Maria Aloupi and Andreas Diktyopoulos

Maria Aloupi and Andreas Diktyopoulos are together beyondthosehills. They are nominated for the Humble New Talent Award our Diversity Award in collaboration with Humble Original. Currently they are working on the game Reky which will release on Steam his month.

Maria Aloupi and Andreas Diktyopoulos

A MAZE.: How would you describe yourself?
Maria: Difficult.
Andreas: An individual in constant search of the meaning of life through my work and my relationships with other individuals.

A MAZE.: Are you a wild heart? If yes, what makes you think you’re a wild heart?
Maria: It depends.
Andreas: I’m not familiar with this terminology.

A MAZE.: Why did you start making games or playful media works?
Maria: The infinite possibilities of interactive media have always fascinated me. Unlike other, more traditional mediums, there are no physical or material restrictions, so one is free to creatively explore a kind of space that could not exist otherwise.
Andreas: It is a combination of all my interests: visual arts, sound arts, storytelling through interactivity, computer science and mathematics, world-building (god syndrome).

A MAZE.: Who (or what) is your biggest inspiration? Think beyond games too - musicians, writers, filmmakers, artists, scientists, …
Maria: Inspiration arises as an abstract outcome of a wide range of personal perceptions and interests. Having an in-depth classical music background, I felt that I had to find new inspiration outside this absolute abstract field. In this regard filmmakers such as Kubrick, Tati, and Wes Anderson, also contemporary architectural culture, design and 20th-century art movements are a big influence.
Andreas: Films: Stanley Kubrick, Jaque Tati (Playtime), Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries). Music: Iannis Xenakis, Pink Floyd, John Coltrane, Brahms (4th Symphony). Science & Philosophy: Fundamental of Mathematics & Logic, Ludwig Wittgenstein. These influences affect more the way I approach things and less my aesthetic choices.

A MAZE.: Where can we find this in your work?
Maria: I suppose it is an outcome of the whole influence and sometimes a few more specific references (not so often).
Andreas: I hope it is somewhere there. If I could just name one would be “transitions”.

A MAZE.: What message(s) are you sending out with your works?
Andreas: I’m not sending intended messages with my work. But there are unintended messages of course.

Screenshot of REKY

A MAZE.: Is there a repeating pattern in all of your works the players may experience?
Maria: The love of simple, cohesive and intuitive design.
Andreas: I would like to say infinity. But probably it’s only in my mind.

A MAZE.: What influences your work more: Past (history), present (contemporary) or future (scifi) and what are your sources?
Maria: Abstract or imaginary (out of time) in previous projects. The next work will be in the present time and will explore “everyday life”.
Andreas: Mostly contemporary using contemporary art & life as my main sources. But also I’m working on an amazing scifi concept on the side influenced by cosmology and theoretical physics.

A MAZE.: What does responsibility towards your players mean to you as an artist?
Maria: To deliver an interesting project, and to share some thoughts or feelings. 
Andreas: Deliver interesting experiences respecting the time that a player will invest in them.

A MAZE.: What impact is the current pandemic having on you and your work?
Maria: Found more time to devote to reading some favourite writers (mostly anthropologists/historians and philosophers), which gave me a lot of material to process and integrate on my work.
Andreas: Concentrate on the most important things. Do more meaningful retrospectives. Re-prioritizing.

Screenshot of REKY

A MAZE.: If there is something wrong in the field of games / playful media, what would you fix first?
Andreas: I’m not here to fix anything. I just want to present my point of view and eventually start a meaningful conversation with whoever is interested in.

A MAZE.: What are the three games someone who never played a game before should play? Why those?
Andreas: I really don’t know. Just pick three in which you can find something/anything you like (e.g. trailer, screenshots) and play them. Then try again with three others, and so on and so forth. At some point, you are going to find the games you like and you will start making unique memories interacting with them. A brute force algorithm with a heuristic selection method.

A MAZE.: How do you relax and find balance?
Maria: When I design something new.
Andreas: Improvising on the piano.

A MAZE.: What are the main challenges for artists in your country to sustain themselves?
Andreas: Lack of career and financial opportunities so that they can sustain themselves and evolve their craftsmanship.

A MAZE.: How do you see interactive arts in 10 years from now? In 2030! Tell us your vision.
Maria: Interactive arts will invade more intensely in every aspect, will be a more compact and inseparable aspect of daily life and will be used easier from everyone.
Andreas: I don’t like predictions but I would like to share my hope: A future where there will be no distinction among “applied” vs “pure” art.