Saturday Spotlight: Ergon Logos

Thinking about how to describe ERGON/LOGOS has left me slightly lost for words, which is more than a little ironic as this game is words.

Regardless, I’ll try. ERGON/LOGOS is a five minute game in which you follow a stream-of-consciousness narrative as it rattles down branching paths. At the moments where it branches, you have a few seconds to flip between different routes before you’re committed. A narrative unfolds.

There’s an excellent soundtrack. It’s unsettling; not creepy or discordant but evoking a nervous and frenetic energy. It meshes well with the way that words whizz by in their disjointed typeface, twisting or pushing toward you to underscore their individual meaning.

Now take that name. Ergon, from Aristotle on ethics, meaning function or task. Logos, from the Greek, with various meanings but – turning again to Aristotle – a cohesive argument. Another meaning of logos is “a plea”. The stream of consciousness that you pursue lies somewhere between the player and their avatar. There are two levels to ERGON/LOGOS; the first focuses more deeply on the avatar, the second on the player, but both are blurred into one desperate plea for escape.

I could dribble on further about the unhinged joyousness and extroverted misery of ERGON/LOGOS‘ deconstruction of the relationship between the player and game, but it’s far more interesting and entertaining to let it sink into your own consciousness. Or perhaps let your own consciousness sink into it. Go explore those branching paths, and embrace something.

ERGON/LOGOS emerged from the experimental gameplay project via the hands of Paulo Pedercini, and can be downloaded for free from the Molleindustria website.