Nothing (That Is)

Design Statement

Nothing (That Is) is an experimental prototype that was prompted by the assignment to make a game based on a random book's cover. The book I got was The Nothing That Is by Kyle Winkler. 

For me, the book's title inspired ideas of form, game states, and statespaces. It also reminded me of The Nothings Suite by Pippin Bar, which became the main inspiration. The Nothings Suite is a collection of 'games' created by opening up game engines and exporting whatever the default project is. The Nothings Suite explores ideas of what engines define as 'nothing.' How much creative effort is required until it becomes 'not a nothing?'

For this, I wanted to explore Barr's idea of nothing, which is characterized by using as little input and being as close to a completely blank project as possible. As an extension, I created two states in this 'game:' nothing (as by Barr, a blank Unity scene) and nothing that is, which is essentially a randomized scene made up of assets I've made for previous projects. The concept of 'a nothing that is' is a scene that has been made using unintentional input. A 'nothing' that is also kind of a 'something.' It's something in the sense that it is not just a blank scene, but it is nothing in the sense that there is no intention behind what happens. I tried to have as little influence over what happens on the screen, essentially rolling dice everytime a key is pressed to determine what assets show, how they show, whether they move or rotate, etc---I even asked my peers to choose out of a big folder of my previous assets, so that I was not actively deciding what goes in the game.

I think it would be really cool to push this idea of unintentional input (without employing gen AI... boo) but I think it mostly works as a thought experiment, more than anything.