Soft Chambers

few games ask us to take on multiple subjectivities, to understand the lives and stories of more than one character -- instead, we are usually invested in the progression of a single heroic figure

but soft chambers wonders: why should this be the case? 

in final girls, we are asked to embody a number of characters -- all of whom are women -- as they meet to discuss their daily successes and struggles

the challenges we face are emotional rather than physical or mental, and the skills we find ourselves calling upon are trust, care, and self-awareness

the fantasies of asmr youtube scenarios are distant from the fantasies of mainstream videogames

asmr fantasies seem to center care, to position the viewer as witnessing or directly receiving it

soft chambers wondered, what could videogames learn from these forms?

what would the videogame equivalent of an asmr video look like?

many, though not all, videogames are conclusion-driven

we ‘beat’ these games, we ‘finish’ them

they have lost utility to us as soon as we complete them

soft chambers is against conclusion-driven play, which often involves the accumulation of power or status and conquest of one’s enemies or the world

as children we play with stories and we play with care

some of us practice caregiving through play and are encouraged in this practice by a society that is grooming us to care for the feelings of others while we deny our own

but at the same time, caring for others can be a means of caring for the self

when care is offered freely, rather than demanded or extracted, we can feel secure in our capacity to care for others and ourselves

for this reason, soft chambers believes that games are a useful tool for exercising the capacity to care

in games, especially digital games we play without other human participants, we can play at caregiving in a setting in which no one’s actual feelings are at risk

if we are invested in producing games that reflect care, support, and reflection, then our production processes should also reflect those values

the norm for videogame development is the negation of the self; indeed, we are encouraged to pride ourselves on this negation, on our dedication to our labour against the demands of our body, our relationships

soft chambers wishes to challenge not just notions of what videogames can or should do, but of how they are produced

can we envision development styles that are engaged yet playful?

in developing minkomora, the artists worked in a collaborative style in which work was traded off back and forth, in a manner similar to the game of exquisite corpse

this process of sequential, alternating development could be contrasted with a parallel style in which each participant is contributing their own small, specialized component

of course, soft chambers recognizes that producing videogames is labour

soft chambers is pleased to announce the release of MINKOMORA, an exploration game experience by Kikopa Games

MINKOMORA is comprised of a game and a manual, in which you will find illustrations, interpretations of the world, and the first instance of the official soft chambers seal

soft chambers seeks quiet spaces, desolate ones, calming ones

but, soft chambers is also aware that emotion is not apolitical

soft chambers wonders how much the romance of the empty digital space owes to the romance of the frontier and its attendant colonial fantasies of terra nullius

soft chambers is invested in discussing care, as we believe it is an undervalued task and an underexplored topic in games

however, soft chambers also believes that games have done a poor job of exploring the inverse of care, which we might label ‘harm’

rarely do games explore the complex dynamics of harm or the lasting consequences

to fully consider healing and care we must consider harm

how can games usefully depict the myriad everyday forms of harm we inflict on one another, harm which is often unintentional yet no less damaging for it?

how can games help us to understand the consequences of harm and develop new strategies for healing from it?

games are uniquely suited for these purposes because they can locate dynamics of harm within social systems

rather than depict harm as strictly transactional, games can help us understand it as occurring within communities and locales

games have a traditional aural landscape informed by historical technical limitations

these limitations continue to inform contemporary audio design even as it is easier than ever to record one’s own audio and insert it into a digital game

soft chambers is curious about the use of audio that is externally-sourced, produced by the body or the physical environment, rather than, for instance, through a tool designed for producing square, triangle, and pulse-based effects

a number of videogame authors utilize mouth-generated sound effects in their work, including anna anthropy and michael brough

others have experimented with narration in a way that is traditionally fulfilled by on-screen text

in joni kittaka’s secrets agent, the player is guided through a series of screen’s by the author’s voice, who instructs her on her goals and how to achieve them

this kind of narration is not alien to contemporary games -- however -- this narration is relaxed and conversational rather than dramatic and intense

through the course of the game, kittaka is a voice in the player’s ear, the unseen assistant providing the player with information as is common in espionage-themed videogames

but kittaka burps, goes on tangents, breaks out into song, stutters, talks reflexively about the powers of voice, and allows all kinds of other sounds onto the recording

the result feels less like a prerecorded voice dictating your objectives and more like a friend on the other end of the telephone, giving you tips on how to navigate an unfamiliar digital space, one that by design cannot be navigated on one’s own

while secrets agent is a single-player game, in this way it centres our relationships to others and makes receiving help into an exercise in connection and communication rather than one of infantilization or frustration

similar to gone home, secrets agent creates a compelling character by eschewing physical representation and embodying them entirely through voice

but by making this character the author themselves, secrets agent additionally explores the designer-player relationship in digital games

one of soft chambers's goals is to explore digital spaces as spaces that are important in themselves, or as places we can take pleasure in inhabiting and moving through, rather than simply as sites for conflict or stage dressings for narratives

when spaces are constructed entirely around their suitability as stages for gunfights, for instance, then our understandings of and potential experiences with digital spaces are artificially limited

we should at least explore the possibilities of creating spaces that are interesting in themselves rather than building them solely for 'functionality'

soft chambers is pleased to announce the title of the project previously known as the desert, a collaboration with joni kittaka

miękka + komora = Minkomora

Minkomora is an experiment in creating space for player interpretation of a digital world by presenting the player with a range of experiences without assigning them obvious valuations

must all spaces for digital respite be found underground, in the warm embrace of an alien cave or quiet grotto?

soft chambers has found similar moments in digital spaces where we are afforded the luxury of easy and unencumbered vertical movement, as well

while 'open-world' games frequently emphasize freedom in the sense of destruction, they also often provide us with unusual abilities for the purposes of movement: flight, climbing, leaping

in games like [prototype] and saints row iv, soft chambers experienced the pleasant feeling of ascending the exterior shell of the city, climbing its body and perching atop it, content to observe the goings-on of the world from high above

by giving the player unusual means of traversing the world, these games open up spaces in their semi-representational digital worlds which are mostly inaccessible in physical spaces: rooftops, outcroppings, and even the open air above the city

a major barrier to the exploration of emotional resonance in games is the puzzle-solving orientation, in which all game objects and actors are reduced to the status of things to be used in order to achieve an end

thus, soft chambers is invested in discovering ways to disrupt this orientation

one way to achieve this disruption is to reduce the gap between the player and the player character. second-person text-based games have an advantage here in that the form of address 'you' already confounds player and character, investing the player in her role

but this technique can be achieved in nontextual games as well

in robert yang's hurt me plenty, the distance between player and character is reduced by the use of a motion sensing device. even if the game is being played without the device, the use of gestural mouse movements feels more natural and human than, for instance, pressing a button to select a dialogue choice

further, hurt me plenty allows the narrative of the game to 'spill out' of the borders of the game experience. pushing the other character beyond his limits, ignoring his safe word, will prevent the game from being played for a set period of time

for some players, this consequence is experienced as an unfair obstruction, a restriction on a product to which they expect full access

but this reaction signals precisely the moment at which we have butted up against the orientation that must be challenged if we wish to explore a wider range of emotional states and consequences through play

soft chambers is invested in creating comforting, cozy spaces for players to inhabit

but we wonder: is it necessary to create some contrasting, adjacent space to inspire this feeling of comfort?

in developing 'the desert', soft chambers -- in collaboration with jonathan kittaka -- considered this question and made the decision to build a space consisting of contrasting spheres of activity and environmental effects

these contrasts are not imbued with value in themselves; busier spaces are not more dangerous and lingering in warmer or cooler areas does not inflict damage on the player or deprive her of some value

instead, the player is presented with a range of spaces, encounters, and feedback and is free to assign her own values to them

soft chambers believes that our traditional views of games are confused: on the one hand we locate in them excitement and activity, and on the other, calm and relaxation

if we see games as providing a voluntary, controlled space for action then removing oneself from the game space is a means of returning to calm

if we see games as providing a space for relaxation and calm then removing oneself from the game space is necessary in order to return to activity

soft chambers believes that because these two goals are confused under the banner of 'fun', many games achieve neither -- they leave us frustrated, agitated, feeling the need to engage in some compensatory action to make up for our wasted time

there is an experience that soft chambers wonders whether you have ever had

it is not an experience that can be had today

this is a historical feeling -- it was created by specific circumstances and is unlikely to exist again in the same way

it is the experience of renting a videogame for a period of time and discovering the traces left by a stranger, the evidence of another person's encounter with the world

dropping into the half-completed quests, the half-built villages, we felt as if we could nearly touch these strangers, talk to them

coming across worlds that had been completed, rescued, saved, we marvelled at the skill and power of these others whom we would never meet

we wondered, standing before the cave housing the greatest monster in the world, the beast that would be god, how many people's invisible efforts had gone into reaching this point

how many hands did a single save file pass between from the time a game was stocked on the shelf of a small rental store to the time that store sold their old cartridges and replaced them with compact discs?

soft chambers is pleased to announce the following projects scheduled for release in 2015:

The Park, w/ TBA

desert (working title), w/ Joni Kittaka

Dear Pauline, w/ TBA

Messy Biker Boy House (working title) w/ Robert Yang & Eddie Cameron

Knight and Page, w/ TBA

soft chambers is committed to tenderizing videogames

soft chambers is not content to simply analyze content but wishes also to consider the ways that traditional videogame production alienates producers from their work