GAMES FOR CRABS DEBRIEF
This weekend I wrote a game about different bronze-age philosophies put forward by a theoretical civilisation of superintelligent beehives.
It involves making uninterrupted eye contact with a stranger until I tell you to stop.
WAIT, A BEE ISN’T A CRAB!
You’re damned right.
Let me explain - Games For Crabs was a weekend event put on by Dave Winterbottom, who’s been scudding about in the murky waters of experimental games design for several years now. Dave works for a PC game company and, as they have a day job - perhaps in spite of it, I don’t really know them all that well - is keen to focus on the theoretical and artistic endeavour behind games rather than the often rather grimy business of making a thing that makes money.
I’ve not interacted much with Dave’s oeuvre before, but I heard that Games for Crabs was taking place at the Garrison Hotel, which is about an hour’s walk from my front door, and it felt rude not to attend.
Games for Crabs was an exploration of non-human games design.
All the games we make are games for humans, and our design choices are informed by that; they’re reflective, I’d argue inescapably, of the cultural and sociological pressures placed upon us by our environment and other members of our species. I’m not dreadfully happy with the political views of, it seems, the majority of the English-speaking world - and some of the non-English speaking world is on my shitlist too, but it’s harder to keep pace with ‘em - and I keep writing games about how much the government sucks and god wouldn’t it be nice if we could do something about it before we got too bored or sad or tired to make an impact.
(I actually don’t know what the difference is between sociological and cultural. Don’t tell me if you know and don’t tell me if they’re the same thing.)
Part of those pressures, I’d argue, is the coiled snake of depression that sits greasy and bleak in my head. Maybe I was born with the wrong chemicals pumping around up there; maybe Dad instilled a bunch of values and beliefs in me I’m still struggling against on an instinctual level, same way his dad did, same way his dad’s dad did, etc; maybe you’re not supposed to comprehend this many people all at once without going Jane-Grey-plugged-into-Cerebro mad.
Maybe none of the above and it’s a demonic curse on my bloodline - whatever the reason, I keep writing games about dying in glorious or tragic or brutal or ironic or meaningful ways.
(I’ve been heavier, of late, with regards to the old brain. But in my thirtieth year of suicidal impulses and self-loathing, and with the benefit of some useful therapy under my belt, I’ve come to pity the poor black dog that crouches toothless and decrepit on my shoulders. It growls and sputters; it’s all bark and no bite. I need to take it for walks, show it the sunlight, let it sniff some butts. We’ll get there.)
What else? White guilt, but that ties back into the politics bit. Some light arm’s-reach class struggle from the cosseted middle of the system, more angry than helpful, bound up with my personal disgust at capital. Frustrations at following often obfuscated societal rules routed through the being of anarchic bears in hats.
It’s hard to pull your own work, or even the work of other humans making games for humans, out of the environment in which they’re created - to even see the assumptions we’re making, the affordances we’re offering, the defaults to which we’ve defaulted.
All of the things I’ve managed to pry loose are societal; none of them are biological. I guess I primarily make games you have to read, and humans are I believe the only thing that can read, although the way octopuses are going it’s probably not too long before they start turning out damp novellas.
This is what Games for Crabs was about: starting with some loose biology, we assigned human-level intellect (and human-style intellect) to a species and had a think about what would happen. What sort of societies would they form? How would it relate to, and differ from, our own? And, crucially, because this is a weekend about games, what role would games play in the imagined culture?
Our brief wasn’t to make a playable game, although we could if we want - Dave was very clear on the fact that this weekend wasn’t a games jam, and we weren’t supposed to make products. We were supposed to think about what we’re doing through some interesting lenses and take that away to our other work. Some suitable things to make included:
- A game written by humans intended for use by non-humans
- A game translated from the non-human into words we can comprehend, fragmentary or complete
- A game for humans intended to evoke a similar but not directly translatable game written by and for animals
- Records of an actual play session of a game for non-humans
- An examination of evolving play practices within a non-human society
Anything, really, as long as it decentralises humans.