Discipline, Punish or Runaway

January 8, 2013 9:20 PM

Run away from Michel Foucault. Cameron Kunzelman is a games journalist and creator. He has made a little web game where you try to evade the French historian. His blog. His twitter. More Kunzelman Previously.
posted by PinkMoose (15 comments total)

I do way better in real life than I do in this game.
posted by LarryC at 9:31 PM on January 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

I am really bad at running away from Michel Foucault. But if I was good at it, I never would have ended up in grad school.
posted by Tesseractive at 9:32 PM on January 8, 2013 [9 favorites]

But is there not also a certain jouissance to be found in the act of delivering oneself to corporeal subsumption—the willing surrender to the grasping maw of Foucault?
posted by dephlogisticated at 9:40 PM on January 8, 2013 [8 favorites]

The pixellated figure's inevitable consumption by the philosopher's decapitated head signifies the equally inevitable production of Mefitic subjectivity through "leisure" activities that are, in fact, extensions of the panoptic structures of discipline that inform all online life. As the Mefite, confined to only three keys on the keyboard (as the philosopher devours the deindividuated player-figure, so too does the game devour all possibility of uncontrolled linguistic play), repeatedly mashes the z, x, and c keys, s/he creates an effect of choice that purportedly demonstrates the existence of a free subject. But such limited choices, no matter how they appear to reveal a deep, privatized interiority of the sort so beloved by Romantic poets, actually demonstrate how the coercive mechanisms of internet culture produce an illusion of independent selfhood. In fact, the thoroughly disciplined Mefitic subject, despite his or her apparent willingness to "play," is ready at a moment's notice to bow before the command to RTFA.
posted by thomas j wise at 10:03 PM on January 8, 2013 [12 favorites]

Yech.
posted by cthuljew at 10:28 PM on January 8, 2013

Presumably he can see you wherever you've run off to. Seriously, Foucault, enough with the wallhax.
posted by mhoye at 10:28 PM on January 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

I haven't played this game yet, but I discovered Kunzelman's blog recently through Good Games Writing and have basically read the entire thing. It's amazing. Also check out Ontological Geek.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 11:04 PM on January 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Having had a college sweetheart who went on to try a PhD in English in the 90s, which seemed to break her mind and turn her into a god-awful reciter of literary theory to the point where actual reality became a problem, I've been running from Michael Foucault for a long long time.
posted by C.A.S. at 12:22 AM on January 9, 2013

This was much better than Lie Very Still And Hope Jacques Lacan Doesn't Notice You.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:32 AM on January 9, 2013 [13 favorites]

Funnier than (but ultimately not as fun as) Bop It.
posted by unknowncommand at 6:09 AM on January 9, 2013

This didn't do anything for me, but his explanation of how he came to make this game made me appreciate it a little more.

That said, I am in favor of a culture of diary gaming. So huzzah.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 6:21 AM on January 9, 2013

Oh man, talk about a let down. Fun idea, but poor implementation. I can't believe i just pressed Z, X, and C for 5 minutes. :\

The basic idea is that you are running and need to hit buttons, DDR-style, to always stay one step ahead of the terrifying wraith head of Michel Foucault.

We've had Frets on Fire for a long time now. I'm pretty sure I can beat most of the Guitar Hero type games. Pressing Z, X, and C over and over is not enough of a challenge for anyone.

So yeah, pretty good joke -> weak game. /beans
posted by mrgrimm at 7:30 AM on January 9, 2013

Oh man, talk about a let down. Fun idea, but poor implementation.

Well what did you expect? This is a game about Foucault.
posted by googly at 7:42 AM on January 9, 2013 [4 favorites]

I'm waiting for Runaway 2: Freud's Revenge.
posted by Chutzler at 8:03 AM on January 9, 2013

I'm more scared of Baudrillard.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:29 AM on January 9, 2013 [1 favorite]