Exploring Japan's Site of Reversible Destiny: A Real-life 3D Game Level

Intro

In 1995, the game industry had made plenty of headway into 3D game design. Exact & Ultra released PS1 platformer Jumping Flash in April, Nintendo plugged away at Super Mario 64, From Software was working on more King's Field games, while id Software developed Quake.

In October 1995, a massive 'experience' park' - the "Site of Reversible Destiny" (hereon SORD) - opened in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. About 4 acres (or 3 football fields) in size, it’s composed of labyrinthine structures with furniture sticking through its walls, a half-dome with zig-zagging paths, its tricky terrain entertained visitors by challenging them to climb and walk its slopes. It was designed by artist couple Madeline Gins (b. 1941, USA) and Shusaku Arakawa (b. 1936, Japan) (hereon "A+G.")

A view of the park from within its “Elliptical Field”. (Photos all mine unless otherwise stated)

As far as a park goes, it's a lot of fun! Even (or perhaps, moreso) on a rainy day. If you like 3D games where you walk around, you must visit SORD if you're in Japan.

Beyond the fun, and why I'm writing this essay, is how SORD felt like exploring a 3D game, like the puzzly caves of my 3D platforming game Sephonie (2022) or the detailed world of Action RPG Dark Souls (2011). In those games, a ledge might require a tricky maneuver to reach, or a platform might seem too far, until you figure out a clever route to get there. Each time you surmount one of these challenges, you learn a bit, and it subtly changes how you view each environment. The "rules" or "mechanics" of a game’s movement - how fast you can run, or how far you can jump - give texture to how a game's environment will feel. The interior of a home in Sims would feel much different than a home in a horror game. A football field is completely different to exist on than a soccer field, even if they’re both flat grass.

Architecture and game design have always overlapped, but SORD takes it a step further by going against the way architecture prioritizes usability. A+G created a space where getting from point A to point B feels playful, requiring you to be aware of the materials beneath your feet and how steep or curvy they are. Soon, you gain an understanding of what's easy or what's dangerous, even at a distance, and more possibilities of traversal open up.

SORD takes a open, playground approach to its design - you can wander between landmarks in any order. The coincidence in timing is almost too bizarre, with SORD conceived in 1990, built from 1994/8, and finished in 1995/10. Super Mario 64, an innovative 3D platforming game known for its open, playground-like environments, was developed from 1994/7 and released in 1996/6. (While a stretch of my imagination, given SORD being only a couple of hours from Kyoto, it's not impossible that someone from Nintendo would have heard of or visited SORD during SM64's development!)

With SORD's creation heavily reliant on 3D modeling software, the existence of both SORD and SM64 at least point to an common interest in the possibilities of 3D and its playful relation to the body - be it walking in SORD, or the feeling of moving Mario through SM64.

Early 3D render of the park from the Mainichi Newspaper book (source at bottom)

The Psuedo-3D-Videogame

SORD feels like a "Pseudo-3D-Videogame", or, something, that, while largely unaware of 3D games, shares common points. Here’s a few I thought of:

• Requiring a player to figure out a safe and efficient way to move between points in the environment

• Requiring a player to remember the relation of different landmarks to stay oriented

• Certain parts of the game are categorized as 'in-bounds' and 'out-of-bounds'

• A restriction on completely free movement, which creates more meaning with the 3D space, by forcing you to navigate it with new rules

But additionally important is the framing of being playful. A corporate building interior might contain these qualities in some form, but it's not framed as a playful place, nor are its implementation of these qualities particularly unique, ultimately prioritizing the use as office space and optimizing for productivity.

In SORD, you have to plan your path through its slopes to avoid slipping. You can use its various structures to orient yourself and plan a path. There’s a clear delineation of out of bounds, although sometimes the line is blurry.

But most importantly, the way it restricts your movement through steep hills, narrow walls, cut-off-sightlines, different floor materials - feels just like the way 3D games use different floors, walls, objects, and interactions, to create meaning.

How could A+G create something - in real life, no less - that shares all these qualities with 3D games? How did they do it before 3D games became mainstream? We'll talk about all that and more after my official "game walkthrough" of "The Site of Reversible Destiny". If you want to save the surprise for yourself you can skip this section. Otherwise, read on…

(By the way. The foundation managing SORD has a nice video explaining the site. Skim it if you want to get a better sense for the structure of the space.)

Walkthrough

Aerial shot from the Mainichi Newspaper book (1990s)

An FAQ for Site of Reversible Destiny

Released 1995 by Arakawa & Gins, Gifu Prefecture Taxpayers and Construction Workers.

• Only available on "Real Life".

• Cost: 770 Japanese Yen (Adult cost)

Walkthrough by Melos Han-Tani (c) 2023

Hi, thanks for checking this out. I'm assuming you're aware of what SORD is, so let's get right to it! First, there's no real way to 'beat' SORD. Simply, to reach the ending you just need to go out the way you came (and perhaps buy something from the gift store on your way out.) Really, you can see as much or as little as you want. However, I've laid out my walkthrough as I experienced it, with tips and tricks along the way for enjoying most of SORD. It assumes you are able to navigate steep terrain for at least 1, preferably 2, hours. Unfortunately along physical accessibility lines, SORD is not so good.

Note that I played SORD with a "Rainy" weather modifier. This generally increased the difficulty of the game (but also my physical awareness of the levels.) If you do this you should bring an umbrella, a raincoat, and shoes that aren't prone to slipping.

Outline

You can search the three-character tags to easily find your way around this FAQ.

1. [TUT] Tutorial and Border Area

2. [WAL] The Wall

3. [ELP] Entering Elliptical Field

4. [INT] Wall Interior

5. [FLD] Elliptical Field

Pamphlet I received. The place name covered by the glare is “Zone of the Clearest Confusion”

[TUT] Tutorial Area

After entering the game, you should have received a pamphlet from the ticket clerk. It has some instructions on things you can do while playing, like how to vary your walking speed. Use these suggestions as you wish. I didn't realize they were there when I played, and still had a good time.

Aside: later in this post I will talk about some of these “instructions”

To learn how to play, you'll start near the multi-neon-colored Reversible Destiny OFFICE, followed by INSECT MOUNTAIN RANGE and lastly, CRITICAL RESEMBLANCE HOUSE.

OFFICE first teaches you to be aware of your footing. There are very trippable ankle-high walls at the start of the level (even in the bathrooms) followed by a maze of waist-high to body-height walls. The floor is also incredibly uneven. Take it slow: by going through this area you'll get a sense of a safe pacing and awareness that the rest of the park will demand.

Melos Tip: For an extra challenge, stand on top of the maze walls for a picture. Don't fall, though! Safety first…

It’s me!

Outside this building is the INSECT MOUNTAIN RANGE. As it was raining I opted to not climb on this, but you may wish to clamber (like an insect) to the top. The burst of physical exertion, as you reach the top and gaze out towards ELLIPTICAL FIELD should give you a boost of energy for the rest of the park. Don’t pull anything though…

The final part of the tutorial is CRITICAL RESEMBLANCE HOUSE, which extends the ideas of OFFICE into a cramped, twisting building with many exits/entrances. This area is interesting because it helps you get acquainted to the idea of "yes, it's okay to go there." What looks like a cramped, inaccessible space is perhaps just the end of a hallway you can access from another route. Your curiosity here is constantly rewarded with pieces of ceramic furniture, clipping through walls and ceilings, or giant, green steel doors.

Melos Tip: Make sure to look all around you, even up! You might be surprised what you find.

With the tutorial out of the way, hopefully you're now feeling more confident about exploring the rest of SORD. "Is it okay to go there?" Probably! "Can I make it up that hill?" Why not try? A game's tutorial takes us through a microcosm of what it has to offer, teaching us the rules. SORD's tutorial, too, put us in the right mindset for exploring, by setting our expectations accordingly. Non-intuitive slopes, multi-textured paths, strange spaces. From here on out, SORD becomes more nonlinear: rather than a set of 3 linear areas, each area blends into the next.

Walk down the slope from the House. Immediately ahead of you will be an angular building: this is EXACTITUDE RIDGE.

You will notice some pits: please don't fall in these! Maybe climb down if you're feeling brave and absolutely certain you can get out. Actually, I feel some regret not hopping into at least one pit.

Melos Tip: If it's rainy you will want to lower your center of gravity to reduce your chances slipping. Take it slow, shuffling if necessary. Especially when going down a slope, these smooth, rocky surfaces can be deceptively slippery.

Stop by the building if you'd like, but your main goal here is the ridge in front of you. From it, you can survey the inside of ELLIPTICAL FIELD, or turn around to see the tutorial area you just came from, or even the towering WALL in front of you. Cherish these new lines of sight, it’s part of the fun! I chose to head towards WALL.

[WAL] The Wall

It’s the WALL!

Look closely at WALL. You'll notice… you can walk up there! Do you climb up from below? Are there stairs somewhere? Look around you, the answer is close by. In my case, we observed two girls walking off to the left, but continuing on the crest of the ridge. It turns out that the ridge begins to become an enclosed walkway! It felt distinctly like exploring near the bounds of a game's map, before finding secret path leading to a place you thought was just set dressing. Make your way carefully along the steep and narrow ridge. The ridge is entirely white in color, so you'll have to look closely to see where the flatter regions are.

The ridge leads to a semi-enclosed walkway. It's fairly narrow, so you might have to squish yourself against the side to let someone pass.

Melos Tip: If it's raining, you'll have to be strategic about your umbrella. If you just hold it as usual, it'll get caught in the narrow walkway. Try raising it up above your head with one hand! Or, if you don't mind getting it wet, close the umbrella. You'll have to do this when navigating through the green-roofed passageways. By the end of this level you'll be a pro at quickly maneuvering your umbrella! But watch out - water pools on the ground here, leading to squishy terrain. Keep an eye out for the dry, bumpy regions - and try to step on those instead. Hope you wore boots!

Anticipation builds as you wonder what’s at the end of the long, upwards path. Unfortunately there's no treasure, not even an NPC. Nor even a way back down, as we deduced from the group of girls walking past us. Personally, I found this piece of level design hilarious: what's the reward for slowly making your way up slippery, narrow hallways? A dead end! Well, since there is no returning to last save point in the Real Life version of SORD, enjoy the sprawling view of the gigantic mountains behind you, or look for other visitors exploring the site below. The true reward is simply being in this strange place. On my visit there were dynamic layers of mist weaving their way through the lush mountains, beyond budding sakura trees.

Rules of Play (A Break from the Walkthrough)

In "The Pseudo-3D-Videogame" I mentioned that SORD places 'restrictions on completely free movement,' similar to the rules games place on its players. Rules add context to the 'objects of play'. For example, under the rules of playground tag, your hand becomes something powerful. In the case of SORD, the objects are our bodies, the layout of the park adds the context, turning our bodies into these strange vehicles.

SORD also provides some written suggestions on how to ‘play.’ Let’s talk about a few:

"Vary the rate at which you proceed."

Basically, they're acknowledging how whether you tiptoe, walk, or run through a space affects how you perceive it. Consider a stealth game. Even the tiniest room can become tense if you have to carefully move through it. Or an open world game. Even the fanciest town becomes forgettable if you can sprint through it, oblivious to the sights around you. Likewise, whether we shuffle nauseously, walk slowly, speed with a car or bike - it all affects how we perceive a place we travel through. If you walk through SORD, or stand, perhaps you'll notice the details of a flower or a tree. If you sprint through SORD, maybe you'll be attuned to the high-level layout of the slopes as you quickly try to read where it's safe to place your next step.

Instead of being fearful of losing your balance, look forward to it

This is similar to the idea of difficulty. By making it hard to achieve a goal in a game, the path to achieving that goal can take on nuance and meaning For instance, an action game would hardly be as intriguing if you were to be at maximum power and invincible all the time. None of the enemies would have personality if you instantly defeat them. If things are hard, you’re forced to scramble for a sense of how to proceed. Likewise, if a dating sim were to let you date immediately, the game would evoke none of the its moments of failure, comedy and drama for the player. Difficulty in a game can change from anything, even the smallest unit: a floor mesh, a sentence of text.

Likewise, much of the memorability of SORD comes from its difficulty. You will remember being puzzled by how to get down a steep hill, or how to walk around trees to reach a structure. Doing these things may require uncomfortably risking your balance, but overcoming the physical challenges means you can have a deeper relationship with the park.

"If an area or a landing site catches your eye and attracts your interest to the same degree as the area through which you are actually moving, take it up on the spot, pursuing it as best you can as a parallel zone of activity."

This reminds me of how 3D games set up levels to have you see landmarks at certain positions. Can you get there? If so, how? Games have all sorts of answers based on genre, but that fundamental question of "how do I get from point A to B" always remains. Even in a text-only game, you might see a character and wonder "what can I do to get to know them?" Games are a collection of threads, opening and closing as you play them. This rule suggests that, rather than view the park as a checklist of places to see (perhaps my flaw…) you instead be okay with improvising, branching off to various points of interest based on what catches your eye. In ways this parallels how some games flatten themselves by ‘checklist’-ifying their exploration.

Make use of the Exactitude Ridge (精緻の棟) to register each measured sequence of events that makes up the distance."

Except for your shoes and the umbrella, SORD doesn't have much in the way of 'items' like we might have in games. However, the various structures sort of act like items, under certain rules. It's hard to puzzle out exactly what this rule means, but generally speaking, it wants you to use a building as a reference point to think about your journey. Sort of a strange calculator/compass-like item, in a way. The other rules mention using other structures in creative ways. They remind me of experimental writing exercises (like freewriting while counting to 100.), or the way some interactive fiction or RPG games leave some of the meaning-making in your hands.

Close your eyes when moving through and around the Trajectory Membrane Gate.

This is similar to level gimmicks - being chased by lava, a level where the lights frequently turn off, a windy level. A "gimmick" in a game usually doesn't fundamentally change the rules of the game, but instead gives you a new 'flavor' of how to play. Closing your eyes in SORD - other than being dangerous - makes you move much, much slower, and tune strongly into what your hands and feet can touch.

FAQ, Continued

[ELP] Entering Elliptical Field

Descending into ELLIPTICAL FIELD is fairly straightforward on a dry day, although when it's rainy it's a bit trickier. It's safest to enter from near EXACTITUDE RIDGE where the slopes are narrow. However, if you walk all the way around the exterior of WALL, you'll find some entrances to the higher part of ELLIPTICAL FIELD. I instead stumbled upon a strange section, elevated, but at the base of the high part of WALL I was just on. Here I found shelter from the rain.

From here you can see people who are also at the end of the wall section. I wonder what they're thinking? The safest way to descend from here is to make your way back to the shallower entry slopes.

Melos Tip: There's a special technique my gaming partner developed for descending here: by using the intersection of the red and white regions you can increase your friction to more safely waddle down the slope. However, opt to get onto grass whenever you can, as it's easier to hold your footing - one of the best footings in SORD, second only to the black, rough gravel later on.

Before entering ELLIPTICAL FIELD, take a moment to gaze out at the trees and paths intersecting each other. In the earliest version of this game, the trees were a lot smaller. Now, it almost feels like a forest grove. Can you imagine how it might have been to play SORD back in the 1990s? It's rare for a game's levels to change slowly over decades. Take a moment to think about this.

At this point the last goal is to visit the "pavilions" - those funny little buildings inside the - they're actually replicated, smaller chunks of CRITICAL RESEMBLANCE HOUSE! You can visit these in any order, but I opted towards making my way towards WALL INTERIOR. If you look out towards the bottom of WALL, where you would enter the path going up, you can see a large opening into WALL INTERIOR. Who knew you could go inside the thing you were just walking on? How exciting - let's go there.

[INT] Wall Interior

On the way there are a few tricky slopes, even something like a stone bridge. Choose any way across here that you like. You'll see a yellowish entrance in a hill to your left - it's called “GEOGRAPHICAL GHOST.”

I squeezed in here - the contrast of total darkness was interesting, and I utilized my phone's flash to illuminate some crevices and secrets, such as a tiny image of Japan in the ceiling. You may wish to think about the suggested game rule: "Inside the Geographical Ghost, renege on all geographically related pledges of allegiance." To what extent does citizenship as a concept make any sense? Whose interest is it to enforce such things? How many friends from other countries do you know? Take a breather to think about those questions in this this calming, dark and yellow space.

After that, you can make your way up to the WALL INTERIOR, a cavernous, barren and drippy space that extended as far as the walls went.

MELOS TIP: Use your phone's light here! The ground is uneven, and has big rocks and pebbles that could cause you to trip. If you trip you might fall into a puddle. If you're scared, hold your friend's hand, or leave the WALL INTERIOR and stay outside.

The two men who we encountered in GEOGRAPHICAL GHOST also appeared in WALL INTERIOR. It's at this point I realized that SORD reminded me of asynchronous multiplayer games like Dark Souls. We weren't intentionally visiting the park with these men, nor the girls at WALL, but by observing them at a distance, my relationship to SORD changed: either we anticipated what was up ahead, found a different route, or merely felt a sense of comfort that someone else was in a place with us.

NOTE: Dark Souls is a 2011 game known for various innovations, one of which is its 'Bloodstain' and 'Messages' functions, where you could inspect another player's bloodstain to see their last moments of death. Or, you could read a (possibly lying) message from another player about tips or tricks. This made an otherwise quiet and lonely world feel more comforting.

After you leave WALL INTERIOR you'll be able to see a few other structures - IMAGING NAVEL and KINESTHETIC PASS. Each has suggested rules you may wish to try. As I passed here, a group of adults, one of them holding BABY, was trying to get down slippery slopes. I wasn't so sure about the idea of bringing BABY into SORD on a rainy day, but there it was. You may wish to sneak a snack or two here, but watch out for SECURITY GUARD, who might prevent you from doing so!

[FLD] Elliptical Field

The last thing to see would be the structures scattered throughout ELLIPTICAL FIELD. Pick them in any order you like, and check out the suggested rules for them as well. At this point the challenges should be familiar: unsteady footing, strange furniture, but you should be ready to take on anything you encounter.

MELOS TIP: For extremely steep slopes, you might have to have a free hand by tossing something down the slope. I did this with my umbrella, to free a hand so I could better stabilize myself. You can always wash your hands, so don't be afraid to touch stuff if it means avoiding fall damage!

MELOS TIP: This area is quite steep! If you're traveling with another player, you might want to use them to stabilize yourself as you descend.

From the forest-y section, you can experience DESTINY HOUSE, a maze at the center of ELLIPTICAL FIELD, with ankle-high walls. Notice how low you are: the horizon is gone, enveloped by the valley slopes around you. Here, the suggested rule asks you to "wander through the ruin as though you were an extra-terrestrial." What would someone with no context conclude about this place? In life walk through, or drive by, many places we don’t, or will not, understand. Keep such a question in mind as you make your way back out of ELLIPTICAL FIELD, exiting the park.

Congrats! You've cleared SORD. But that's not all, because you can always play again in the future. Maybe you'll experience something else? Games give us as much as we're willing to put in.

Anyways, this is the end of the walkthrough, so let's get back to the essay…

Scales of Action

Back to the original question. How did A+G come up with this 3D game-like place, if there weren't many 3D games to base it off of, and without being game designers? No idea comes about without some reason. A+G and 3D Games must share a root!

“Maps” of SORD!

SORD is a late-career work, and by its conception in 1990, A+G had been well-known artists (and a couple) for around 30 years. An article by Amelia Schonbek mentions how Gins wanted people to "recognize how many different scales of action there were in their bodies and in the world around them, and to practice paying attention to all scales simultaneously," and, ultimately, "construct optimism." Her work aimed to have people "embrace being alive and to shift their focus away from the certainty of death."

I love the idea of 'recognizing different scales of action.' For one, CEOs and people in positions of power could probably do better at recognizing who’s working for them. But for you and me, when faced with massive climate problems, constant oppression - what's the best course of action? Perhaps when you think to the future, you feel the 'certainty of death.' This feels true when we look at an issue we can't change quickly. But at a person-to-person scale, a lot is possible. All movements, changes, businesses, artistic works, good and bad, start with a person talking to another.

The social climate and our hyperaccess to news and information often leads to an omniscient impotence. When we stress and yell about each and every problem - rather than focusing on just one or two things - the result is a kind of anxious moralism focused around a symbolic act of 'believing the right things.' Actions might be taken - at least, right up until the next globe-spanning issue hits the news, at which point the issue at hand is dropped in favor of the next. If we commit personally to a smaller cause, then we have more stakes in seeing it through to a positive outcome. There’s billions of us around the world… we can’t do everything.

While SORD may not effectively communicate these ideas to a visitor without further reading, it's a fact that A+G were motivated by these ideas in its conception. The medium for the ideas - a big, funny park - works well as it directly destabilizes someone's body and sense of place.

Years later, A+G would finish their Mitaka Lofts project, a set of apartments in Tokyo with bumpy floors, nontraditional layouts and bright colors.

Side note: Did you know Hayao Miyazaki and Arakawa were friends? Part of the playful architecture of the Ghibli Museum comes from that relationship.

(Photo borrowed from the above post. Photo by Momoyo Homma 本間桃世, 2005)

Mitaka Lofts’ construction was motivated by similar ideas to SORD. An article by Renske Maria van Dam mentions how "Arakawa + Gins see architecture not merely as passive, shelter providing or monumental structures, but as active participant in life and death matters.". Did Mitaka Lofts affect their residents? Here’s a tour:

In 2000s documentary Children who won't die, we see into the lives of residents and visitors to the Mitaka Lofts. People living there learn to enjoy its nontraditional features. Some take more pride than others. Some genuinely feel they are more aware of the world they live in - each day spent there reminds them that nothing in the world is permanent. Some even feel too overstimulated, and move!

At Mitaka Lofts, you wake up, step on the curvy floor, and remember that it’s atypical. But more importantly, the floor is a real, tangible thing. That itself is a symbolic of the idea what we see as 'permanent' (in this case, traditional housing ideals) can actually be changed, shifted or normalized in any direction, if enough people willed it. The world is more nonpermanent than it seems, if we're willing to reach out to others and change it.

While, perhaps, SORD is the more 'fun' work for me, it seems like Mitaka Lofts is more effective, possibly because it so intimately entwines itself in people's lives, rather than being a one-off visit. Effectiveness is always what a creative work gives up in exchange for wide appeal, though. In either case, both projects rely on a common point with 3D games: modifying the way we interact with a 3D environment, in order for us to feel or perceive new things.

On Similarities of SORD and Games

Schonbek's mentions how A+G's work is: 'generally focused on destabilizing people physically and mentally… [encouraging] people to be more open to the expected'. A+G have a term for this state of being 'more open' and 'destabilized'. They call it a 'procedure'.

She also mentions:

"Every element of their buildings, from the materials used to how people would be able to move between rooms, was designed to help people access different procedures and, as a result, find new ways of moving and thinking."

And from the Maria van Dam's essay:

“The basis of each procedural is a, conceptually or bodily, throwing off balance in such a way that the relations between body and environment wax unfamiliar.”

Exploring SORD throws off your expectations for what a park can be by establishing a new framework based around atypical landscapes, just like the way party games or playground games establish a new framework of what a group of people can be through new rules.

In Mainichi Newspaper's collection of essays, released for SORD's opening, (philosopher?) Junichi Kudo writes:

"…your body will feel unbalanced wherever you go (in the park). More than likely you will desperately attempt to regain your balance and in trying to return to your original self will involuntarily reflect upon this mysterious world."

The notion of 'returning to your original self' reminds me of reading of players' experiences finishing a game. At their best, a game can destabilize you, shake something loose from you, urging you on to make some kind of change or action, long after leaving its digital world.

Kudo continues, after being asked a question by his daughter on not 'understanding' the world of Alice in Wonderland. He uses this as a springboard to speak more generally about art and fiction:

"…a dreadful irregularity emerges when claiming not-understanding of this 'other world', does it not? On making such a claim, the question of whether the 'normal' world is understood, arises. … This 'other world' acts as a mirror that reflects this world. A mirror is a tool for looking at oneself. In this mirror, this world is actually being reflected in reverse."

Here's the core of A+G's philosophy, and a thread that runs through games. When a human creates something, be that through real, physical architecture, or the digital world of a game, a lecture, or a recipe, that work is presenting something from 'another world' (…our minds?). When making work, a human reaches across some mental plane and distills its contents into something tangible. But it still comes from our normal world, it’s just been filtered through a human. As Kudo says, the objects from our normal world have merely been rearranged:

"There is nothing in the Site of Reversible Destiny, however, which arrived from outer space. Nothing at all has been made using materials that do not come from this world. The only difference are the various combinations."

A good game, a good piece of art - takes our real world, recombines it in some way and sends that through the viewer or player, hoping to resonate with them. The bumpy bizarre hills of SORD could, to an American like me, make me wonder why it isn't fun or interesting to walk around many of our cities. Likewise, the sprawling fantasy worlds of games, to a child me in the American suburbs, created a deep, strong point of contrast with my quiet and academically competitive suburban landscape.

A good work of art doesn't try to get us to permanently escape into the world, but the very opposite. Even after it hass absorbed, it still ultimately desires to push you back out into the 'normal world' with new eyes and understanding.

The world of SORD

Games and the Site of Reversible Destiny

So how does SORD relate to games? A+G recognized that you could take the logic of a playground, scale it up to a massive size, and, without any moving parts, make it fun to explore, just by applying written rules and limitations. In fact, this playground could be a vessel, that, by getting your body to feel uncertain and surprised, open to change - could get you to understand, in your own personal way, how your own life and local world could be uncertain, surprising, but most importantly, non-permanent and malleable.

Games are also concerned with making you feel 'uncertain and surprised'. Usually, this is along the register of simple things like fun or emotions, which arise when making players behave via specific rules (or "game mechanics"). When you put someone in a designed context and give them rules, they are forced to behave differently than their normal lives. In games, sometimes this can be profound. (But not always!)

However, the time spent in these 'other worlds' of games is still 'real,' and can influence players’ lives. In fact, this happens all the time through jobs, social expectations, education, where we live in a designed context and act according to rules. Long after we leave a job or a school, it feels like our time spent there was another life. The difference with games/SORD is that we're allowed a certain safe distance from what happens in this 'other world'.

More specific to 3D games, it's interesting how SORD recognizes some of the core of what makes them engaging, and designs its layout to focus on them: How it's surprising to see a place from a different angle, or to discover new paths, or how it's fun to learn about how to navigate around certain structures. Games at the time, and afterwards, would go on to build all sorts of worlds around these simple pleasures, be it through racing, farming, dating, slaying a tiny goblin…

As I observed a little earlier, some of the quotes from writers about SORD's opening feels like it could be describing a videogame:

"All that has been done is an exceedingly straightforward task of digging a large hole and yet the result is a new world that has never before been devised on earth." (Akihiko Hirako, Chief Curator, The Museum of Fine Arts Gifu (1995))

And Kudo's article goes on to describe a site, in a way that feels like someone talking about the controls or level design of a game:

Kudo: "Here, for example, you must pass through an unusual labyrinth or along uncommon terrain while constantly adjusting your body as if dancing. There are no teachers. You must learn everything from the environment…[you learn everything from a dialogue between yourself and movement with the environment.]… We have thus actually created the meaning of this world through movement."

The notion of 'spaces' (or levels) in games is so important, because they are where movement occurs - and thus, where meaning appears.

There are so many interesting "3D level design moments" in SORD, that I honestly wonder if any Japanese game designers around the time saw it, felt intrigued, and went out to see it. There's a power to SORD that really puts you in a 'game-like' mindset. However, while fun to imagine, it's unlikely it influenced early 3D games in a significant way (although it would be wild…)

Why? Well, video games had already been expressing game designers' love of the physical world, through the motion, stories and spaces in games. The creation of 3D game design practices likely (or, obviously!) came from game designers contemplating their lived experience of 3D reality - and trying to transfer that to the virtual 3D fabric of a game.

In some sense, the similarities of 3D games and SORD feel superficial, but from other angles, I found it motivating to see a pair of experienced artists, A+G, find lifechanging potential in what’s "gameplay." Even if some games are addictive or destructive, trapping us in cages of our desires, they're all utilizing some "substance" that lets us to peer into some "other world," that game developers have created, with its own sets of rules. And when a game can utilize this substance well, its players can drag from its 'other world' something that recontextualize their real world for the better.

The other world?

Melos Han-Tani (2023/04/16)

Sources

• Mainichi Newspapers' "Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro, Arakawa + Madeline Gins: Architectural Experiments" from 1995.*