Groping In The Dark: Intimacy In Nyctophobia
Groping In The Dark: Intimacy In Nyctophobia
Groping In The Dark: Intimacy In Nyctophobia
March 26, 2023
By Jack Murphy
Summary
Emma Leigh Waldron defines the term "Mediated intimacy" as intimacy that is "Given specific, shape, direction, intensity, or meaning" through a mediating practice, such as playing a game.5 Mediated intimacy describes how the flow of affect is oriented through play and how intimacy functions as a vector to describe the relationship between bodies.
Nyctophobia makes use of the materiality of the game and the relationships between players, both existing and defined by the game, as a way to orient players towards a specific affective experience of play.
Instrumental intimacy is a specific form of mediated intimacy with the goal of orienting players towards the game assemblage in a coercive fashion.
Nyctophobia is not the first example of analog games using touch as a way to open players to intimacy, though its construction of intimacy is perhaps not as intentional.
As we can see through Nyctophobia analog games produce an intimacy that becomes narratively motivating for players.
Nyctophobia is a vehicle for the interaction of components parts of the analog play assemblage, namely the physical pieces of the game, the players and their attendant relationships to each other and to the affective and aesthetic dimensions of the game, and the rules of the game that deploy manifestations of affects that are co-constituted through the theme and algorithmic functioning of play.
Nyctophobia is not unique in that it mediates affect through play, however the way that it isolates touch as a mechanism of orientation via intimacy between players is more explicitly foregrounded through the assemblage of the game platform.
Reference
Murray, J. (2023, March 26). Groping In The Dark: Intimacy In Nyctophobia. Analog Game Studies. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://analoggamestudies.org/2023/03/affect-and-intimacy-in-nyctophobia/