If you can't make video games into art, make art into video games...
I have long held the opinion that the vast majority of video games are toys you play with while shoving popcorn in your face, the likes of a James Cameron film at best and degenerate slush at worst. Little throwaway experiences that aren't worth thinking about beyond liking or disliking the time you spent with them. "Not art," if you will (not that Cameron films "aren't art," Avatar rules). Cuccchi didn't make me completely reconsider that opinion per se, I do still think most of the medium doesn't deserve the merit it's given, but it did show me how silly and shallow it is to try and define capital A Art.
Describing Cuccchi is difficult. An interactive tribute to Enzo Cucchi? An arthouse first-person adventure game? To try and encapsulate it is to miss the point entirely, but you have to convey some sort of idea to your friend who you’re begging to play it. Still, I don’t really care to. I had no formal introduction, just a feeling that I wanted to see what exactly was going on. Cuccchi fell into my lap while perusing the eShop recent releases tab one day, the cover was intriguing so I decided to check it out. I had no clue about the experience I was about to have, the world that was about to be unveiled to me.
If you've never heard of Enzo Cucchi (I hadn't before playing) that's ok, the game is a phenomenal introduction to his work. You are thrusted into an explorable space with little direction, all of its mechanics are left for you to make sense of. I can see how some are turned off by this, your set lives and unclear enemies can feel frustrating at first. Cuccchi is not your run-of-the-mill DevolvApurna “prestige” indie game, it often feels unconcerned with your understanding or enjoyment of the experience. But just because it feels careless doesn’t mean it is, so much love and detail is poured into the game, its adoration of the semi-titular artist is clear (and infectious). I admire Cuccchi’s trust in you to figure it out, the enemies add a sense of looming risk while meandering through its worlds, further explanation would distract. Why explore a painting if you can’t feel its living presence?
Like many I loathe the term “liminal space,” at this point it’s a label slapped onto any eerie uninhabited built environment. I’ll spare you the whole define-a-word-for-emphasis shtick and just say Cuccchi frequently occupies the liminal. A hazy forest fades into a corn stalk labyrinth. A slurry of hailing brushstrokes becomes a small farmstead. Despite its leveled structure your traversal is never halted, your playthrough is essentially one long transition. One way in and one way out, Cuccchi is fundamentally an art exhibit, one unlike anything you’ll ever experience.
Upon finishing the game for the first time (a nearly effortless task, it can be seen in as little as 45 minutes) I realized my previous notions of the medium had been directly challenged. Here was an experience that impacted me as much as my first trip to an art museum. I was actively feeling my horizons being broadened, my black-and-white outlook growing grayer. Cuccchi was an instrumental work in growing my late-teenage art nuance (LTAN, I like to call it, patent pending), comparable with Duchamp’s “Fountain” in that it points out the frivolity of categorizing art from not-art. Sure, anything can be art, but is it even worth discerning? I have played this game four times and hope to play it hundreds more, my gratitude to the devs and to Cucchi himself is infinite. If you want something more out of video games, something that blurs the line between physical and digital mediums, Cuccchi will be here- waiting to show you a space you never knew existed.
I have long held the opinion that the vast majority of video games are toys you play with while shoving popcorn in your face, the likes of a James Cameron film at best and degenerate slush at worst. Little throwaway experiences that aren't worth thinking about beyond liking or disliking the time you spent with them. "Not art," if you will (not that Cameron films "aren't art," Avatar rules). Cuccchi didn't make me completely reconsider that opinion per se, I do still think most of the medium doesn't deserve the merit it's given, but it did show me how silly and shallow it is to try and define capital A Art.
Describing Cuccchi is difficult. An interactive tribute to Enzo Cucchi? An arthouse first-person adventure game? To try and encapsulate it is to miss the point entirely, but you have to convey some sort of idea to your friend who you’re begging to play it. Still, I don’t really care to. I had no formal introduction, just a feeling that I wanted to see what exactly was going on. Cuccchi fell into my lap while perusing the eShop recent releases tab one day, the cover was intriguing so I decided to check it out. I had no clue about the experience I was about to have, the world that was about to be unveiled to me.
If you've never heard of Enzo Cucchi (I hadn't before playing) that's ok, the game is a phenomenal introduction to his work. You are thrusted into an explorable space with little direction, all of its mechanics are left for you to make sense of. I can see how some are turned off by this, your set lives and unclear enemies can feel frustrating at first. Cuccchi is not your run-of-the-mill DevolvApurna “prestige” indie game, it often feels unconcerned with your understanding or enjoyment of the experience. But just because it feels careless doesn’t mean it is, so much love and detail is poured into the game, its adoration of the semi-titular artist is clear (and infectious). I admire Cuccchi’s trust in you to figure it out, the enemies add a sense of looming risk while meandering through its worlds, further explanation would distract. Why explore a painting if you can’t feel its living presence?
Like many I loathe the term “liminal space,” at this point it’s a label slapped onto any eerie uninhabited built environment. I’ll spare you the whole define-a-word-for-emphasis shtick and just say Cuccchi frequently occupies the liminal. A hazy forest fades into a corn stalk labyrinth. A slurry of hailing brushstrokes becomes a small farmstead. Despite its leveled structure your traversal is never halted, your playthrough is essentially one long transition. One way in and one way out, Cuccchi is fundamentally an art exhibit, one unlike anything you’ll ever experience.
Upon finishing the game for the first time (a nearly effortless task, it can be seen in as little as 45 minutes) I realized my previous notions of the medium had been directly challenged. Here was an experience that impacted me as much as my first trip to an art museum. I was actively feeling my horizons being broadened, my black-and-white outlook growing grayer. Cuccchi was an instrumental work in growing my late-teenage art nuance (LTAN, I like to call it, patent pending), comparable with Duchamp’s “Fountain” in that it points out the frivolity of categorizing art from not-art. Sure, anything can be art, but is it even worth discerning? I have played this game four times and hope to play it hundreds more, my gratitude to the devs and to Cucchi himself is infinite. If you want something more out of video games, something that blurs the line between physical and digital mediums, Cuccchi will be here- waiting to show you a space you never knew existed.