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Jaida Kenana

Problem Attic: An Embodied Disorientation of Self

Playing Problem Attic was a disorienting, confusing, and often times frustrating experience. After playing it for an hour, my understanding of the was that you were to explore a space with various puzzles, but it was quite unclear what the objective was, or if you had made any substantial progress during gameplay. When discussing her motives behind the game, Ryerson states that “She had not been thinking about how to make a good video game. She had been thinking about how to express very complicated, seemingly expressible feelings…” (Ryerson). Ryerson had attested to how Braid seemed to be a reflection of Blow’s life, so she saw Problem Attic as an opportunity to express herself and her feelings of making sense of one’s own pain through a video game. For her, creating Problem Attic was a form of introspection.


As talked about in the past week, Problem Attic seems to be an interesting example of an art game because it creates a subjective experience of somebody through the use of game mechanics. For example, one mechanism of the game is the magnetic, gray spheres that follow your avatar as you move. This often times prevents you from going to where you need, and also nauseates the player through erratic sounds and motions whenever they touch your avatar. This nauseating mechanic, however, echoes Ryerson’s feeling of being unable to make sense of her painful experiences in life. As these gray spheres disorient you and cause you to feel nauseated, you are left wondering why this mechanic even exists. Due to the game’s abstraction, you play this game unaware of the objective, or progress you have made. Thus, the nauseating disorientation is confusing in that you are unsure of the reason you are being put into this painful experience.

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