The Alluvials

The Alluvials is a video game with four levels that uses unique game mechanics to explore the emotional and physical impacts of the climate crisis. In this game, players take on the roles of unusual, non-human characters that are typically unplayable, like wildfire, the Los Angeles River, a Yucca Moth and its multi-limbed partner, a field of endlessly sprouting Joshua Trees, and the shared mind of a wolf pack. 

The game builds on Bucknell’s research into ​“game ecologies,” which examines how ​“nature” and the environment are portrayed and interacted with in video games. Each level is based on a different genre — such as first-person shooter, walking simulator, open world, or puzzle platformer — and reimagines it from an ecological perspective. Overall, the game focuses on ​“difficult gaming,” a style that breaks away from typical, straight­for­ward gameplay. Instead, it uses confusing or unpre­dictable mechanics to reflect the over­whelm­ing and complex nature of the climate crisis. 

This approach also challenges the idea that players must always be in control, encouraging them to imagine new ways of interacting with the world and with nature. In short, The Alluvials invites players to rethink their rela­tion­ship with the environment by letting them experience it through the eyes of ​“nature” itself.

Alice Bucknell, The Alluvials (2022) is presented as part of the exhibition Hybrid Futures: Rhizomes, Meshworks & Alter-Ecologies, organised and produced by Elektron.
Curators: Vincent Crapon & Françoise Poos.

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