I've been toying with returning to Gonzalo Frasca's work on Augusto Boal for a while now. Recently, I was able to visit Badu in Madhyamgram thanks to my colleagues in CSSSC and meet Sanjoy Ganguly, the founder of the theatre group Jana Sanskriti, which Boal had worked with closely. Speaking to Sanjoy babu, I was reminded of the many synergies between Boal's ideas and videogames, something that Frasca focused on in his Masters' thesis but which has been largely forgotten in recent years. In my PhD years, I had looked at Boal's Games for Actors and Non-actors and had always wanted to return to it in connection to videogame narratives and Frasca's excellent Masters' research.  So here's the very rudimentary beginnings of an idea, something that I hope to turn into a paper. I did write a little on Boal, Aristotle and videogames in a recently published book chapter  (in Literary Cultures and Digital Humanities in India eds. Nishat Zaidi and Sean Pue) but I want to do something more detailed on Boal and games. Let me know if you are interested.

Tentative title: Videogames for Actors and Non-actors: Reading Augusto Boal in Videogame Poetics


Videogame narrative theories started off with a distinctly Aristotelian poetics with Brenda Laurel’s Computers as Theatre and other ensuing research. Such analyses were based on the assumption of a protagonist endowed with agency and the primary concern with understanding videogame narratives vis-a-vis Aristotle was multiple endings of these games and therefore, the deviation of the ‘beginning, middle and end’ model in Aristotle. The ultimate aim of the game narrative still remained Aristotelian in the sense that it was supposed to be cathartic, in a process variously considered to be a purging or a purification of emotions. Going beyond how videogames may modify the thinking around the narrative telos, this paper will re-examine how videogames play or can be played (in the theatrical sense) and whether there can be videogames where player agency is not considered paramount. Indeed, some earlier scholars have already commented on the ‘illusion of agency’ in videogames; here, a concomitant but different model is being considered. What happens when videogames represent the oppressed and those who do not feel enabled or lack the agency to effect a change of fortune (even if it is from good to bad, as Aristotle posits as the basis of tragedy)?

Writing about the videogames of the oppressed, Gonzalo Frasca introduced the work of the Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal to game studies way back in 2001 in his Masters’ thesis submitted to the Georgia Institute of Technology. Boal has famously called the catharsis-based thinking behind Aristotelian tragedy as ‘coercive tragedy’ and sees the political in the way such tragedy is thought through. Frasca in his Master’s thesis writes:

This thesis examines the potential of videogames as a medium for fostering critical thinking and discussion about social and personal problems. [...]Therefore, videogames have the potential to represent reality not as a collection of images or texts, but as a dynamic system that can evolve and change. After studying how the process of interpretation functions in simulations, I propose to adapt the basic elements of the work of drama theorist Augusto Boal into videogame design. Boal created a set of techniques for participative theatre that raises the spectators awareness about their reality and encourages personal and social change. (Frasca 2001)

To my knowledge, Frasca’s early work on Boal and videogames has not been followed up in game studies discussions and if it does critically examine the agency and catharsis based thinking of the poetics of videogames through the Boalian lens, then the fuller implications of such thinking need to be made clear. In this paper, I intend to address Boal’s concept of the ‘spect-actor’ in videogames, developing on the earlier research by Frasca and clarifying how it disrupts the agency-based thinking in videogames as the player is seen as both a spectator and actor. In the process, it will also question the catharsis-based model as well as the ever-popular ‘Hero’s Journey’ of Joseph Campbell that is a favourite among games researchers and designers. The spect-actor concept, in itself, is not without its flaws as Boal’s critics have pointed out but instead of only focusing on his better known Theatre of the Oppressed, this paper will also include the ludic activities that Boal envisaged for his theatre in his Games for Actors and Non-actors. Boal’s ludic theatre has found a niche far away from his homeland - in the remote village of Badu in West Bengal, India. As Sanjoy Ganguly, the director of Jana Sanskriti, which extensively uses Boalian techniques claims: ‘the exercises require the participants to create images and the initial stages of scenarios, and it is clear that these are derived from the personal experience of the performers’ (). Ganguly also goes on to explain how Boalian theatre can directly affect the living scenarios of those who feel oppressed: ‘Forum theatre can lead them to understand that it is not a question of a family, it is not a problem between a man and a woman: it is the problem of patriarchy’(). Frasca has already addressed the connect between Forum theatre and the way in which videogames resemble it through his mods of The Sims. This paper will examine further examples, from both mainstream and lesser known games, such as Papers, Please!, 80 Days and Undertale come to mind. It will address the games that Boal designed for his theatre and examine possibilities of analogues in videogames in order to challenge and unsettle entitled, agency-based and cathartic conventions prevalent in current thinking around the poetics of narrative games.

Indicative Bibliography

Boal, Augusto. 1993. Theatre of the Oppressed. Translated by Charles A. McBride. Tcg ed. edition. New York: Theatre Communications Group Inc.,U.S.

— 2002. Games for Actors and Non-Actors. Translated by Adrian Jackson. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.

Campbell, Joseph. 2008. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, CA: New World Library.

Frasca, Gonzalo. 2004. ‘Videogames of the Oppressed’. Electronic Book Review. http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/Boalian.

Ganguly, Sanjoy. 2020. From Boal to Jana Sanskriti: Practice and Principles. Edited by Ralph Yarrow. 1st edition. New York: Routledge.

Laurel, Brenda. 2013. Computers as Theatre. 2nd edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison Wesley.

 

Gautam Sen Memorial Boardgames Museum

The museum hosts a collection of boardgames both ancient and modern, ranging from the oldest ever boardgame, The Royal Game of Ur to current games such as Settlers of Catan and Grizzled. On display are mainly the older games from different parts of the world with a focus on Indian games, of course. You will find games such as Go, Mancala and Senet here as well as a collection of Ganjifa cards and chess sets from all over the world. 

The museum is an entirely non-profit and private space and entry is by invitation or prior appointment only. It is still a very small effort and we encourage only those who are really interested in boardgames to visit. 

The timings are 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on weekdays and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m on weekends.

There is no charge for visiting the museum.

Here is our new website with details of how you can visit: 

https://sites.google.com/view/kolkataboardgamemuseum/home

We request you not to touch the exhibits and while the museum is also open to children, we encourage supervised visits. Also, the boardgames are not available to play unless you obtain special permission. 

Browsing the museum is easy and there are three ways to go about it:

• You could use the museum’s mobile devices to scan the QR codes (on the exhibits for detailed information. We have tried to consult authoritative sources and in most cases the codes will direct you to the Ludii Portal, which is one of the authoritative research sites on boardgames. Where the Ludii website does not have the information, we have referred you to similar academic forums. 

• You could also use this index and read the entries following the numbered exhibits. 

• If you are feeling chatty and want an adda over a cup of tea, just ask me about an exhibit and I will jog my memory for information and of course, anecdotes.

Finally, some of the games are available as apps and are installed on our mobile devices. There are also printed copies of some of the game-boards. You are most welcome to play! 

 So my new book is out. You can get it on the Bloomsbury website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/videogames-in-the-indian-subcontinent-9789354356919/

Here's what it is about:

Suniti Chattopadhyay, in his 1913 article ‘Hostel Life in Calcutta’, describes adda as 'a social activity or a space for a carefree talk with boon companions'. In Games Studies, because of the nature of the area, things are much more flexible and easygoing than in most other academic circles. Bringing Games Studies to India has always been my dream. Or at any rate, it has been for the past twenty years. What better mode of bringing Game Studies scholars in India together than an adda. A carefree chat about games without the fear of being shushed. And in a country that has one of the largest and most diverse gaming populations yet is not on the games research and development radar, it was necessary to get the conversation going. Especially when there are so many who have such fantastic ideas about games and gamers. In 2019, when I organised the GamesLit conference in Kolkata (arguably the first international Games Studies conference in India), the high quality of the papers from India impressed not just me but also my colleagues from abroad. It was Espen Aarseth who asked me why I was not setting up something whereby we could have a games research community in India. The thought remained with me and during the pandemic, I decided to take the plunge by roping in some talented young researchers who I thought would be able to carry on the discussion, giving it a local flavour (through the adda mode) while also participating in the international network.

Today, after ten months of our existence as Games Studies India, we have been recognised as a chapter of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). We are now DiGRA India. It is a dream come true for me that after two decades, digital games studies now has a platform for debate and discussion in India. DiGRA India, in its earlier avatar, Games Studies India Adda, has featured talks by eminent scholars and industry experts from both India and abroad. These can be accessed on our YouTube channel, here. As DiGRA India starts functioning we hope that we can connect the research on India's gaming culture to the rest of the world.

Check out DiGRA India on our website: https://digraindia.com/

Covid-19 has left its indelible dark mark over my family. My dad-in-law, Gautam Sen, passed away recently felled by that dread disease. He was a polymath - a chartered accountant, a traveller and someone with a deep interest in history. As his daughter says, he has now gone to visit 'the unknown country from whose bourn no traveller returns'. For me, he will remain the embodiment of the ludic, a chess-player par excellence and an enthusiast in the digital. He was forever battling Fritz and other computer programs often beating them or drawing the game. I had tried to introduce him to strategy games - Napoleon: Total War, specifically, because of his interest in Bonaparte. That didn't quite work out but Chess remained a lifelong passion with him. He had been instrumental in bringing the Soviet grandmaster and former World Champion, Vasili Smyslov, to Calcutta and gave up a potential chess-playing career for family necessities. Every now and then, I would see him sitting in his office and watching chess matches on YouTube. A chess enthusiast myself, I have never had the patience to watch chess games but he would analyse them with much care and consideration.

I will not have those conversations about chess again when I am at home and I doubt anyone else here will beat Fritz 7; not me, certainly. The shelves are, however, filled with books on Chess. Yes, these remain. Memories.

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(This is a personal post and although I  refrain from posting about anything other than my research, Covid-19 and the damage it did to my family is certainly an exceptional scenario; hence this post.)