Project Summary
Ripon is an installation integrating an original video game with large-scale digital prints. A collaboration between artists Troy Richards and Knut Hybinette, Ripon uses the setting of a violent dystopic society to upset the conventions of gaming culture. Created as more of a happening or event Ripon can only be played once, it is a virtual world designed to end, and turning the tables on the typical gaming model you the player will not be the plucky survivor.
Project Description
The intent of this project is to undermine the expectations of video games and engage the viewer/player in new and innovative ways. From the design perspective this is accomplished in three ways: the player has limited control over his/her circumstances, the player is de-centered, and the character is mortal.
To limit the player’s control over his/her circumstances the video game is set in a near future world of recent cultural collapse and the breakdown of society, where humans steadily become more animalistic from living under extreme conditions and anarchy, where the characters of the game become greedier and less in control of themselves as the game proceeds. With limited resources the characters must scramble for enough to subsist, but each struggle exacts a toll.
The player being de-centered changes the typical dynamic of a video game where most often the player is the hero. In Ripon the player is one of many people caught up in the tide of events and you have no greater insight or abilities than anyone else. He/she will be one in a crowd of people where no hierarchy or order exist.
The character is mortal in that the viewer/player will have only one opportunity to play the game, once the character is killed that ends that player’s participation in the game. To further underscore this, the player will have to enter his/her name and have a photo taken of their face before starting the game and this photo will be attached to the body of the character that they control. Once the character has been killed the body remains inert in the world of the game and the game continues. Our goal is to immerse the player as much as possible in this virtual world, to give some measure of reality to their experience so there is an emotional impact to the end of that experience when their character dies.
As the game proceeds the world descends further into chaos and the characters become more barbaric, people playing the game will have greater difficulty controlling the game character actions. Throughout the duration of the installation, events in the game will grow more chaotic and the game world will continue to collapse.
