I’ve recently been thinking a lot about designer statements, i.e. brief descriptions of process and motivation. I’m still not sure how useful such things actually are, because there is as much advice given on the subject of how to present one’s work as there are potential clients in the world. However, as I approach my ninth year in game design, I am beginning to realise that why I design is, if nothing else, perhaps more of a constant than the how has ever been.
I’ve long held to a personal rule that the matters and artefacts associated with my professional identity ought to be useful for me as well. This is why my website has a ludography and timeline, but does not incorporate a LinkedIn profile. In the same way that I prefer to design games around a concise abstract, so too could a paragraph or two about my design ‘philosophy’ be a useful guide for me to read back, when I’m at my most bewildered. After all, my working environment is filled with inspirational prompts and reminders of why I do what I do. My motivation is a relevant and frequent topic of discussion in interviews, as well. So, why not be up-front about that, for those I work with in future?
Running parallel to these thoughts – which have largely come about as I am seeking new projects to work on – I have recently made a startling personal discovery. Those who’ve followed my work in this past year will have noticed a lean towards witchcraft, stories, and exploration of my Scottish heritage. These paths have in turn led me to create ‘Metrowitch Interactive‘, and games like Waybinder. What I didn’t know until recently is that witchcraft is also in my heritage, bringing a family connection to what was an otherwise isolated, eccentric set of interests.
For me, the profundity of all this lays in the applied power of stories, and my agency within them. After a year of studying the occult in my own way, I have discovered that the very same (deceased) grandmother whose recipes I’ve been learning to bake with was also a witch, who’d curse anyone who’d cross her or family. Realising such a personal connection to something which has also helped me reconnect with my work is an exciting thing to deal with. It even overlaps with subjects I talked about at QGcon last year. All of a sudden, my life story has taken a revelatory twist.
This kind of thing happens to media protagonists all the time, spurring them on to achieve something they may have been unsure of before. I too am bound to call upon these circumstances in my future work. But the same is true for many other aspects of my life, and those of other writers and designers whose work has even a shred of biography or personal insight. It would seem that any designer statement of mine could not help but reflect the manner in my personal and professional lives are built upon participatory stories.
Be they a legacy left by my grandparents, the solidarity and kinship I feel with my fellow queer creators, or the accumulated stories of an entire culture: I continue to create and to exist because of stories in which we have a part to play. That’s why I make games, purely and simply.
Photo header: “Memorial Canopy“, taken at Norra begravningsplatsen, Solna
Waybinder recently had its first public outing at the Nordic Game conference in Malmö, where it was selected for the Yonderplay showcase. It was my first time attending this new twist on what used to be Nordic Game’s Indie Night. In its stead was a singularly intimate setting in which to display such a text-heavy, contemplative game as mine.
Although a conference is still not the ideal space in which to show a game which is read more than played — especially in a country where English is at best the player’s second language — Yonderplay’s schedule included plenty of opportunities to actually talk to players.
My presentation of the game involved a live reading, which also went down well. The responses included suggestions that I make an interactive audiobook version of Waybinder. That’s certainly something I’m keen on, if only I can ensure a decent enough recording environment and audio equipment. To that end, I can perhaps lay small hope in the game’s ‘free to play; donations welcome’ model on Itch.io.
As for more certain futures: Yonderplay was the first of what I hope will be at least a few more outings for this ritual in narrative form, circumstances permitting. My events schedule has been a lot quieter ever since essentially going broke, and refusing to pay out of pocket for speaking ‘opportunities’.
I am, however, still committed to the idea of Metrowitch Interactive as a label for my self-driven experiments in play and ritual. Though there will now follow a short period of work- and housing-related admin., my original 3D action game awaits. So too might one or two other smaller vignettes in the Waybinder style, whether they be interactive fiction or not…
As I recently wrote about in more general terms: I have released a piece of interactive fiction called Waybinder. The game is available to play for free now, at Itch.io. I’ve not created a game like it before, and so it quickly became a valuable learning exercise in narrative design.
I would not, however, be so bold as to claim I could now churn out a definitive ‘how to’ on writing 30-minute interactive fiction. Instead, in this article I can but describe the means by which I happened to develop this ‘interactive novella’, applying what I know from game design to the act of writing fantasy fiction.
Initial Concept
Waybinder is based on an existing 3D project, but it started out with only a handful of known themes. Waybinder was, in fact, an attempt to ‘flesh out’ such themes before committing any more development time to the larger, 3D action title. Those themes, which will unite both projects, are:
use of magic
navigating urban environments
feeling threatened by a mysterious force, manifesting as cloying crystals
conducting rituals as a means of healing the environment, or setting it right
To that I only added one thematic ‘pillar’: to somehow delve into ‘sense of place’.
With all this and a duration goal of ‘short story’ in mind, I started writing a free-form draft over no more than a couple of days. I wrote this draft directly in Twine — an engine which I was already familiar and comfortable with.
Interrogating the Synopsis
At this point, Casting Foundations told the story of a magical practitioner on their way to a city of their design, whose journey is interrupted by an emergence of mysterious crystals. The player was afforded a few means of reacting to this incident, and I wrote out one pathway which saw them helping an injured party to safety before having to confront a face from their past.
This exercise was straightforward, but it yielded plenty of world-building questions to consider when time came to expand upon each moment. In a game design document, these questions (and answers) typically come to me when writing out chapter headings, or when considering the scope of player interactions and controls. For prose-heavy Waybinder, such considerations came from turning my draft synopsis into a series of miniature chapters. Questions included:
What are the limitations of magic in this world, both for the player and the imbued environment? or:What are the physics of the world, and what could the player reasonably expect to be able to do within it?
Why was the city built, and why here? or: What is the backstory for this place, and might that affect the player’s motivations now or in future?
Who is the player likely to meet? or:What is likely to motivate or hinder the player, and how many relationships can I expect them to manage?
Some of these design queries take on a new kind of importance when working in interactive fiction. For starters, a player’s expectations for agency and relationships within the game will differ greatly from those they might have for more ludic/active games. However, considering the game world and its logic in order to ascertain what the player is likely to encounter is precisely what I do when making other games. I find these to be the most reliable and internally-coherent prompts for any game mechanic, encounter or obstacle.
Refining the Concept
I let the answers to these conceptual questions sink in a bit as I played the prototype back. I should note that at this stage, the prose felt too rough and the scope for interactions felt too narrow to involve any other play-testers. Instead, this was an opportunity for me to test and refine the feel of one ‘slice’ of the game. I kept notes of plot points, environment highlights and encounters which might be most interesting — for this and other potential pathways.
What surprised me about this process is that these notes were not especially useful later on. At best, I could refer back to these ramshackle thoughts if I ever felt a case of writer’s block, and wanted to return to my original inspirations. Generally though, this became more of a space for the ideas I didn’t follow. It was an ideal space to store those sentences and paragraphs which I would cut during later revisions — just in case I’d need to refer to them again, or remind myself why they were cut.
The best design tool which resulted from this process was a basic flowchart, drawn up in Visio. I began by plotting the draft branch I’d written so far, primarily as a means of identifying its key plot points. I kept these broad by referring to them only by their mechanical actions, e.g. ‘establish the scene’, ‘witness the incident’, ‘attempt to flee’. Recreating that one branch allowed me to set up a template, which I could compare to the draft in Twine (also helpfully represented as a flowchart).
Now to fill in the other, unwritten branches. As mentioned in my earlier article: I looked to external prompts to help set tones for each of these. I sidestepped the ‘blank canvas effect’ by drawing tarot cards from a deck (in fitting with the game’s ritualistic theme). I refined the attributes embodied within those cards, in order to fit new directions into the game. These would come into play at the first major incident.
The Tarot Branches
Queen of Swords
Queen of Pentacles
Page of Pentacles
I: The Magician
Rider-Waite-Smith images from Wikipedia, referenced here as artefacts within the public domain.
Values were assigned as follows:
Queen of Swords
Clear-headedness, smartness, good problem-solving (Proactive)
Queen of Pentacles
Calm, grounded, with a clear understanding of place (Focus)
Page of Pentacles
In thrall to beauty within the world, prone to greed (Warding self)
I: The Magician
Manifesting change from within (Warding others)
Waybinder‘s key decision-making moment (The Arkillen Incident) now had four clear paths, but also an overall arc. I decided that this one-time, authorial tarot draw would inform the ritual at the game’s climax. With this plot structure, the player encounters characters and obstacles which change how they may interpret events at the end of the game.
Clearer Paths
After a brief period in which I investigated alternative platforms and began work on a map of the city, I returned to Twine and began writing detailed narrative branches. This process was a repeat of the earlier exercise — of turning a synopsis into fully-fledged narrative branches.
I alternated between freeform writing, and filling in a more detailed flowchart. The latter took precedent whenever I thought to involve other characters, or have the player perform acts of investigation. It was an invaluable tool for keeping the game’s threads straight in my head. It also informed the variables and ‘visited passage’ calls which form most of Waybinder‘s scripted story logic.
The game is broken up into 8 distinct sections, which made it easier to set writing deadlines for myself.
In some ways, all that remained was a straightforward task, to fill in the gaps. Each block of story could be treated as its own, separate entity precisely because the player and game characters appear in distinct areas of the city. My attempts to instil a sense of place would also help keep those places reasonably separate from one another. This distinction between narrative branches also helped me write for a subtly different tone each time; this would refer back to the tarot draw.
The game’s structure remains relatively simple, partly as I saw no particular need to complicate it given its duration. It also felt wiser to do so during a first-time project.
To a Conclusion
As for the final result: it’s early days yet for gauging audience reception, but I feel as satisfied as I can be in the design. I planned Waybinder‘s encounters and overall pathways in a back-and-forth motion between writing and design, based on what I already know. My efforts seem to have happily resulted in an adventure which is consistent with itself. Whether the player tends to flee from danger, investigate the scene or try other routes to discover why a part of Waybinder‘s world is seeking to destroy itself, all paths lead to a ritual which calls upon the insights and discoveries they’ve made up to that point.
I have myself a world in which to build more ‘ludic’ games and levels, and an appetite for further experiments in narrative. Both are sturdy stepping stones on the journey I set myself under the Metrowitch Interactive banner: to explore the intersections of story, play, and ritual.
Last weekend I launched my first entirely-self made project. Entitled Waybinder, it is a work of interactive fiction which I developed over the course of a few months. Just as with the other games I’ve worked on in the past 10 years, the process has been educational. But as well as being in a genre which is new to me, this endeavour has given me a lot to think about in terms of project scale, working with narrative, and even new angles on self-publishing.
The Project
It would of course be remiss of me not to suggest that one can discover what Waybinder is about by playing it. I released the game for free/donations on Itch.io, and because it is browser-based, it can be played on whichever device you’re using to read this article.
But to summarise: I describe this as ‘an interactive novella’ given that Waybinder is text-based, and much more narrative than ludic. The ‘game’ aspect of it comes through in the choices you make, and in a lightweight set of encounters with the Scots Gaelic language. Its overall plot culminates in a ritual which has variable outcomes.
Building Small
I would be lying if I said that Waybinder was built to any solid sort of plan. Above all it was intended to be a novel (and fun!) experiment, and as such I wished to leave myself enough room to work out how to write. I wrote it in Twine, much as I do for any other game projects — in iterations:
I started out with a few rough passages written in freeform style, to establish the protagonist and understand the tone I wanted to strike. These included the train journey into Baile Arainn (pacing), meeting the city’s Director (character interactions), and the train crash at Arkillen (action). By this point I already knew that the project would skew heavily towards prose, and that interaction would be facilitated by buttons containing short dialogue and actions.
Having now referred to a number of locations in this rough draft, I looked to a transit map I’d drawn up for the Metrowitch project. This formed the basis of a more detailed map, which I would draw alongside writing the game over the next few months.
I identified key locations I’d want the player-protagonist to visit over the course of the game, establishing what events might happen there and how they might be connected. This is also where I began to get some idea of possible mechanics, motivations and forms of ritual to be played out.
What followed was the bulk of the work: alternating between cartography and narrative design, making use of flowcharts and copious notes. I explain this in more detail later.
Finally, there was about a month of proof-reads, bug-fixing, story polish and UI work on the game’s presentation in HTML5. I worked to a checklist of features, either implementing them or crossing them off after realising they’d require a more substantial re-write of Twine’s engine than I was willing to commit to.
Shifting My Understanding of Narrative Design
Though I have worked narrative design before, most of the games which called for it were much more mechanical in nature than Waybinder is. In A Planet Wakes, for example, the narrative drives players from one terraforming site to the next and makes the effort feel more intense each time. But the game and environment still tell the game’s underlying story, even when this narrative is removed.
From the beginning of this project, I wanted to try making interactive fiction specifically because plot and character interactions would be much more prominent concerns. In games of this type, the experience is not (typically) broken by imbalanced obstacles or resources, but instead a more loose, organic type of flaw in the way words are arranged. My biggest challenge with Waybinder was, therefore, plot-holes and logical consistencies. Amongst the challenges I’d set myself:
paths when characters have either already met, or have not yet done so
actions which occur differently depending on the items you’ve found, or prior conversations you’ve had
maintaining player agency whilst striving not to write a passage for every street corner
constructing what is essentially a single ending, flavoured by the singular path taken up to that point
As mentioned before, I used plot notes to manage much of this — not least those which describe the game’s variables. I also considered a flowchart, but at first this presented me nothing more than an intimidating blank canvas. It was at this point I realised I could incorporate ritual into the game’s design as well.
Design by Tarot
Fearing that even these few story beats might spill over into a much larger game, I designed what would turn out to be 80% of the final game as the first of at least two ‘acts’.
I began with the rough draft of Waybinder‘s story, which established one possible path. I based other branches upon four tarot cards, drawn at random. The imagery from these is what’s shown on the game’s UI, and one particular branch (The Magician) is directly referred to by one of the game characters. Each of these was drawn with only one goal in mind — to put the player in a particular frame of mind (hopefully the same as my own) when they would come to perform the ritual at game’s end.
I subtly re-interpreted these four cards (I: Magician, Queen of Pentacles, Page of Pentacles and Queen of Swords) in order to establish loose ‘moods’ for each branch: pro-activity, focus on details, and warding one’s self and others. The path I’d already laid out focused on character interactions, and an encounter from the protagonist’s past; this seemed a good fit for the two ‘warding’ branches. The other two branches would engage more with the world and events happening within it.
It’s here that I also devised the idea of using artefacts for the actual ritual. These would act both as a focal point for the player, and an easy means of tracking which path they had taken. This would prove useful for later, diverging conversations.
Real-world examples of artefacts found within the game: a chair screw, railway token, sprig of heather and wild thistle.
With the plot arcs now in place, I was free to write whatever might come to mind for the characters and the world. I did so whilst populating a much more detailed flowchart. This in turn ensured that if a character, object or piece of knowledge entered the story at any point, I could cross-reference that with the more granular flowchart presented by Twine itself:
Detailed flowchart, plotted in Visio
A section of the Twine source file
From Release, Onwards
All of this has happily led to Waybinder‘s completion and release. I kept it a small undertaking, making use of Itch.io’s platform with a smattering of promotion via bespoke Twitter and Instagram accounts. I have also begun submitting it to relevant games festivals in the hopes I might glean wider feedback, but also to see how play-testing is likely to be different.
I’m conscious (in theory if not in practice, yet) of the ways in which a piece of interactive fiction could succeed or fail at engaging its players, keeping them entertained, and bringing their time and effort to a satisfying conclusion. These factors are true for all interactive media. This is, however, by far the most ‘authorial’ project I’ve made. Its interface and play sessions also call for a different level of engagement, as it’s not a piece of work which could easily or satisfactorily be demonstrated within 1 or 2 minutes.
My basic hopes are that Waybinder is entertaining, and that the lessons I learned (and can now demonstrate) from its making may continue. I certainly intend to incorporate more narrative design into my generalised game design toolbox. Waybinder has, however, also served its initial purpose: to help realise an imaginary world which I intend to keep exploring. My next solo project began before this one: a 3D adventure, set some hundred years in Baile Arainn’s future. Having never before had a game world I could explore from multiple angles, I look forward to whatever lessons come from that as well.
A short while ago I gave a talk at the Queerness and Games Conference in Montréal, which briefly explored some overlaps I’ve begun to see: between queer and ritual practices amongst gamers and game developers; and between rituals and game design.
Photo by Vjosana Shkurti, for QGcon
This article is adapted from that talk, which formed part of a panel on ‘Feelings and Touch’ along with Arianna Gass and Robert Yang. The Twitch stream may be viewed here (albeit with some audio issues).
Games are Magic
Consider that every day, entire worlds, beings and cultures are being summoned into a reality we can share with anyone else who’s touched by that work – whether it be of our own making, by somebody else’s, or a mixture of both. And unlike in other artistic media, we are often handed tools with which we can affect change in these worlds – often to bring aid or destruction upon others, but perhaps also to explore the consequences of these types of actions.
Games are realms of imagination, but they’re also realms of power, and they offer myriad places we can go to learn more about ourselves, and others. I may consider them magical, but let’s unpack these notions of witchcraft and magic for a moment.
When I refer to “witchcraft”, I mean the amalgamation of ritualised practice, magic, and community observed by individuals and groups (or covens) in our current era. Given my background as a Brit of Scottish ancestry, living in Scandinavia: much of what I experience is a reconstruction of pre-Christian practices, based on pieced-together knowledge. But now – as historically – witchcraft comprises a diverse and often-individualised set of practices across cultures world-wide, all built upon traditional foundations. There are two important notes to make here:
that individualised nature means that as broad as I try to be in this exploration, I cannot possibly speak for witchcraft as a whole;
and also that witchcraft itself is not a religion – though there are religions which come under the umbrella of witchcraft.
Indeed the reverse is also true, as historically some witches have worked within a different religious structure, whether out of privilege or necessity – and it is the relationship between witchcraft and Christianity in Europe which has informed many of our wider assumptions about witchcraft.
Some of what these ‘cunning folk’ did was to root out so-called ‘pagan’ witches – those whose social mores, gender presentations and ritualistic works placed them well outside the established faith – and so we’re not exactly discussing queer-friendly witchcraft at this point. However, it’s around this time that many of our cultural associations with witchcraft were set: the keeping of familiars; acts of divination and scrying; and black books filled with folk remedies. Some of their methods were outright quackery; others had a toe-hold in what would become actual medicine. But more reliably, much of what they did demonstrated an awareness of psychology, and the power of ritual.
If I might stick with examples from cultures closely adjacent to my own, here’s a folk rhyme once spoken in medieval Lincolnshire, which was said to cure the plague:
Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Nail the Devil to a post;
Thrice I strike with holy crook,
One for God, one for Wod and one for Lok
We can note that this rhyme is relatively short, is easy to remember, has a clear rhythm and even calls for physical action. The act of performing it has a low barrier to entry, and feels good – a welcome reassurance I’m sure, when facing a horror as unknowable as the bubonic plague once was. It takes a lot more than a holy crook to ward off such a plague, of course, but at least here the psychological battle is not so indomitable.
Whilst many contemporary Western rituals still cite gods from the Norse pantheon like that, others commonly call upon Greek or Egyptian deities, as seen in this shrine on the right. There are many overlapping reasons for this, but one which is often cited is the clearer acceptance of feminist and queer identities in the faiths of other, less-Christianised cultures. Suffice it to say: from the times of old gods to the present era, witchcraft in general has always evolved to suit the needs of those individuals and groups who practise it.
Our tools have also changed, as whilst many hold with the stuff of prior centuries, knowledge is now also being shared over telephones, the internet, and a veritable plethora of neo-pagan apps. Potions are being brewed on induction hobs as well as fire cauldrons; spells are being recorded in ‘books of shadows’ which are synced to the cloud; covens are meeting over Discord; jars, wands and amulets are being sold on Etsy. The tools have evolved along with society as a whole, but ritual is still the thread which runs through witchcraft of all flavours and favours – as it does in religions, and more besides.
Ritual is Everywhere
Its ubiquity allows one to draw parallels between routine conduct at a conference, and a typical church congregation. Between the speaker at a podium, the arrangement of the room and the shared understanding that we attend such places in order to think differently or be reassured, the only real differences lay in the setting: whether or not the venue is considered to be holy (whatever that might mean for those in attendance); the timing of the ritual (such as for an appointed day of the week or point in the lunar cycle); and so on. But there’s also an understanding that a ritual should mean something, at an individual level.
Applying make-up, for example, is something which might feel mundane to many – others may even view it as a daily chore – but for some, it can be anything from an act of defiance to self-definition, protection, or self-care. And this is just for the kinds of cosmetics we might associate with pharmacies and boutiques. Rituals involving make-up are observed by many people across continents including this one, such as to pay tributes, to alter or enhance the human form, or ward off negative energy. From the outside, applying products like lipstick and liner may not appear all that important an act, but for the practitioner, it can be made into a profound ritual.
The point I wish to assert here is that rituals are manifold, but it is in their context that we find their wider purpose – and in witchcraft, that context may be less obvious, but very personal. It could be argued that in fact a witch’s journey is one of identifying which rituals bring out something positive – be that creative focus, confidence, clarity or some other form of insight – and taking the time to consider why.
So with that in mind,
Witchcraft in Games
The first time I encountered anything approaching witchcraft in games was in “Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem”, in 2002. It’s a horror game in which you play as members of a family which is doomed to battle a variety of unsavoury beasts, and ultimately some old gods. So far, so gamey. A huge part of what kept me gripped to the game was the visceral, audio-visual delight of its spell-casting. For a large part of it, what you do sounds like this:
Underneath its theme and fairly simple combat, this game is also about collecting runes, along with codecs and spell scrolls which combine said runes, and are literally cast into the environment around your character with a satisfying thud, a chant, and a glowing presence upon the ground.
There’s a rhythm to every spell being cast – especially in later stages of the game, which are padded with ‘pargon’ runes – the rune of power. To my surprise, the visceral feeling of chanting Pargons still makes for a memetic experience (see below), years after the game was released. Just as with the plague rhyme of newly-Christianised Britain, the spell-casting within this game resonates through repetition, and – for some at least – a not-displeasing multi-sensory experience.
That we are in fact dealing with a medium which can appeal to multiple senses – often described as a type of synaesthesia – is still a relatively underappreciated aspect of games. Which is unfortunate, because when a player can perceive audio/visual art whilst also experiencing agency in the game world, the feelings which accompany a literal ritual or a trance state are arguably more intense.
Some games take this idea and mould a direct appeal to synaesthesia. Take “Thumper” and “Rez”, whose visuals and game mechanics feed into – and are influenced by – their soundtracks. The player is invited to immerse themself in the experience and achieve a trance-like state of flow, in which the relatively simple controls for their avatar may be carried out almost without thinking. The player’s consciousness is (ideally) subtly altered whilst they play.
This experience – of performing actions whilst doing or saying something in a rhythmic fashion – brings us right back to ritualistic chanting. Games allow us to experience the euphoric effects of this phenomenon without us really being aware. And it can be reassuring. There is comfort in knowing that when I attack a third-level beast in “Eternal Darkness”, the pargon rune of power will see me through. Similarly, “Thumper”’s visual presentation may leave me feeling uneasy by design, but so long as I stay true to the beat, I know that I can defeat the violent entities at the end of the track. And whilst neither of these even offers the pretence of improving my life outside the game, engaging with art is still a ritual of self-care – which is something I’ll come back to.
I would argue that this is game mechanics as low-level ritual. But we don’t have to look far for higher-level ones.
Ritual in Games
Whilst ritual is alluded to – and carried out directly by the player – in games like the “Legend of Zelda” and “Elder Scrolls” series, as part of their magical/fantasy settings, there are spaces out there now hosting a large number of games made by queer folks like us, which directly reference and even recreate our own, magical practices.
Whether it be abstract journeys through personal meaning, tea- and potion-brewing rituals, sex magic portal-summonings, digital tarot readings, séances or experiences drawn right out of the neo-pagan communities of Tumblr and Instagram, it is in these marginal spaces of games that developers are exploring ritual in both its mechanical and narrative forms.
Rituals are Built on Context; So are Game Mechanics
These and many other games address and create rituals directly through their game mechanics, but because they’re games they are also capable of delivering a context which the player can discover for themselves, and those rituals are thus given a potently individual meaning. And lest we forget: practising these rituals in games – be they large or small – almost always makes our characters more capable and powerful in the face of their obstacles. Striking at plagues with holy crooks abounds.
But what of belief? Sometimes that’s limited to the game’s narrative; other times the game asks its players to believe outside of its own confines. But rituals are capable of fulfilling something other than faith or magic.
Self-care
Welcome to self-care: rituals for personal empowerment and well-being. In practice this has a lot of overlap with witchcraft, but self-care can stand independent of spiritual matters. Rituals gain meaning through their intent – a context derived by their practitioner – but self-care need not necessarily be aligned with any particular belief beyond the idea that ‘this will make me feel better’.
We have probably all dabbled in self-care – whether it be the lighting of candles during a soak in an aromatic bath; setting aside time to enjoy a special blend of tea during times of anxiety or panic; inducing trance or meditation; or some other relatively simple act which will relax us. Doing so may not tackle our problems directly, but it might just grant us the energy or perspective to do that ourselves in slower time.
And just as magical rituals are depicted and realised in games; so too do apps and games create opportunities for self-care rituals. Some appeal to these fairly tangible kinds of rituals, but for what we’re interested in, I’d like to mention a more singular approach.
Psychogeography
…is a term from the 1950s, loosely defining attempts to study, observe and immerse one’s self in the varying feelings and moods of places. It happens to be an important part of my own craft, but I feel it has relevance in game spaces as well as the physical world, not least because ours is a medium which excels in directing the ‘spirits’ of places.
Consider how the mood of a game changes when you find an idyllic pond at which to fish, or you climb a hill to be met by a dazzling sunset. Many an account has been written of such virtual places – speaking to a personal sense of realness away from the usual trappings of games, and belying a desire which is also met by so-called ‘walking simulators’. Visiting such spaces is often also very conducive to self-care, in the same way that visiting a gallery might be – but in a uniquely immersive way, and often with the spice of personal discovery.
By engaging with these spaces – and for as long as the player chooses to treat it as such – the ritual becomes the game, and the game becomes the ritual – usually relaxing, and often empowering or humbling.
In Summary
Just as games have come to be recognised as escapist spaces, with promises that we might shape our own destinies and experience things outside of our typicalexistence, so too has witchcraft experienced a revival in interest this past century, outside of mainstream culture.
Remember that for many centuries, witches have been painted as unorthodox and counter-cultural people, operating outside of a hetero-normative patriarchy. They’re queer folk in an older sense of the term- and as their practices are built upon rituals of empowerment for communities and the self, it seems only natural that queer witches amongst us have been reaching out and expressing ourselves through creative media – including games. Whether we do so knowingly or not, subtly or blatantly, we’re creating and engaging with a wide variety of ritualistic experiences.
And despite the possibilities we know are afforded to us, the idea of games as platforms for self-care might – at times – feel ridiculous given the stresses and pressure we are made to feel as both players and creators. Calm, self-led empowerment is a world away from the hellscape of gaming Twitter. And it’s true that there is space here for that unfortunately tired argument about “making the kinds of games we want to experience more of, purely because we believe the potential of this medium shouldn’t be weighed down by a vocal minority”.
But in continuing to create or play and share in games which incorporate positive ritual in whatever form – entrancing, magical or empowering by more subtle means – we do perform a small act of defiance, for our own good, and for the community around us.
