Ilia Mazo,
It’s Winter, 2019
It’s Winter is a sandbox game by Moscow-based poet and musician Ilia Mazo and developer Alexandr Ignatov (aka sad3d).
The work is part of a broader multimedia project by the same name – an avant-garde digital opera that also includes poetry, moving images, a music score and a play. Without an obvious plot, a player is afforded the chance to roam through a suburban Russian residential tower block during winter.
Nondescript panel houses, empty courtyards and the cold glare of neon signage from 24-hour supermarkets simulate the unforgiving reality of winter in Russia. Players are projected into a distant fictional world marked by pixelated mundanity and a repetitive tempo.
To cope with these conditions, the player is asked to mobilise an enhanced sense of empathy and understanding towards otherness. The game itself does not pose direct challenges, a score or prizes to win. It stands as a crude experience in which our intimate relationship with digital worlds and notion of gamification are challenged.
(from June 5th)