Inside 'game over' – A Workshop with Duo Ressi/Benes

‘game over’ is a self-developed 2D multiplayer computer game environment that has been explicitly designed for audiovisual performances with one or more players as well as for networked interactive installations. Its highly interactive and non-linear nature makes it particularly well suited to realising the idea of open-form composition in a tangible and experiential way for both performers and audiences.

In the concert version presented at this festival, clarinetist Szilárd Benes uses a wireless orientation sensor attached to his instrument to control a character through a vast, open 2D world. He faces the screen while he is performing, allowing the audience to watch ‘over his shoulder’. The clarinet sound is analysed in real-time and converted into game commands, while also being shaped and manipulated by the game environment itself. The game worlds are collages of familiar video game genres, such as side-scrolling platformers, top-down dungeon crawlers and isometric RPGs.

In this workshop, the duo will explain the aesthetic and theoretical foundations of ‘game over’ and demonstrate its principles live in the game editor. The workshop will cover level design as composition, rule systems and emergent behaviour, game worlds as musical scores, and strategies for musical interaction. People are invited to ask questions about anything curious about, from high-level aesthetic concepts down to low-level technical implementation.