Browse the puppet fear of “dark or fruitless” digital condition in Éalú, a deceptive game in the STOP-MAZE maze

Today he sees the edition EscapePuzzler indicating a wooden mouse exploring the maze. This is a wonderful thing-a “real STOP-MOTION game”, like Steam page He places this, with each animation frame based on photography of physical props and sets. After watching the trailer, it is not a huge surprise to find out that the designer, animator and writer Ivan Fisher-Wen has a broader experience in creating puppets and gadget. He and his partner Dr. Emma Fisher-Oowen Run Apart from the barkInclusive theater production company based in Limerick, Ireland (“Escape” and the Irish word “escape”).

Apart from know-how, Éalú is based on the fears of Ivan Fisher-Anen on the effects of online fatal brain, with several interesting metaphors for everyday hell routine, I will try not to unpack. I mentioned Éalú in This week, rounding MawAnd then Fisher-Oowen contacted me to share the code and briefly talk about the themes of the project.

“The idea for Éalú came when I thought about how much I understand the algorithms that shape my everyday life”, he began, “and how they can create repetitive, potentially harmful loops that I don’t even notice. The mouse in the maze grew out of this thought and game as a whole, it is an expression of a stream of ideas that arose from it.”

COGWORK models in the game and clearly clay, hand-made environments are calculated by a reflection of Fisher-Oowen’s ignorance about the actual activities of digital platforms. “When I sketched the concept of Éalú on paper,” goes on – the entire maze and its puzzles became holistically, an expression of my experiences/fears/fascination with interactions with applications powered by algorithm as a layman who does not really understand how they work under the hood. ”

Running the Éalú mouse makes me feel protective and slightly exposed. Fisher-Oowen summarizes the mole as at one level: “Silent, nameless, without sex” an empty tablet that is to inspire empathy, and on the other hand “the internal world that we intuitively want to protect when we browse online”.

Meanwhile, the maze may seem simple in terms of puzzles and threats, but Fisher-Owen suggests that players will be gradually wrong by him. “When you start leading a small mouse through this maze and obvious patterns, rooms and areas in the maze begin to clearly telegraph their positive or ominous nature,” he comments. “But it also starts that the first player is confused or wants to actively avoid … He can turn into dark or fruitless behaviors that they actively force the mouse, because they are attracted by curiosity about the satisfaction of the target, even if the goal looks like a dark place.”

It is difficult to discuss the spoilers here in more detail, but it is enough to say that you can recognize the visual language from your stay on the Internet. There are various meters, including the number of mice death, which affect the spaces in the maze and which can create a kind of destruction of negative strengthening.

It seems that it is necessary to determine that Éalú has a happy ending, although it may take you several attempts (developers estimate that the game is 2-5 hours). “At the end of the day, I wanted this strange small world to end with an expression of optimism that there is a path to gain access to what is really nice in our digital era, while maintaining our connection with each other and nature,” says Fisher -own. It also encourages players to ignore their inspiration and reading Éalú against the cereal, comparing it with a “silent film”, which can be interpreted any ways.

There are a total of four people in total. Fisher-one created props and animations in his garden shed, with the developer of cooperation Benjamin Orr, and then explains the resulting 512 video clips for unity, while supporting other aspects of the game design and writing. JT Paton worked on original illustrations and promotional art and Will Wood composed and recorded the result. You can read more about Couple. If you run away from the maze and find yourself in search of more hand -made props, I can only poke you towards the maze Jack King-Spooner.