Grade: C-
A Hodgepodge mess of an art experience wrapped loosely around the genre of “gaming.”
This game won the prize for being the most intimidating to review. If you sit down and attempt to play Oikospiel, you will be hit with some out-there concepts.
I was excited to dig in, though, as the author David Kananga had made one of my favorite experimental projects, Panoramical, where you adjust sliders, and the sound changes interact with the landscape.
The story so far is about as meta as it gets
The story, or what you can glean from the weird vignettes in Oikospiel, is strange. In 2040, Universal Basic Income allowed everyone to pursue their passions, which has left the gaming industry in the lurch as all game devs have quit their dev jobs and are seeking other passions. The solution to this problem for the companies was to create hyper-intelligent canines. These dogs were tasked with creating a video game, but the dogs had no idea what to write.
So, of course, the dogs created their own life story as a video game opera. So the game you play is a story about how the dogs try to make a video game? But instead of just a game, these dogs think it would be wise to create an “opera,” so the game has a lot of references to operatic tradition inside it. If you’re an opera nerd, maybe there are a lot of references to catch. Those references went straight over my head.
“Gameplay” is confusing.
While these canines are hyper-intelligent, it’s a scattered and misdirected intelligence. They can float together all these big words, but the overall meaning and direction are confused. (Think 18 INT and 2 WIS scores in DnD parlance). Because of this confused interpretation of the extensive information in the canine’s brain, the dog’s video game creation is a failed experiment. That failed experiment, with bugs and UI issues galore, is what you play.
Throughout the game, you are directed through a series of 5 acts of scenes. Each scene is a vignette of “something,” but done in true contemporary “out there” style, where it’s unclear why anything is happening. The game’s bugginess is done on purpose since the game is made by low wisdom dogs who don’t know how to make games with intuitive UI. This purposeful bugginess makes the gameplay experience incredibly frustrating and annoying at times.
This Youtuber “warm_ham” was kind enough to stream the game, and I think this moment of coming into the “oik os” operating system, an operating system created by the canine hyper-intelligence and the gameplayer attempting to figure out how to proceed epitomizes the vibe. “What am I supposed to be doing?” and “What is even happening right now?” are the two prevalent feelings throughout the gameplay. If you enjoy that feeling of confusion, then you might like Oikospiel.
Pretentious nonsense or genius?
I always have a hard time with “out there” contemporary art. Is it pretentious bullshit or genius? To get a sense of the author’s intention (David Karanga), I watched him speak about the game. In the speech, he presented the mishmash of concepts that drove development. This mishmash of concepts, I don’t think had any focus or direction; it just feels experimental and more like throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks and less like a refined concept. This confirmed to me that the author’s intent did not come through in the game. Therefore, to me, Oikospiel was a failed experiment in creating a “failed experiment” game.
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