Whew! Though the Nether was a taxing read due to its violent pedophilic content, it certainly provoked conversation. Alyx and I were interested in a variety of themes to further explore in our performance, but we continuously returned to the theme of CONTROL, which is present in all games but especially in RPGs. RPGs like Second Life or even the Sims were especially appealing to me as a child growing up in a restrictive religious household. I was able to explore my sexuality in the virtual world, devoid of laws or social repercussions. The appeal was its lack of consequences. I could drown someone by deleting all of the exits to a pool or construct a rollercoaster that crashed into a building. But a lawless society even in a game becomes tricky when things can translate from the virtual to the real world. People were worried about shooter games corrupting kids to commit violent acts in the real world, but studies have largely debunked that; but when it comes to the sexual abuse of child avatars, it feels very different. I didn’t even realize that a similar Nether-type world existed in the Second Life until I did some research after reading it! Hypothetically, I’m all in favor of people setting rules in a virtual space to make it safer and more comfortable for everyone, but who gets to decide those rules and control those spaces – the users or the creators?
The basic premise of our project was constructing a video game simulation but instead of playing the game, Alyx and I would be the avatars controlled by another person. Gameplay involved simple preset controls: walking (right/left), jumping, dancing, putting on makeup, etc., which you could control with a computer's keypad, and Alyx and I would perform the actions in real life. The purpose of the game was to maintain control over your avatar. Slowly over the course of the game, Alyx and I would slowly resist the commands and regain control of our bodies. Every player of the game loses control eventually, thus losing the game.
The technical side was pretty simple, and the game was coded using vanilla JS and p5 for the graphics. The main difficulty we had was working with the space. We were designated a space in between the faculty lounge and the coding lab, which had a lot of foot traffic so in the end, we had very little space to work with. We also had issues with lighting that was too bright due to ceiling lights that were out of our control and sunlight, which obstructed the projection of our game. We spent majority of our time cleaning/rearranging the furniture to make room for the walkway and taping paper to the ceiling to block out light. In retrospect, I wish we had known the parameters of the space, so we could have opted for a larger TV or used a different part of the floor that had less light. Also an aside, I'm glad that I had a chance to explores my classmates' pieces, and I wish that we could have interfaced a little bit more, so it would seem more cohesive with a common thread throughout rather than five random stations. Overall, I had fun performing and making the piece… something in my control.