(2018-04-18) The Rise Of The Ambient Video Game

The rise of the ambient video game

In February 1986, Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda,

Shigeru Miyamoto, wanted to draw on his childhood experiences of climbing mountains and discovering lakes

The designers, coders, and artists crafted a crude 8-bit landscape with the emerging computer-chip technology, the game’s deep, verdant greens a far cry from the concrete and steel dominating Japan’s cities and towns at the time.

To step into such video game worlds was to stabilise oneself within the frenetic noise and anonymity of the expanding urban spaces.

Other consumer electronics tacitly acknowledged this need for mood-regulation in the city

In the evening I sit on the couch, letting the colours and sounds of the digital world wash over me, allowing my brain to slowly decompress. It’s a relaxation activity that slips nebulously into self-care, the video game equivalent of putting an ambient record on.

Writing about the game for Waypoint, critic Austin Walker said, “repairing my new ship was exactly the relaxing, quiet experience I needed. A synth track repeated itself, regularly letting me drift into a rhythm I needed more than I knew.”

Breathe is a work by studio, Tru Luv Media, whose output is based on the values of “care, connection, transcendence, and celebration”, headed up by former Assassins Creed designer, Brie Code. The self-described “companion app” directs the user to breathe in and out as a carefully illustrated lotus flower expands and contracts while soft ambient music plays in the background. It’s intended to be synced with Heart Rate data, a health app on iOS devices, that allows the lotus to augment with the user’s own body tempo as they repeat the exercise one breath at a time. (Meditation)