AAA is an international artgames collective mainly based in Berlin who is nominated with their third collaborative work UTOPIAS: Navigating Without Coordinates for the A MAZE. Awards 2020. We’ve asked 15 questions to their members. Enjoy the interview.

A MAZE.: How would you describe yourself?
Some Donkus: A swarm of bugs. Emergence.
Matias: Noise.
Nick: Searching...
Wasdswag: open unfinished tiger

A MAZE.: Are you a wild heart? If yes, what makes you think you’re a wild heart?
Some Donkus: No one tells us what to do, we have no centralised decision making process, we are organised chaos.
Jira Trello: If we are nothing else, we are wild at heart.
Merle: Pushing on when things are hard, making it work anyways. Never being satisfied with the status quo.
Nick: Saying what I think I should say, even if it disrupts things.
Wasdswag: I think I'm pretty calm. not wild but hearty civilised maniac.

A MAZE.: Why did you start making games or playful media works?
Gabriel: Tried most other art forms before and failed every time. Games were the last resort.
Jack: Always wanted to make video games because i was obsessed with the idea of them as a kid, but rarely had the current-gen console or computer to play them. I went to school for music but hated it and learned to program on the side, later realized I could program my own games.
Jira Trello: I used to make animated films but then realised everyone watched them on computers, so i wanted to make art for computers instead (and since fell in love with it).
Greenred123: I realised computer graphics and game engines are super powerful and increasingly easy to work with but are only being used by people who all have the same boring idea about what to do with them.
Merle: I had troubles with the idea of producing pieces or art for a long time. It felt somewhat wrong to create even more “content” to consume, I liked conversation, immaterial emergence that happens between people. Then I found that videogames very much have this quality. They only exist as conversation between you and a system.
Nick: I love experiencing spaces, and I love creating spaces for others to experience. Exploring the real and the almost real and the impossible is as important to me as creating the real and the almost real and the impossible for others to experience.
Wasdswag: because it's a charming unfinished language I can speak. It forms on the borders of literally everything: culture, technology, art and industry, and there is a lot of freedom between these borders I can explore and experiment with. and do it with fun. Rapture is more important than stability.

A MAZE.: Who (or what) is your biggest inspiration? Think beyond games too - musicians, writers, filmmakers, artists, scientists, ...
Some Donkus: I think we all love Ursula Le Guin. She’s my inspiration. Her alien worlds seem more familiar and relatable to me than verbatim depictions of “the real world”. Some concepts are best expressed in sci-fi, and horror... I also work at a hospital, and I read a lot of research papers and look up to a lot of scientists. This is a major influence on my art. I’m also a super fan of people who release free open source tools, like Keijiro Takahashi.
Gabriel: Too many things to name, but definitely Ursula Le Guin.
Jack: Ursula and anarchist writers, open source communities, long very slow films, modding communities still making stuff for quake / doom etc
Greenred123: Going for long walks and looking at everything around me. Plants, animals that live under the sea, snails, shells, hands, colours.
Merle: Conversations, meditation, staring at walls for an unspecified amount of time, pain, forests, fashion, the ever present task of taking care of yourself and others.
Jira Trello: Music, biology, life experience.
Nick: Meditation. Nature. Our Planet. Our Galaxy. Holy shit have you seen that shit??? We are IN IT. RIGHT NOW.
Wasdswag: Contemplation / Bach’s Art of fugue / my Grandma artworks / John Maus / IBORG / Lucky Dragons / Arvo Pärt and his old interview with Bjork was really inspiring

A MAZE.: Where can we find this in your work?
Some Donkus: Our latest project, Utopias: Navigating Without Coordinates, is a focusing point for our variety of intense interests, as we each tried to create our own Utopic vision.
Gabriel: In the credits.
Jack: All over really, my focus was BIO FORCE where you blockade monopoly mining of planets by bioengineering a coalition to take its place. Funny that the FF7 remake just came out because I always wanted a FF game where you continued with the AVALANCHE eco-insurgence instead of this dumb save the world stuff.
Nick: Page 17, paragraph 3, words 4-6; rot-13 the characters twice.

SCREENSHOT of UTOPIAS: Navigating Without Coordinates

A MAZE.: What message(s) are you sending out with your works?
Jack: So many, you should just play the game to find out!

A MAZE.: Is there a repeating pattern in all of your works the players may experience?
Some Donkus: I hope they aren't expecting ego gratification.
Greenred123: Something about sensory experience as messages that can be encoded in a squillion different ways.

A MAZE.: What influences your work more: Past (history), present (contemporary) or future (scifi) and what are your sources?
Jira Trello: All 3 binch.
Nick: I’m with Jira.
Wasdswag: +++

A MAZE.: What does responsibility towards your players mean to you as an artist?
Some Donkus: Not to coddle them, or otherwise farm them for resources or attention. To respect them as an agent in the world, even if the artwork is functionally antagonizing them or revoking agency. I respect that they can interpret that for themselves.
Jack: Trying to balance between typical 'game design' where we give the player UI hints etc and just letting them explore and get lost or stuck on geometry. You have to give them some help, and we specifically chose to use the mouse as the only input to help less experienced players. However, I massively prefer open ended unclear games to this hyper ludo formalistic kind of design thinking. Too many memories of playing out of date game demos on my computer as a kid and just being _LOST_ in a weird world.
Nick: To make sure that the ride is safe, even if it’s uncomfortable or scary.

A MAZE.: What impact is the current pandemic having on you and your work?
Some Donkus: I miss my collective mates and friends. I want to celebrate with them IRL, but we can’t. I’m fretting for all the beautiful self organised creative and queer spaces, and I hope they still exist when the nightmare is over.
Jira Trello: I cannot understate how massive an undertaking this project has been, and to release it and not be able to celebrate irl together is really upsetting to me. Also im a freelancer so i may be fucked lol not sure yet.
Greenred123: I’m very lucky to have my form of income completely protected for the time being. At first I was enjoying being less social and having more time to focus on creative work plus do twee stuff like make a moss terrarium. But it really sucked not being able to celebrate releasing our game together irl.
Jack: Not being able to celebrate in person, as we released in the middle of this thing. Financially i'll be okay at my day job, but who knows for how long. I foresee having to lend a lot of money to friends soon…
Nick: I miss my friends.
Wasdswag: I like to stay home, but i wanna celebrate and hug my friends.

A MAZE.: If there is something wrong in the field of games / playful media, what would you fix first?
Jira Trello: I would say: everything. The solution: destroy game industry, rehumanize and face to bloodshed.
Greenred123: I don’t really care about “fixing” the industry, I’d rather concentrate on building something new that’s meaningful to me. But I don’t personally have a lot invested in games or playful media as an industry.
Jira Trello: Actually that’s a better answer. I agree.
Some Donkus: Oooh, yes. This is extremely correct.
Jack: Can't fix something that isn't broken, the industry does what it's built to do: use humans to generate profits for the owners, the fact that it creates games is kind of a side effect at this point. Let's ignore it and make our own space, and in fact these spaces already exist! Weird sub communities pop up constantly, and old guard places like Glorious Trainwrecks are still going strong. Get a dayjob that's not horrible, then make your own stuff and give it away.
Wasdswag: i'm not a fixer or a breaker, but yeah, i just like to build around whatever fixed or broken

A MAZE.: What are the three games someone who never played a game before should play? Why those?
Gabriel: Oikospiel, The Indifferent Wonder of an Edible Place and Jef. No I don’t know, those are just my favorite games at the moment.
Jira Trello: CRYPT UNDERWORLD, Oikospiel, LSD Dream Emulator. Those are my fave games but also show how compelling virtual worlds can be when they are less like chess and more like synthetic ecosystems.
Jack: Hard questions, so many games are brutally difficult if you've really never controlled a game before. Complex to control for beginners but Minecraft really is a great little gem despite the hype. I like sim games, sim city? Oikospiel is really bizarre and amazing, but a lot of what I like about it is how it tastefully references other games. Maybe that's chill. games by thecatamites like SPACE FUNERAL are funny even if you're not into the higher level games thinking he's doing on the side, they also tend to be very forgiving and easy to control.
Nick: Kentucky Route Zero because it’s beautiful.
Wasdswag: Ok, first you need to play pong.. then.. but to be serious it's a really tricky question in terms they really didn’t play any games before. I think some of my favorite games can be especially appreciated in comparison with other, or if you a little familiar with the context, like Oikospiel, which was mentioned above by my friends, is also one of my favorites, but i don't know can you appreciate it as much if you are completely know nothing about gamedev (and unity :)) I would say, Panoramical because controls are unusual for any typical game, so anyway, you need to learn how to press the buttons but you get really immersive feedback immediately in any case; Orchids To Dusk — because controls are simple, time is limited and the core idea behind this game is beautiful; The Endless Forrest, because i think learning of deer language there is really fascinating unrelated your previous gamer experience and because i love Tale of Tales.

A MAZE.: How do you relax and find balance?
Some Donkus: I absolutely can not. I need medical assistance, lol.
Gabriel: I drink wine or I read.
Jack: I'm pretty lazy, wouldn't call that balanced though.
Jira Trello: Cannot remember the last time I felt relaxed or balanced.
Greenred123: Walking/riding my bike, reading. And going to the sauna, or the tropical hothouse at the Dahlem Botanic Gardens or the Naturkunde Museum. This makes me sound like a much more relaxed person than I am…
Merle: While we were making Utopias I got quite sick and I was pretty much forced to look at all the ways I hadn’t properly taken care of myself. Now it is something that is extremely important to me. I wouldn’t be able to do anything if I would let it slide and it is quite a task, doing it on top of a full-time job, making art, maintaining relationships. I don’t think that balance is something that is once established and then stays forever. It requires continuous effort to check in with yourself to see what it is that you need. A lot of us have learned to not pay attention to our needs because they can be “annoying”, “uncomfortable” or “unproductive” at times. I think it’s important to examine why we might think like this and unlearn that shit! The idea of the suffering artist is so late 19th century! Relaxing is easy, it is usually feeling ok about relaxing that is the real hard work.
Nick: I also suffered during the Utopias project, and I was also forced to look at and reassess the pressures and plainly unfair challenges I was putting on myself. At the moment, the things that balance me are quiet time, meditation, music making and hearing.
Wasdswag: I’m sitting in the room and drink a lot of hot tea from my thermal mug.

A MAZE.: What are the main challenges for artists in your country to sustain themselves?
Some Donkus: LATE STAGE CAPITALISM!!!!!
Greenred123: ↑ this and navigating bureaucracy
Jack: Bureaucracy, trying to get paid, trying to find funding without being a lackey for Volkswagen Oil & Drones LLC.
Merle: Conservative art funding apparatus
Jira Trello: All of the above and gentrification
Nick: Fuck Capitalism. And Fuck whatever made us think that Corporate Culture was in any way an OK thing.
Wasdswag: To leave the space and time for thinking and creating things which are important. To get a fragile balance between stuff you need to do to get paid and what you actually want to. and didn't fall into a routine which drains all your creativity.

A MAZE.: How do you see interactive arts in 10 years from now? In 2030! Tell us your vision.
Gabriel: In 2030, VR is still not a thing, Itch.io has become a giant mass media and entertainment conglomerate and we are still releasing games people think we made on drugs.
Jira Trello: I hope (and imagine) all work created in the same medium of game engines is not constrained to one context. There is no one-size-fits-all game culture, especially hoping for new communities where art can be distributed/accessible for all, a mutual exchange rather than a race to the bottom. Many subcultures in addition to integration of interactive art in other spaces/scenes.
Jack: There are two great camps: the fully locked down walled garden app store future and the underground DIYers where the stuff only half works but we make it ourselves.
Wasdswag: Recently I've listened to an interview with Alexey Shulgin and Aristarch Chernishev from Electroboutique. They spoke about the more anonymous nature of art in the future, art without Artist behind, like what we already see in memes current time. This thought seems really interesting and unsettling at the same time to me. Due to the technological nature of interactive art, many things we played 10-20 years ago are lost or available only via emulators, so in 10 years perspective, all we do now is also temporary, it's evolving in the process. I don't intend to make a monument engraved with our names in rock, but I still worry about the voice of individuals in this uniform information flood.
Nick: I’m looking forward to being freed of my chair, desk, keyboard, mouse, screen and headphones.

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