Everything is Going to Be OK

Last updated
Everything is Going to Be OK
Everything is Going to Be OK Cover.jpg
Steam header art
Developer(s) Nathalie Lawhead
Platform(s) Windows, macOS
Release31 January 2017
Mode(s) Single-player

Everything is Going to Be OK (stylized EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK) is a 2017 work of digital art by alienmelon, the pseudonym of independent net artist Nathalie Lawhead. Described by Lawhead as an "interactive zine", [1] the work is a vignette of several non-linear and interactive elements informed by Lawhead's experiences with "struggle, survival and coping with the aftermath of surviving bad things". [2] The work received positive reception from publications, with attention directed to the game's use of humor to humanise and relate to experiences of trauma and victimhood, and received several awards and nominations at the Independent Games Festival, IndieCade, and A-MAZE. Following release of the work, Lawhead experienced online and offline harassment when showcasing it at Double Fine's Day of the Devs event in November 2017, prompting a discussion from Lawhead and media publications about the challenges of publishing and exhibiting experimental or art games and the risks of online harassment relating to streaming of these works.

Contents

Gameplay

A screenshot of Everything is Going to Be OK, depicting the work's user interface. Everything is Going to Be OK gameplay.jpg
A screenshot of Everything is Going to Be OK, depicting the work's user interface.

Everything is Going to Be OK is a non-linear interactive work interspersed between a series of individual animations, games, "silly artistic tools (and) cryptic toys" accessed by the player in separate windows. [2] The sections revolve around the experiences of a cartoon bunny and similar characters who are subject to existential angst and comic violence. [3] Many sections are interactive, with players selecting dialogue choices to progress the animations and text similar to interactive fiction. Players navigate between sections of the work by selecting icons in a user interface imitative of an operating system. Several interactions in sections of the work blur the line between the player's computer and the work's user interface, with some sections allowing the player to export files locally to the player's computer, or connecting to the player's Twitter account. [4]

Development and release

Everything is Going to Be OK was conceived by California-based [5] independent developer Nathalie Lawhead as a "cathartic" expression of a "collection of very abstract life experiences, things I felt while going through hard times, and how I felt, or moved on afterward", with the work aiming to open a "discussion about alternative views of power from a survivor's standpoint". [6] Lawhead noted that the work was motivated by "really wanting to talk about these topics" to deconstruct the "veil of shame placed over survivors", [5] in order to normalise the "discussion of victimhood" in literature and explore works "that make us feel uncomfortable, vulnerable, admit a level of brokenness, and that maybe we just can't win." [7] The work was developed by Lawhead over one year of "non-stop, completely focused development" following the completion and showcase of their prior work, Tetrageddon Games , at IndieCade in October 2016. The work was created using self-made tools, with individual pages "built from the ground up". [8]

Lawhead expressed a preference for Everything is Going to Be OK to be viewed and evaluated beyond the typology of a video game, noting the work conforms with the conventions of a zine. They stated the work was closest to a zine as it consists of "pieces of personal writing and abstract cut-together imagery to convey a theme...they're vignettes, which zines often are." [7] In line with this design, Lawhead described the approach to the work as evoking a "collage art style", with an emphasis on distorted archival stock images that were "cut out, magnified and layered (so) it looks like something else," using their own shaders to create a "pixelated, glitch-y effect". [5] Lawhead also stated that they pursued the design of vignettes to convey the work's messages as they "lend well to life commentary" and are "more personable", citing the games Oikospiel by David Kanaga and Problem Attic by Liz Ryerson as inspirations for this approach. [8] Other inspirations applied by Lawhead included the use of a "net-art" aesthetic influenced by "early computer UIs, citing interest in how their "almost alien" design was evocative of a "fever dream" and allowed "use (of) what people expect about computers to surprise them." [8]

From September 2022 to July 2023, Everything is Going to Be OK was showcased at the New York Museum of Modern Art as part of the exhibition Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design. [9]

Reception

Critical reception

Everything is Going to Be OK received praise from several publications, with attention directed to the use of humor to humanise and relate experiences of trauma and victimhood. Writing for Mashable , Jess Joho praised the "intimate, grounding humanity" in the tone of the work, noting the work's ability to "transcend pain in the most abstract, humorous way imaginable" in its ability to "flip the script on the victim narrative in the most delightfully unexpected ways". [4] Jay Allen of PC Gamer praised the work's use of player involvement, stating it "brings you into (its) lived experience. It invites you to play along, to understand why it plays and why it is played, to understand and live with its pain for a while", highlighting the work's exploration of the "quiet dignity of simply coping with pain, underneath the performance of being a survivor." [3] Julie Muncy of Wired found the work to be a "compelling" and "potent portrait of living with trauma", citing the effect of the provocative and "deliberately crude" visual design of the work to "elicit discomfort...to explore themes beyond just unease". [10] IGN nominated Everything is Going to Be OK as the "Most Innovative Game" in its Best of 2017 Awards, citing the work's "ability to be both genuinely funny, crude, gruesome, somber, and human all at once", and recommending the work "needs to be experienced to be understood". [11]

Controversy

Lawhead stated they received harassment following the publication of Everything is Going to Be OK, including in response to their discussion of the reception of the work at Double Fine's Day of the Devs in November 2017. Following the event, Lawhead authored a post recounting their experiences, stating that the work was "met with hostility" by younger visitors to the event who were "pretty rude" in their dismissal of the work as "weird". Lawhead suggested that this ridicule reflected an "antagonistic" and reactionary trend against alternative games encouraged by video game livestreaming, and there was a greater need to "carve out the space and understanding" for these works at events and online. [1] Following further harassment in response to the piece, Lawhead clarified that their issue was not the dislike their work had faced, but the "outward rudeness" and "intimidating" behaviour of attendees, noting that whilst they "appreciate the exposure" from streamers, they disliked how their "superficial" treatment "invites trolling", citing an experience where one stream joked about their mental state. [12] Lawhead further discussed that interactive art faces risk when assessed as a video game as "the medium is a consumer medium that's largely (mainstream) incapable of art discourse", and that artistic intent "is a difficult thing to communicate within a medium that expects some sort of entertaining twist." [13]

The harassment experienced by Lawhead prompted discussions about the challenges and risks faced by developers in exhibiting art games to a broader audience. Stephanic Chan of VentureBeat noted Lawhead's experiences in discussing how "developers are frequent targets of abusers online". [14] Writing for Game Developer , independent developer James Cox suggested the incident reflected a "cultural issue" reflected by the "self-serving" nature of streaming culture, stating "as influencers and trendsetters, video-creators demonstrate to young players how to interact and respond to games. The players (at) Day of the Devs learned their behavior from somewhere", and stating "I don't think it's just streamers and YouTubers, I think it's a cycle." [15] Artists Holly Gramazio and Sophie Sampson of Matheson Marcault discussed the challenges of exhibiting a game at an event, noting that whilst "Lawhead's game is in some ways inaccessible and it rejects many of the conventions that make games easy to grasp in a crowded expo or exhibition environment," they suggested several challenges and effective strategies to "prepare the audience" for experimental works and "create a space that encourages respect". [16]

Awards and nominations

Everything is Going to Be OK received several awards and nominations from indie game events. At the Independent Games Festival in 2018, the work received a 'Nuovo Award' and an 'Honorable Mention' for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. [17] Everything is Going to Be OK also received an award for 'Innovation in Interaction Design' at IndieCade in 2017, [18] an award "honoring the specialised artistry and innovation required to engage with games on a new level". [19] The work also received the 'Digital Moment Award' at the 2017 Berlin A-MAZE event, an award in recognition of "poems, statements, experiments, short experiences (and) expressions through an interactive medium". [20]

Awards and nominations received by Everything is Going to Be OK
YearAwardCategoryResultRef
2017 IndieCade Awards Innovation in Interactive DesignWon [18]
2017A-MAZEDigital Moment AwardWon [20]
2018 Independent Games Festival Seumas McNally Grand Prize Nominated [17]
Nuovo AwardWon

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Browser game</span> Video game played in a web browser

A browser game is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Alternative names for the browser game genre reference their software platform used, with common examples being Flash games, and HTML5 games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Zimmerman</span> American game designer, CEO of Gamelab

Eric Zimmerman is an American game designer and the co-founder and CEO of Gamelab, a computer game development company based in Manhattan. GameLab is known for the game Diner Dash. Each year Zimmerman hosts the Game Design Challenge at the Game Developers Conference. He is also the co-author of four books including Rules of Play with Katie Salen, which was published in November 2004. Eric Zimmerman has written at least 24 essays and whitepapers since 1996, mostly pertaining to game development from an academic standpoint. He's currently a founding faculty at the NYU Game Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenda Romero</span> American video game designer and developer

Brenda Louise Romero, previously known as Brenda Brathwaite, is an American game designer and developer in the video game industry. She was born in Ogdensburg, New York and is a graduate of Clarkson University. Romero is best known for her work on the Wizardry series of role-playing video games and, more recently, the non-digital series The Mechanic is the Message. She has worked in game development since 1981 and has credits on 49 game titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracy Fullerton</span> American game designer, educator and writer

Tracy Fullerton is an American game designer, educator and writer, best known for Walden, a game (2017). She is a Professor in the USC Interactive Media & Games Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Director of the Game Innovation Lab at USC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IndieCade</span> Independent game festival

IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games. Game types include video games, live-action games, and tabletop games. Independent game developers are selected to demo, screen, and promote their work at the annual IndieCade festival and showcase events. IndieCade also includes a conference track featuring classes, panels, workshops, and keynotes. Since 2020, the annual festival has taken place online under the name IndieCade Anywhere & Everywhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Hunicke</span> American video game designer and producer (born 1973)

Robin Hunicke is an American video game designer and producer. She is a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Funomena.

New World Interactive LLC (NWI) is an American video game developer founded by Andrew Spearin and Jeremy Blum in 2010. The company developed the multiplayer tactical shooter games Insurgency (2014), Day of Infamy (2017), and Insurgency: Sandstorm (2018). In 2020, New World Interactive was acquired by Saber Interactive.

<i>The Stanley Parable</i> 2013 video game

The Stanley Parable is a story-based video game designed and written by developers Davey Wreden and William Pugh. The game carries themes such as choice in video games, the relationship between a game creator and player, and predestination/fate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Porpentine (game designer)</span>

Porpentine Charity Heartscape is a video game designer, new media artist, writer and curator based in Oakland, California. She is primarily a developer of hypertext games and interactive fiction mainly built using Twine. She has been awarded a Creative Capital grant, a Rhizome.org commission, the Prix Net Art, and a Sundance Institute's New Frontier Story Lab Fellowship. Her work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. She was an editor for freeindiegam.es, a curated collection of free, independently produced games. She was a columnist for online PC gaming magazine Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

<i>Proteus</i> (video game) 2013 video game

Proteus is a 2013 adventure game designed and created by Ed Key and David Kanaga for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita. In the game, the player traverses a procedurally generated environment without prescribed goals. The world's flora and fauna emit unique musical signatures, combinations of which cause dynamic shifts in audio based on the player's surroundings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Cavanagh (developer)</span> Irish-born UK-based game designer

Terry Cavanagh is an Irish video game designer based in London, England. He has created over two dozen games, most notably VVVVVV, Super Hexagon, and Dicey Dungeons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simogo</span> Swedish video game developer

Simogo is a Swedish independent video game developer based in Malmö. The company was founded in 2010 and is best known for creating games for mobile devices, including Year Walk and Device 6. Its name comes from the name of its founders Simon (SIM), and Gordon (GO); the 'O' from the Swedish word "och" meaning "and".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Saltsman</span> American video game designer

Adam Saltsman, also known as Adam Atomic, is an American indie video game designer best known for creating the endless runner Canabalt. He is a founder of Semi Secret Software and Finji video game studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broken Rules</span> Austrian video game developer and publisher

Broken Rules Interactive Media GmbH is an Austrian independent video game developer, publisher, and creative collective based in Vienna. It was founded in 2009 by Peter Vorlaufer, Jan Hackl, and Felix Bohatsch, and is known for critically acclaimed and award-winning games such as And Yet It Moves, Secrets of Raetikon and Old Man's Journey, as well as a number of game ports to Nintendo's Wii U.

Renga is a shoot 'em up video game developed and published by British studio wallFour. Designed for movie theaters for up to one hundred players, players are given laser pointers and are tasked with cooperatively building and defending a space ship. It was showcased at 2012's Indiecade, where it won the Developers Choice Award.

<i>OneShot</i> 2016 video game

OneShot is a puzzle-adventure game developed by indie studio Future Cat and published by Degica. Based on a free version made in 2014, it was released for Windows on December 8, 2016. A console adaptation, OneShot: World Machine Edition, was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 22, 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth LaPensée</span> American researcher of video game culture

Elizabeth LaPensée is a game designer and games researcher. She is currently the Narrative Director at Twin Suns Corp, a Seattle-based AAA studio. She has previously worked as an associate professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University. She studies and creates video games, interactive digital media, animation, visual art, and comics to express Indigenous ways of knowing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathalie Lawhead</span> Net artist and independent game designer

Nathalie Lawhead is an independent net artist and video game designer residing in Irvine, California.

Mackerelmedia Fish is a 2020 experimental ARG-like browser-based video game developed by Nathalie Lawhead. The game explores themes and settings related to 1990s and early 2000s Internet culture, especially the loss of digital history through deprecations and data decay. Some of the game is directly implemented on a website's open .htaccess directories, while other portions of it take the user through other previous art projects by Lawhead, such as an application titled Electric Zine Maker.

<i>Tetrageddon Games</i> 2016 video game

Tetrageddon Games is an online compilation of video games and digital art by alienmelon, the pseudonym of independent developer and net artist Nathalie Lawhead. First published as a website titled Tetrageddon, hosting web games designed by Lawhead from 2008. Lawhead combined the releases into a compiled form on the website from 2012, receiving several iterations and revisions over time, and released a downloadable desktop release titled ARMAGAD in 2016. Following release, critics praised Tetrageddon Games for its eclectic mixture of aesthetics and gameplay styles. The project received several awards and nominations, including a Webby Award for the website version and a Nuovo Award at the Independent Games Festival.

References

  1. 1 2 Lawhead, Nathalie (21 November 2017). "YouTube culture is turning kids against art games". VentureBeat.
  2. 1 2 alienmelon (3 May 2018). "Everything is Going to Be OK". Steam.
  3. 1 2 Allen, Jay (28 November 2017). "Everything is Going to Be OK is about the circus performance of being all right". PC Gamer.
  4. 1 2 Joho, Jess (20 October 2017). "Beautifully bizarre art game 'Everything is going to be OK' is about how not OK everything is". Mashable.
  5. 1 2 3 Penabell, Miguel (21 May 2018). "Player Two: An Interview with Nathalie Lawhead". Invalid Memory.
  6. ↑ Lawhead, Nathalie. "Everything is Going to Be OK - Artist Statement". Unicornycopia.
  7. 1 2 Hayes, Spencer (16 January 2018). "Everything is Going to be OK: A conversation with Nathalie Lawhead". itch.io.
  8. 1 2 3 Couture, Joel (8 February 2018). "Road to the IGF: Nathalie Lawhead's Everything is going to be OK". Game Developer.
  9. ↑ "Nathalie Lawhead: Everything is Going to be OK". MoMA. 2022.
  10. ↑ Muncy, Julie (7 December 2017). "A Madcap Fantasy Game All About Survival. And Bunnies". Wired.
  11. ↑ "Best of 2017 Awards Wiki Guide - Most Innovative". IGN. 21 December 2017.
  12. ↑ Lawhead, Nathalie (25 November 2017). "Observations about my 'Day of the Devs' article and thoughts after harassment over a post that's about harassment". Nathalie Lawhead.
  13. ↑ Lawhead, Nathalie (21 November 2017). "Being brave, framing trauma, personal experiences in games, and announcing the next installment of "Everything is going to be OK"". Nathalie Lawhead.
  14. ↑ Chan, Stephanie (12 July 2018). "The IndieBeat: ArenaNet's firings heighten concerns about company policies and harassment". VentureBeat.
  15. ↑ Cox, James (11 December 2017). "The Fun is Over, We Have to Get Serious about Games". Game Developer.
  16. ↑ "Exhibiting Difficult Games". Matheson Marcault. 16 November 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-11-19.
  17. 1 2 "2018". Independent Games Festival. 2018.
  18. 1 2 Chan, Stephanie (9 October 2017). "Everything Is Going to be OK wins IndieCade's 2017 Interaction Award". VentureBeat.
  19. ↑ "Award Categories". IndieCade. 2022.
  20. 1 2 "Awards History". A-MAZE. 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.