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The Digital Archivist: the Role of Digital Nostalgia Aesthetics in a Digital Preservation Game


Giulia Carla Rossi (British Library)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33008/IJCMR.2023.06 | Issue 10 | July 2023


Keywords: Digital preservation, digital dark age, medieval video games, digital obsolescence, libraries and archives.


The Digital Archivist is a brief 2D video game that seeks to engage general audiences with the topic of digital preservation. The digital nostalgia aesthetic plays a fundamental role in evoking an archival setting that draws a parallel between the work done by monks and miniaturists in preserving and distributing print books during the Middle Ages, and the role played by contemporary librarians and archivists in preserving digital formats.


The gameplay is inspired by arcade-era and first-generation console games of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. It was developed on the model of shooter games like Space Invaders, but the code was stripped to its bare components, before flipping the “shooter” mechanic completely. Instead of killing enemies, the goal of the game is to “save” examples of obsolete software before they touch the bottom of the screen and disappear forever. The game mechanic is no longer to avoid and defeat, but to seek out and gather.


The game mixes imagery from mediaeval manuscripts with pixel art, both framed within a macOS system 1 environment from 1984. The mash-up aesthetics creates a “digital archive” experience, reinforced by the use of a mock-up writing desk as the environment to activate the game controller, and white cotton gloves as part of the player kit. The controller itself – a colourful floppy disk – is another nod to digital nostalgia in the form of obsolete memory storage. It also refers to the widespread misconception (at least in non-specialist contexts) that saving a file onto a physical medium – whether a floppy disk, CD-ROM, hard drive, USB stick, etc. – equates to saving it forever, with no consideration for hardware obsolescence and the eventual need for emulators to access obsolete software. For this reason, the game always ends with the cautionary Digital Dark Age screen – “digital dark age” referring to the idea of future generations lacking historical information and access to digital formats that have become inaccessible with time.


Research Statement


The Digital Archivist is a video game that combines retro 2D graphics with a custom-made physical controller. Players are invited to wear white cotton gloves and move a brightly coloured floppy disk against a mock-up wooden archival desk, in order to control their floppy disk avatar in the game (see Fig.1). Using a colour-tracking algorithm, a webcam situated at the top of the desk tracks the floppy disk’s movements, which are easily identifiable thanks to the contrasting colours of the gloves and the desk (see Fig.2). Logos of now-obsolete file formats appear at the top of the screen and start falling: the goal of the game is to use the floppy disk to collect as many file formats as possible, before they touch the bottom of the screen and disappear forever. Each player starts with three lives, which decrease with each lost format. There is a score counter in the top left corner and, as the score increases, the speed and frequency at which formats appear and fall – and consequently the difficulty of the game – also increases


Fig. 1. The game set-up.

Fig. 2. The webcam tracking the player’s movements.

I first created the game in 2022 as part of the ‘Workshops in Creative Coding 2’ module in the MA Computational Arts, at Goldsmiths, University of London. I built the desk under the guidance of sculptor Walter Bailey in his Sussex studio, which allowed me to design and create a bespoke wooden desk to the specs of the game.[1] The intention was to make the experience as accessible and engaging as possible, using very few rules and game mechanics familiar to players of early console games. By keeping the gameplay intuitive and relatively quick to learn, the focus of the experience could remain on the concept beyond the game: digital preservation.


The Digital Archivist was created to serve as an interactive way to introduce the topics of digital obsolescence and digital preservation to a general audience. It was inspired by Terry Kuny’s paper A Digital Dark Ages?, in which the author compares the pivotal role of monks in the Middle Ages in distributing and preserving historical records to the work contemporary librarians and archivists do to preserve our print and digital heritage.[2] The Digital Archivist seeks to highlight the link between archives and digital preservation by framing the game within a “digital archive” environment and by using mash-up aesthetics that include mediaeval imagery alongside retrogaming design and pixel art (see Fig. 3).


Fig. 3. A screenshot from The Digital Archivist.

In his seminal book, Videogames, James Newman names retrogaming as one of three modern trends in gaming, together with mobile games and online games.[3] Among the possible explanations for this contemporary trend of retrogaming, Wulf et al. identify digital nostalgia as a main factor.[4] Digital nostalgia in video game culture is not just a contemporary phenomenon: Jaakko Suominen cites Petri Saarikoski who places the beginning of gaming culture nostalgia in the late 1980s, as a result of the documentation of the rapid obsolescence of 8-bit home computers by hobbyist computer magazines.[5] Suominen mentions how the feeling of having lost access to a part of gaming history sparked a renewed interest in, and a desire to celebrate, old gaming culture.[6] The role of nostalgia in The Digital Archivist is not intended to serve as a longing for the past, or a wistful looking back at older times, but as a way to demonstrate the rapid impact of tech obsolescence. By using hardware that is no longer functioning or widely available (i.e. the floppy disk controller) and by referring to software that have disappeared from common usage (i.e. the file formats the player has to “save”), the game brings attention to the fact that contemporary technology is at risk of the same fate.


Wulf et al. also identify the role of hardware as an important venue for future research on the experience of video game nostalgia.[7] In The Digital Archivist, the use of the floppy disk as a physical controller, combined with the wooden writing desk, contributes to evoking a time-travelling feeling while grounding the whole experience in a “digital archive” space. The game itself uses 2D graphics and every element – from the hearts representing the player’s lives to the logos of the obsolete formats – is inspired by pixel art, following a resurgence of the art in popular culture under digital nostalgia.[8] The gameplay is inspired by shooter games like Space Invaders, but with the opposite mechanic: instead of shooting at and evading the trajectory of the enemies moving down the screen, the player is invited to purposely intercept and save the falling formats. In this game the enemy is the passing of time and the increasing difficulty in saving every format, to the point where losing a format equates to losing the game.


The game is framed within a bigger window, with a macOS system 1 environment from 1984 functioning as the background. The game running within a bigger window is a design nod to emulation environments and the use of emulators to play obsolete games – another aspect of retrogaming mentioned by Newman.[9] On the left, a photoshopped miniature of ‘Falconia with her books’, from the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, displays the falling format types in place of the books: Adobe Flash and Internet Explorer, together with Google Allo, Hangouts and Picasa.[10]


A notable example of a videogame in which similar mediaeval imagery is not just featured, but heavily influences the game mechanics and pacing of the narrative, is Pentiment (2022). Pentiment is a narrative game published by Obsidian Entertainment and set in a 16th century Bavarian town.[11] In a podcast interview, game director Josh Sawyer cites Umberto Eco’s historical books as one of the inspirations behind building the community and pacing of the game. Even more noticeable is the visual style of the game, inspired by illuminated manuscripts and printed woodcuts. The choice of font and text rendering are also unusual: Sawyer mentions the desire to emulate the physicality of the act of writing in the 16th century, by replicating the strokes of handwriting and the spreading and drying of the ink, as well as the block printing mechanism.[12] Pentiment – and, to a lesser degree, The Digital Archivist – highlight how imagery from illuminated manuscripts can offer more than an aesthetic choice, whether it’s shaping a video game narrative and mechanics or inspiring continuous engagement with historical records.


Within The Digital Archivist, mediaeval imagery is reprised in the final screen of the game, as another nod to the work of monks and miniaturists in ensuring the continuation of knowledge during the Middle Ages. The game always ends with the Digital Dark Age screen (see Fig. 4). Inspired by the title of Kuny’s paper, “digital dark age” refers to digital historic records being lost forever due to the rapid rise-and-fall of new technology in a society “where change and speed is valued more highly that [sic] conservation and longevity”.[13] According to Kuny, it falls to contemporary librarians and archivists to preserve our digital heritage and ensure that future generations will have access to records from the digital Dark Ages.


Fig. 4. The game's final screen, showing the player’s score.

The Digital Archivist was first envisioned as a conversation starter on the topic of digital obsolescence, and for this purpose it has been presented at the 18th International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPres 2022), as part of their digital preservation games programme (see Fig. 5). The game sparked various conversations on engaging different audiences around themes of preservation and emulation. The game’s aesthetic, alien and familiar at the same time, remained a constant in every discussion, as well as the idea of making use of players’ nostalgia for first-generation console games to draw a comparison between old and new technology and alert players to the risks of rapid digital obsolescence. In the future, I hope to further develop the game by creating multiple levels and different controller options, as well as finding new venues to reach different audiences, within both gaming and preservation communities.



Fig. 5. iPres 2022 attendees playing The Digital Archivist

(Photo credits: Digital Preservation Coalition, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)



Footnotes

[1] “Walter Bailey Sculptor,” Walter Bailey, accessed April 26, 2023, https://walterbaileysculpture.com/.

[2] Terry Kuny, “A Digital Dark Ages? Challenges in the Preservation of Electronic Information” (paper presented at the 63rd IFLA Council and General Conference, September 4, 1997, http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla63/63kuny1.pdf).

[3] James Newman, Videogames (London: Routledge, 2004), 163.

[4] Tim Wulf et al., “Video Games as Time Machines: Video Game Nostalgia and the Success of Retro Gaming,” Media and Communication 6, Issue 2 (2018): 60–68, https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v6i2.1317.

[5] Petri Saarikoski, “Pioneerien leluista kulutuselektroniikaksi: Suomalainen kotimikroharrastus tietotekniikan murroksessa 1980-luvun alusta 1990-luvun puoliväliin,” Yleisen historian julkaisematon lisensiaatintutkielma (Turku: Turun yliopisto, 2001), quoted in Jaakko Suominen, “The Past as the Future? Nostalgia and Retrogaming in Digital Culture,” Fibreculture Journal 11 (2008) http://eleven.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-075-the-past-as-the-future-nostalgia-and-retrogaming-in-digital-culture/.

[6] Jaakko Suominen, “The Past as the Future? Nostalgia and Retrogaming in Digital Culture,” Fibreculture Journal 11 (2008), http://eleven.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-075-the-past-as-the-future-nostalgia-and-retrogaming-in-digital-culture/.

[7] Wulf et al., “Video Games as Time Machines,” 63.

[8] Kyle Chayka, “Pokémon and the First Wave of Digital Nostalgia,” The New Yorker, December 3, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/pokemon-and-the-first-wave-of-digital-nostalgia.

[9] Newman, Videogames, 165.

[10] “Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts,” The British Library, accessed September 10, 2022, https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?IllID=42354&Size=mid.

[11] “Pentiment,” Obsidian Entertainment, accessed April 26, 2023, https://pentiment.obsidian.net/.

[12] Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games, “105: Making History with Josh Sawyer (Pentiment),” December 16, 2022, podcast, 01:10:54, https://eggplant.show/105-making-history-with-josh-sawyer-pentiment.

[13] Kuny, “A Digital Dark Ages?,” 1.


References


Author Biography

Giulia Carla Rossi is a curator and artist based in London. She is Curator for Digital Publications at the British Library, working in the department of Contemporary British and Irish Published Collections. Her research interests include digital preservation (especially for born-digital interactive publications), electronic literature, curating digital collections and exhibitions, net art, code poetry and creative computing. In her creative work she uses digital tools to create storytelling experiences that explore language, queerness and archival practices. She is one of the curators of the 2023 Digital Storytelling exhibition at the British Library.

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