No Performance Is Half Done: How Playing with a Live Audience Turns Video Games into Performance Art | games

TOver the weekend, I spent more than eight hours in the theater playing a video game about donkeys, reincarnation, and organized labor with about 70 other people. Political, unpredictable, and full of puns, Asses.Masses is, on the one hand, a somewhat primitive-looking video game made by Canadian artists Patrick Blinkarn and Milton Lim with a small team of collaborators. But the setting — in the theater, surrounded by others, with everyone shouting out advice and opinions and working together to solve puzzles — turns it into a piece of group performance art.

Here’s how it works: A controller sits on a pedestal in front of a giant display screen. And in the seats: the audience. Whoever wants to rise up and dominate can do so, and become the avatar of the crowd. The game starts with a series of questions, mostly about donkeys, some in different languages, and it soon becomes clear that you have to work together to solve them correctly. Someone in our crowd speaks Spanish; Another knows the answer to an engineering question; I knew, somehow, that the female donkey was called Janet.

This is what makes the game a group experience. Usually, there’s no more than one person with their hands on the controller, but despite this, everyone pitches in as you lead a pack of donkeys on a long, surprising and increasingly surreal quest to take back their jobs from the agricultural machinery that has made them redundant.

Over the course of 10 chapters (with food and frequent breaks, thank God), we took control of a whole group of donkeys with amusing names, pondered teamwork, manufacturing and business politics, debated what to say and what to do, and laughed. a lot In the tricky parts. Without spoiling it, the show’s content warnings give you a clear idea of ​​what to expect: references to violence, strong language, simulated sex (ass), simulated sex (human), and police brutality, as well as references to drug use and suicide. I was amused to discover that this performance in Glasgow sparked a mini-moral panic in a group called Parents Watch Education, which the Daily Record exploited under the headline ‘Criticized parents’ show aimed at teenagers includes simulated donkey sex, murder and drugs’. (The show is advertised as 14+, and prioritizes humor over realism.)

Asses.Masses is a thought-provoking game made worthwhile thanks to more interesting gameplay. It is also, it must be said, a real test of endurance. I had to step away for a few hours in the middle to go and lie down for a bit. It’s been many years since I’ve played any video game for eight hours straight. Fortunately, I brought along a friend with a little more stamina, who told me what I missed before I picked up the console for the final chapters. At some point, overwhelmed by the public’s diverse opinions, I put the observer aside, placed my hand on my head, and silently sympathized with every union or labor organizer who had to mobilize and prioritize the ideas of opinionated members.

The game could have done more with the idea of ​​a herd mentality – I’m pretty sure a few of our collective decisions weren’t actually leading to anything, and in fact, what we were mostly doing was watching someone else play the game rather than actively participating. It was, in that sense, like streaming on Twitch. Stage performers tend to be very enthusiastic about anything that incorporates video game elements into shows, but I often wonder if that’s because they’re not necessarily familiar with the audience engagement and crowd dynamics that characterize video games always Inspiration, whether through multiplayer, live streaming, or just a lively online conversation.

It made me want to invite friends around my house and pass the controller around all day like we used to do in our early twenties. My friend was reminded of a video game book club she ran, where six people would play a game like What Remains of Edith Finch together (and laugh about it, in that particular case). Asses.Masses is designed specifically around multiplayer, but I can think of plenty of shorter, thought-provoking games that could be structured this way, and that would inspire interesting reactions from audiences. And if the number of people interacting with Twitch is any indication, I think a lot of people will come.

Walking off stage and into the rainy Glasgow night, I felt a real sense of camaraderie with the small audience I was playing to. Often times when I finish a game, I’m alone in the living room in the middle of the night, while my family is asleep, and I have no one to turn to to discuss it with. This time, I had a full group of people to debrief with, and it reminded me that adding human players is always what revitalizes games.

Evaluates.The masses are On world tour until September 2026

What are you playing?

I have two spooky (but not too scary, because I’m a creep) recommendations for Halloween week. First up: The Séance of Blake Manor, a folk-horror detective game that Keith absolutely loved, featuring an eccentric group of characters gathering in a gothic hotel for an All Hallows Eve séance. And second: Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival, an annual limited-time virtual Halloween party that was originally created as an alternative to real-life gatherings. Here, you can create your own paper ghost with a painted face, carve a virtual pumpkin, and then head into a spooky little world to show off to other players. There’s a surprising amount to explore, from hayrides to scary movie theaters to an entire haunted house escape room. It will be available until a week or so after Halloween, and is available on itch.io on a pay-what-you-want basis.

Available on: computer
Estimated playing time: 15-20 hours (Seance at Blake Manor), 2 hours (Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival)

What are you reading?

• The biggest news from last week is that Microsoft is releasing Halo on PlayStationa sentence that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago. Specifically: a remake of the original (better, don’t @me) Halo: Combat Evolved will be released on all platforms next year, with Xbox executives touting the line that console exclusives are now simply outdated. As former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra said: “Go tell Nintendo about it.”

• A report from Business Insider explains how EA’s management asked its employees to use its services Internal artificial intelligence “For just about everything,” from programming to talks about promotions. Many employees have expressed concerns that they are being paid mainly to train replacements, generating more work for themselves in the meantime debugging the AI.

• Following crossovers with everything from KPop Demon Hunters to Daft Punk, the next big Fortnite collaboration has been announced: The Simpsonswhich features a full map of Springfield as well as character skins. It launches on Saturday.

What to click on

Question block

reader Emily This week’s question asks:

“I read your article about the game Baby steps And it looked very similar to Get over it with Bennett Foddy. It’s infuriating because it’s so difficult and you often end up going back to the beginning and having to start over – but at the same time it’s compelling. What are the most intentionally difficult but compelling games to play?

You’ve made a smart call here, Emily, because Bennett Foudy is one of the three main developers (and voice actors) behind Baby stepsand a natural extension of his game design philosophy of making players howl in self-pity. (Here’s an interesting lecture he gave on suffering and games.) Foddy’s work is a masterpiece in the field, and he makes the interesting observation that since the 1990s, games have focused on removal Suffering, which makes things smoother for the player. In doing so, they took something that made them so interesting.

I play a lot of games that make me suffer, for reasons that Foody helped me understand: the greater the pain, the greater the gain (and the less likely you are to get bored – my personal curse). Most memorable are the aforementioned baby steps, all in Dark souls/fromsoft Canon (though not Sekiro, which really bothered me), Cup head, Super Meat Boy, Returning And of course, Hollow Knight: Silk SongWhich is what I will do definitely Finishing soon.

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