AvantBeetle Presents: Queer Games - Statement + Reflection

The past weekend, Selfless and a few other games were showcased as part of an AvantBeetle event at The Supermarket. This is the first time Selfless has been publicly shown in it's completed state since it was finished five years ago. Here is the artist statement provided for the event:

Selfless (2019)

by Easton Self

Produced by Kai Chuan

Music by Elizabeth Castaño

Cello performed by Chris Gao

Vocals performed by Geena Kloeppel

Special thanks to Big Bag and the NYU Game Center.

Selfless is a sequence of seven interactions, each capturing a transformative relationship between the home and the self through illustrations, photographs, and player agency.

Selfless began as a mechanical abstraction of my experience moving between home and school. I was inspired by the shift between living closeted but feeling secure to feeling a newfound sense of powerlessness after I came out and was not accepted.

I spent several years disconnected from my parents since there wasn’t a compromise between their traditional upbringing and my identity. That period of waiting for someone’s heart to change led me to rethink the manufactured challenges of games and what comes from the absence of traditional rewards in a medium where players expect ever-increasing payoffs. The tension of gradual progress became a central friction of Selfless, mechanically and structurally.  All the scenes are unskippable and last the full duration of each song, and the game itself was reduced in required price every week after release — all to highlight the significance of each passing moment.

I ask players to use their time while participating in Selfless to interpret their interaction's effects in the game and appreciate the people and places they would call home. Your patience and time with the game is appreciated. The experience is about 30 minutes long.

I’m very lucky to be in a situation now where I have friends and loved ones and can contact my parents again, but I know that is not the case for everyone. To those who are struggling with having to stay closeted, facing intolerance, or just feeling alone in your identity, just know there are people out there that accept and support you. You can always access safety and community resources through itgetsbetter.org.

Art is one of the ways we can think about and share our experiences as people. If we hope to continue enjoying art and guarantee the generations after us enjoy a healthier world, we all need to be educated and vocal about the current fossil fuel-driven climate crisis and humanitarian crises, such as the ongoing genocides in Palestine, Sudan, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are all responsible for speaking up and taking action.

Thoughts I've had since writing this statement and thinking more about this game in the current state of the world:

• I worked on this game over about 2 years on and off, trying to make the time I spent not talking to my family produce, or even mean, something of value. In the end, I found the most beautiful result in what all the artists who touched the project had to contribute: gorgeous musical arrangement, incredible vocal and cello performances, thoughtful critique and playtesting from peers and advisors, and a producer with the know-how to get the game out of my head and the faith to motivate me to finish it. Without all of these collaborators, this game would not exist.
• I had hoped Selfless would somehow bring me a comfortable life after feeling like I lost my family to irreconcilable differences. Somehow this project would bring me the capital and artistic fulfillment that could replace and replenish the people in my life who tried to look out for me in the ways they thought were best. These days I look around at where I am — surrounded by people who don't wear masks — and it makes me wonder how much of the algorithmic information we see online is that different, or is some of the ignorance willful. Further, is community centered on care something to be built or is it something to be found?
• My own queerness had always made me feel like an outsider in my own home growing up. I have to wonder how much of that outsider feeling came from myself rather than purely the environment I was in.
• I wish I could write magic words or paint magic pictures that suddenly convince people to care more about the world. Not just the people immediately around, but those who've just seen my work and in some ways — myself as well. Even while educating myself, I have difficulty imagining a world where we don't need any of the tools of the empire just to exist, but my lack of creativity is something I can change and a lack of imagination is exactly what empire desires from all of us.
  
• I'm so grateful that my family and I have another chance together, but not a day passes where I don't think about the friendships and relationships I've lost because I gave up. I wish I could have been more confident in myself at those points where I could have addressed conflicts, but I suppose I wouldn't have these lessons for the present and future otherwise.