Assemblage, Paradox, and Becoming-cat: Making Videogames with Deleuze and Guattari
Abstract
This thesis presents three videogames through the lens of three key concepts drawn from Deleuze and Guattari’s texts: the concept of assemblage that motivates the creation of radical videogames, the concept of sense that relocates the player-Body, and the concept of becoming that rethinks different kinds of agency involved in the process of making videogames. The three videogames range from design documents to complete work, and this thesis is a counterpart to the three videogames, an attempt to grapple with my creative game-making. It also explores how philosophical concepts could be used as Outsides to the videogames that sometimes initiate and sometimes problematise the latter. Along the way, various concepts pertaining to game studies are reframed: magic circle, engagement, en- and de-rolling, bleeding, and unreality. In the end, the author proposes using Deleuze’s notions of chance and intuition as an alternative approach to game design.