Part 2 | Quests and Side-quests

The game is rigged, part 2

Spoiler alert: our project got selected. We were jumping up and down all afternoon then at night we couldn’t sleep thinking “How are we going to pull off 3 different video-games, with their own aesthetic and their own mechanisms, in 2 months?!”

Some of the initial decisions we made:

1. The games should not be similar to existing video games. We wanted the games to have their own distinctive look, and not rely on well-known aesthetics and nostalgia with games like Mario World.

2. We should be very careful with the tone of the games. At the end of the day we were talking about some heavy topics, and we don’t want to make them look “fun”. That’s also why at the statistics part of each game the background is usually very simple and not over designed.

   
   

Something that we thought about since the beginning is that the scale of the projection including the ceiling, means that the whole room will change in color and mood according to the artwork.

We were really deliberate with how we moved from dark parts to brighter ones. 

Sketch illustrating how we controlled the shifts between darkness and light, changing the atmosphere of the entire space.

Although each game has its own mechanics and visual identity, they are connected by a single conceptual journey. The first game takes place out in the world, the second follows the journey home, and the third unfolds inside the home itself. These are three of the primary spaces where women encounter different forms of violence and discrimination, allowing the exhibition to gradually move from the public sphere into the private one.

character close-up from the three games

We explore the symbolism and meaning behind each game in much greater detail in the accompanying booklet

When it came to the ending, we knew we didn't want to offer false reassurance or an artificially optimistic conclusion. Instead, we wanted to remind viewers of something much simpler: women deserve to live their everyday lives with dignity. The final sequence is made up of ordinary moments: women of different ages laughing, walking, dancing, resting, simply existing.

Frame from the closing sequence

As a small Easter egg, we also included videos of ourselves. By pure accident, one of Jolin's childhood clips still had its original audio. We had forgotten to mute it, and you can briefly hear her voice at the very end. We considered removing it, but decided to leave it in. That tiny, unexpected moment ended up having a surprisingly emotional impact on many of the people who experienced the exhibition.

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We know it's impossible to recreate the feeling of standing inside the installation on a laptop or phone screen, but if you're curious, you can still watch the full sequence here.