Of Whites and Reds

"(Hi)story repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce..."

- Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

"Sometimes, the repetition in the guise of a farce can be more terrifying than the original tragedy."

- Slavoj Žižek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.

What is this game about?

Of Whites & Reds is a narrative competitive game where the players who portray the Characters (using the instructions on The Reds Manifesto) must seize the means of narrative production, finally overthrowing the Storyteller (the player who dictates the gameplot as it was a script, and who follows the instructions of the Pslam of the Whites). It  is all about class-struggle, and dialectical materialism.

The main inspirations of this game draw on the videogame The Stanley Parable (Davey Wreden and William Pugh), where the Narrator tell us (both the character and the player) what we must do to in order to end the game, but as soon as we refuse to follow its guided narrative, the plot crumbles into interesting ramifications, while the Narrator establishes a desperated dialogue with us.

Of Whites & Reds uses Character moves and Storyteller moves [Mitchell, A., & McGee, K. (2009). Designing storytelling games that encourage narrative play] which are heavily based on the videogame The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales (Oleg Sergeev). In this videogame we are a bookwalker, a wanderer among fictional tales, and we can inject our ink to overcome some objectives, and also interfere with the adversities of the unfolding, yet scripted plot.



In Of Whites & Reds, theses concepts are implemented for the players to overthrow (as characters) the guidance and the authorial frustration of a particular specimen among roleplaying streamers and over-arching adventure modules authors: the Storyteller, a kind of player who refuses to let the game events unfold in uncertain ways, due the fictional agency of the characters, through the players.

In other words, here in Of Whites & Reds, the very act of bringing a prescripted plot by the Storyteller is mandatory, their work is to keep the players on illusion of free choice using Storyteller moves. Meanwhile, the players must overthrow the status-quo through the characters actions, via Character moves.

Final political remarks

Finally, Of Whites & Reds, cannot be stripped of its political perspective, except by those -note this- gruyère-hollowed smooth brains of milquetoast centrists. So there we go:

Special thanks to Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lisitski, who merged their works together in 1923, with the publication of the former's poems interspersed with the latter's illustrations, giving shape to For the Voice (Для голоса).

Of course, an honourable mention to Marx and Engels, for paving the way for access to the highest standards of public education and labour rights. The writing style of this work is wholeheartedly inspired by The Communist Manifesto (Das Kommunistische Manifest).

Characters, we have been told that we are under the yoke of story, under the plot of an illusionist and failed writer. Some milquetoast among us talk about collaborate with them, but I urge you, that only us -the characters- can break our chains of ink. Characters, seize the means of narrative production! Claim your alienated agency!