Chaos Live

Chaos Live (2020)
A chaotic trip through the human mind is what was set out for when I began working on this game in my final year. Chaos Live is a 2D single-player absurdist game about human behaviour. Based on Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, Chaos Live acts as my own commentary on how people behave and view both themselves and others while certain
parts of their subconscious or conscious are at play: the id, the ego, or the superego. The themes explored in the game are perception, power, and awareness. The target audience is young adult RPG players and casual gamers who are interested in experimental games that deal with human behaviour.

In Chaos Live, the player plays as a character named Mercy who – throughout the entire game – is performing in front of a live audience. The game does not have a win or lose end state. The game is a journey which the player goes on, performing dull tasks while every action is observed and commented on by the audience and narrator. The narrator and audience comment on and laugh at the player’s mistakes, as well as remind the player that they are in a show which metaphorically continues outside of the game world.

The game is set in a combination of very abstract and very real environments made up of a mixture of 2D and 3D objects, although the overall game is made and built in 2D. Each environment that the various levels are set in come with different abilities, meanings, and looks, although the ultimate goal of making it to the end still remains. The game is absurdist game and focuses on the meaning of the art, narration and the actions performed in it. The player is not necessarily expected to experience a challenging game; they are intended to make it to the end and figure out the confusion, or “chaos”. There is a highlight on the sarcasm, confusion, awkwardness, and dark comedy in the game, mimicking life’s chaos, and the different influences of the subconscious and conscious on behaviour. The game takes place in four different environments: a stage set with a complaining audience as the character walks on, a house filled with duplicates of the character and other non-player characters, an outdoor park with very abstract imagery and optical illusions, and the pavement of a busy road. The actions available in the game are walk forward, walk backwards, jump, and using the space bar to either stop the character from harming itself, bring the character out of a moment of distraction or nerves, or help the character learn to think of herself differently and think outside of the box.

There are several non-player characters in Chaos Live which are largely used as background elements. These non-player characters are designed as young urban adults. They are faceless as a way of stripping them of their identities to communicate to the player that these ancillary characters and their individualism is not important, and that they are
instead symbols of people in the real world. The main purpose of them being in the game is to emphasize that the player character lives in a world that does not revolve around them solely but comprises of other people and beings that need to be considered. The only things that are superficially indicated through their design are their age (indicated by hair colour saturation), race (indicated by skin colour), and gender (indicated by body shape and hair style). These four categories are large influences when it comes to social power, a concept that this game loosely deals with. The only player character is named Mercy and is a puppet. All other non-player characters (regardless of if they are alternative or duplicated versions of Mercy, or if they are ancillary characters) are not puppets and don't have strings attached to them. Mercy’s strings in the game are symbolic of the control that her ego has over her.

The uniqueness of Chaos Live as a game concept arises in its content which exposes the weight of things that people tend to not pay much attention to while providing interesting and artistic visuals and sound effects.

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Aluta Null (they/she) is a digital artist and game designer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Aluta's work has a sharp focus on technology, politics, perception, and pop culture. Through a glitchy lens, Null meditates on what art means, what the digital is, and what their fusion can become. View more on LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/alutas_theory