In his Emissary's Guide To Worlding, artist Ian Cheng defines a world as «a future you can believe in: One that promises to survive its creator, and continue generating drama».¹ As Cheng himself explains, the autonomy of the world with respect to its creator is a fundamental criterion for the world to achieve a certain degree of internal stability, which is necessary to make it independent. At the same time, in order not to be reduced to a static set of relationships and finite combinations of elements, it must generate drama: «‘Drama’ means problems that trigger interesting new paths in a world, that arouse its members in unexpected ways, without causing total collapse».² But it is the third component of Cheng's definition that interests us most, the world is a future that can be believed in. This phrase summarizes what can be described as a crucial feature of contemporary world-making, namely the ability to contribute to the creation of worlds that present themselves as complex and plural ecosystems. Within the heterogeneity of agents, languages, codes, relationships and dynamics that characterize these universes, it still feels possible to shape a different future, a way of living together that leads to hope.

Rather than a form of escapism, world-making can become an exercise in tracing different modes of interaction and collaboration. As the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk points out,³ the capitalist and colonial exploitation of the world goes hand in hand with the conception of the world as a closed unit, a surface encompassing everything and ready to be conquered. The mission of geographers and navigators in modern European history was to actualise this predatory vision of space through maps and cartographies. The construction of fictional spaces and ambiances is irretrievably chained to a speculative approach which reflects - both through indirect or direct methodologies - the events, narrations and necessities of the actual world. Thence complexity refers to the layered structure of references built by the author to reflect necessities and offer new possibilities.

Konstantinos Dimopoulus, author of the book Virtual Cities (2020), highlighted the ethical and speculative role of game design in creating believable game spaces by analysing the aesthetics and geography of some of the most renowned fictional cities.⁴ The impact of movements, phenomena and narrations shape the topography and societal structure of the spaces we explore in video games, usually dominated by a hyper-technological structure born from the late-capitalist era. As Dimopoulos explains «One of the reasons why most futuristic cities are capitalist-based is because it’s easier to imagine the destruction of everything than the end of capitalism (...) You are so wired to perceive the system you are in as natural that even your wildest fantasies need to be inspired by capitalism».⁵ Experiencing the complexity of a world thus means shedding light on the strange dynamic that intertwines the definition of the world and the world itself. In this sense, the modes of interaction themselves inform the environment one traverses, showing once again the importance of the ecological impact of every action and theory.

The analysis of possible futures through the practice of world-building is also a renowned method of exploration adopted in the field of design, in its broader meaning.⁶ Speculative processes and operations of layering different and possible theories about the impact of our actions on a defined ambience are some of the main strategies adopted by designers to improve technologies and cultural resources. In their text Back To the Future: 10 Years of Design Fiction, researchers Joseph Lindley and Paul Coulton delineate the procedures of creating sustainable and possible worlds through speculative fiction, defining the transmedial processes in design fiction as «(1) something that creates a story world, (2) has something being prototyped within that story world, (3) does so in order to create a discursive space.»⁷ This last concept examined by Lindley and Coulton opens up a variety of explorations in terms of complexity of a virtual world in relation to the interactivity of the media used in such building operations. By choosing the expanded field of design as an analytic territory in this research means to apply a series of methodologies which focus on the role of the users, but at the same time include a totality of areas of study, like game design, sound design, narrative design, and so on.

Complexity revolves around the possibilities given to the audience and to the different outputs a product could have in terms of speculation. London-based producer Dark0, aka Davor Bokhari, in his latest project Eternity created a soundscape for a fictional ambience made of JRPG languages and distant rave echoes. By using sound design as an enhanced narrative device, he gave life to a world inhabited by archetypal characters, in which every listener could reflect itself.⁸ This peculiar will of the author mirrored the basic structure of role-play games, in which the user could create and shape the main character and its actions by following its desires.

Eternity gives to the listeners the possibility to experience the world created by Dark0 following different paths and decisions, exactly like being in a fictional world like the one of Elden Ring or Persona. A useful distinction in this regard can be taken from Bartle's analysis in Designing Virtual Worlds. Here the British game researcher and developer distinguishes between four different types of players, or inhabitants, of the same virtual universe: Achievers, Socializers, Explorers and Killers.⁹ If the Achievers describe players oriented towards finishing as many quests as possible, with a marked interest in improving and developing their character's features, the Socializers concern people who use virtual worlds as places to get to know and collaborate with other users. The Explorers, on the other hand, are interested in the environment itself, making their gaming experience a set of potentially infinite temporal and spatial journeys. The last category, the Killers, on the other hand, denotes a gaming tendency in which the priority is the domination of both the environment and, if possible, of other players. The result is a contraposition that, taken in graphic form, can be synthesized on the basis of two oppositions, acting/interacting and players/world.¹⁰ On the side concerning the world we find Achievers and Explorers: Achievers acting on the world, just as Explorers interact with the world. On the opposite side we find a difference based on the conception of players. While the Socializers are interested in interacting, in creating new relationships with other users, the Killers act on other players. These positions are as many different ways of playing as they are alternative ways of inhabiting the same world. Moreover, they embody divergent ways of transposing and shaping the codes that stratify the environmental reality of which one is a part.

The way in which an explorer and a killer interpret the same signals of an environment makes clear the different meanings they attribute to the world. Greek artist Theo Triantafyllidis stages this opposition in his Pastoral (2019) an augmented reality installation now displayed in the exhibition Worldbuilding. Gaming and art in the digital age curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Julia Stoschek Collection. Pastoral allows visitors to take on the role of Orc, a non-binary avatar with the body of a bodybuilder who moves through space while wearing a black bikini. By winking at the typical gendered characteristics that define orcs in fantasy worlds, the physical power of Orc's body is mixed with the statuesque beauty of bikini-clad bodies in glossy magazines. What is interesting is that in Pastoral, Triantafyllidis takes over the usual codes of games such as World of Warcraft by reversing the position players usually assume in these worlds, since the landscape of Pastoral is deprived of threats or challenges.¹¹ Visitors do not have much else to do except to play the role of explorer, i.e. to explore, investigate and immerse themselves in their surroundings. Showing the different meanings a world can have by changing the way it is inhabited reveals not only that such world is not reduced to a finite game but also that its can expand, encompass or be encompassed by other worlds. It would be limiting to consider the creation of new worlds as a mere exercise to see how far we can push our creative power. World-building proves, instead, that it is always possible to open up, to create links and underground tunnels to other worlds governed by different rules and relationships. Not only that: it means recognising an agentivity, an independence to the worlds themselves, showing that a world - just as it can be part of a universe of other worlds with which it coexists - can also be swallowed up or include other universes. To believe in the future that a world promises is to interact with its database, to take charge of its resistance while exploring its complexity.

Read the entire "How to Create a World" column by Davide Tolfo & Nicola Zolin.

Notes

1 Ian Cheng, Emissary's Guide To Worlding (New York: Metis Sun, 2018), 18.
2 Ivi, 19.
3 Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres Volume II: Globes. Macrospherology. Trans. Wieland Hoban (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2014), 134-136.
4 Konstantinos Dimopoulos, Virtual Cities. An Atlas & Exploration of Video Game Cities (London: Unbound, 2020), 6-7.
5 Matteo Lupetti, “Class Struggle in the Virtual City”, No Escape, 2020: https://www.short.ink/Fxrd4Dx12kP
6 Julian Hannah, “Scott Smith: The best way to deal with grim futures is to stare them in the face”, SpeculativeEdu, 2017: https://www.short.ink/ZpTFrRmZMmA
7 Joseph Lindley, Paul Coulton, “Back to the Future: 10 Years of Design Fiction”. Proceedings of the 2015 British HCI Conference. British HCI '15. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 210–211
8 Mike Giegerich, Dark0 Envisions an Archetypal Universe on “Eternity”, Underground Underdogs, 2021: https://www.short.ink/qPfmyUFVdQh
9 Richard A. Bartle, Designing Virtual Words (San Francisco: New Riders, 2003), 179-182.
10 Ivi, 181.
11 Worldbuilding. Gaming and art in the digital age booklet, 2022: https://www.short.ink/Brb0z6aLsIS, 16

Bibliography

Bartle, Richard, A. Designing Virtual Worlds. San Francisco: New Riders, 2003.

Cheng, Ian. Emissary's Guide To Worlding. New York: Metis Sun, 2018.

Dimopoulos, Konstantinos. Virtual Cities. An Atlas & Exploration of Video Game Cities. London: Unbound, 2020.

Lindley, J., Coulton, P., “Back to the Future: 10 Years of Design Fiction”. Proceedings of the 2015 British HCI Conference. New York: ACM, 2015.

Worldbuilding. Gaming and art in the digital age booklet, 2022: https://www.short.ink/Brb0z6aLsIS.

Sloterdijk, Peter. Spheres Volume II: Globes. Macrospherology, translated by Wieland Hoban. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2014.