why did you choose the game to be so bleak? What is your personal explanation of the Defect conforming to the system becoming a tyrant?
MC: Is it so bleak? There's a lot of jokes in there, especially in the music. The Defect doesn't really conform to the system, it conforms to the seven ages of man as defined by literature and fact. The images may have been a bit bleak, but none of them was anything that I had not personally witnessed with my own eyes. I do have a personal explanation of my pacifism, but I hope it doesn't involve conformity.
JS: The revelation that "your life is just a percentage score" is the realization of being in a game - and the whole game communicates with the player - there is no fourth wall. Actually, none of your games featured the player "becoming" somebody - an avatar. Did you prefer to address the player directly?
MC: In the intervening 25 years, whole swathes of society have come to measure their lives as a percentage score. Success is measured by material gain, by profits, by FaceBook pseudo-friends, by bling, but less and less by things I was lucky enough to be encouraged to value. The fact that the current economic global situation pisses on life being a percentage score is a grim confirmation of what I was going on about. Of course it's not a game at all, we can only imagine it being so. I'd originally wanted the main character to not only be controlled by "you", but to look like "you". Impossible given the technology then, but perfectly possible now. Yes, I always insisted on addressing the player directly.
JS: These days, game companies also hire well-known actors for voice acting. Did the fact you had the likes of Jon Pertwee in your game significantly inflate your budget?
MC: The cost of the celebrity voices was the only real production cost I had to budget for. It's common knowledge that I designed everything and wrote everything and did all the audio, but that was because it was the cheapest option. The programming cost very little money, because there wasn't any. I relied on good nature and a desire to be involved with a little bit of computing history on the part of the contributors and programmer. Deus was never an Automata project, it was a personal indulgence. I retained all the rights. Still do. All the celebs got paid the same. There was no negotiation. If I couldn't get my preferred choice for the money, I moved on to my next choice.
JS: How big was your budget compared to the industry average?
MC: I have absolutely no idea. Deus Ex Machina cost me around six thousand quid of my own money, and a pivotal chunk of my working life.
JS: The game didn't meet with much commercial success - did you feel misunderstood?
MC: Hmm. I really want to be honest with you about this. So here goes ... I felt excited, amused, bemused, confused, abused and fucking angry. Each one of those states lasted about a month each. After that, it was simply time to move on. I sold Automata for ten of Her Majesty's royal pennies, and shook its dust from my shoes. I am sure I was not misunderstood. In fact I think I was all too well understood. There was simply no category to slot Deus into, and by the time it came to market, the amateur distribution networks I had been used to had broken down. The corporates had taken over as they always will when they spot a new lucrative market. They wanted standard product. Deus was designed as non-standard and I got the market completely wrong.
JS: Do you know of the game Passage by Jason Roher, which similarly uses metaphorical game mechanics for abstract concepts in game design?
MC: I'm afraid I don't know Jason Roher's work. Sorry.
JS: In 1986, you said that in computer entertainment, concepts are lagging behind the hardware, as opposed to early 1980's. Do you think it is still true? How do you feel about the 1990's and 2000's in this respect? Are games any closer to art or "quality" entertainment?
MC: It's not just Jason Roher's work that I'm ignorant of. I never really played other people's games when I was designing my own, and I haven't had the time or inclination to play any of them since November 19th 1989. I know nothing about them, and if they sometimes creep in to my magazine or website stuff these days, for reasons of a cheap joke or a rant against conformity, I confess that I make it all up from sources that real players give me.
JS: The game's soundtrack is eerily futuristic. What were your inspirations for it?
MC: Frank Zappa, who I believe was the greatest musical innovator of the 20th century. I worked closely with the Zappa family trust during the first mass computer revolution. Pink Floyd, who were architectural students at the same time as me back in 65. Ian Dury of course, who did me a personal favour. And a whole bunch of dead people who live on in my 78s and phonograph cylinders. If that's futuristic, then all I can say is that's eery.
JS: Mel, thank you very much for your time!
MC: Jaroslav, my pleasure. Keep me posted, and always vote for the opposition. Next!