separated places

image

I like how the logo banner for the game a•part•ment, which just had its Kickstarter launch today, includes the words “a separated place.” I’m keenly aware of how easy it can be for us to isolate ourselves and separate ourselves in the modern world. I know that I spend more time than I should in my own apartment, separated from things. I sometimes miss how, when I had a proper job as part of a team of people who worked in an office together and collaborated on things at times, I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself. Now that I don’t have that, the things lacking in my personal life are only more apparent. I have all this stuff in my apartment, I have this life, but it doesn’t really mean as much to me as it could because it’s just mine. I’m at a point in my life now where I feel like things–physical things and ideas, too–only really become meaningful when shared with others. As my friend Masha Tupitsyn wrote in her book Love Dog, a passage I come back to again and again: 

Whatever I I have is always for a We. Whatever I I’m striving for is always for a We. Whatever I that’s worth owning, using, defending, living, is always for You. Anything that’s mine just for the sake of it, and just for its own sake, isn’t worth much; that isn’t put to use for the Other, for another, with another, to see what kind of I I really am. When it comes to being more than my I, more than our I’s, if my I means anything, it has to be for You. Us. The agency of the I is about how we use it and what we use it for–in relatedness, in relation. The I is a dream that is only worth having–dreaming–if I can leave it behind for a much more modest and radical We.

But what happens to that meaning when we thought it was shared and then we find that the person we’re sharing it with doesn’t want to share it anymore? All the mundane little points of connection can become painful reminders of what we’ve lost. 

a•part•ment is a game about breaking up, and being left alone in a place with memories of experiences that seemingly meant something else to you than they did to the person you shared them with. Based on my time with an early demo of the game, what seems most piercing about a•part•ment is its understanding of how the littlest things can take on the most meaning–

image

–how offhand, thoughtless comments can cut deeper than those intended to be outright cruel, and how it can be hard, if not impossible, to make peace with the past of a place and build a new future there for yourself. 

image

But a•part•ment’s protagonist, Nick, seems to be trying. He’s a comic artist, and as you explore the apartment, experiencing the significance of the remote controls and graphic novels and Thai restaurant take-out menus, Nick draws panels telling the story of his memories of Madison. Over time, the panels become displayed around the apartment, as if Nick is trying to use the space itself to process his feelings about what happened there.

image

It’s not just Nick’s feelings of isolation we experience. Interspersed with his story are explorations of the lives of other residents of the apartment complex, all of whom are struggling with issues of connection and separation in one way or another. There’s a novelist whose newfound success is opening up a world of glistening possibility that’s putting a strain on her marriage, a young man who left behind everything and everyone he knows for a new job, and a widow who has a lifetime’s worth of memories of her late husband. 

By weaving these other threads into Nick’s story,  a•part•ment seems poised to be about more than just one person’s breakup. It seems to be concerned with how contemporary life can make any of us feel stuck in separated places, and perhaps in exploring and illuminating our shared isolation, it can suggest a different kind of connection.

***

You can read more about a•part•ment on the Kickstarter page, and visit the official site.