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Video game designer, new media artist, writer, and curator known for interactive fiction and Twine games with themes of body horror, queer identity, and technology.
Key Dates and Places
Born Date: 1987.
Career
Current occupation: Video game designer, new media artist, writer, curator.
Current Place of Work: Oakland, California (based).
Achievements and Recognition
Awards: Her work has received critical acclaim. Specific awards need further research. She is widely recognized within the interactive fiction and indie game communities.
Skills
Twine game development, interactive fiction writing, new media art creation, curation, world-building, narrative design, visual design (often incorporating glitch art and pixel art aesthetics).
Languages
Languages Spoken: English.
Personality
Life Philosophy: Her work often explores themes of transhumanism, body modification, and the intersection of technology and identity, suggesting a philosophy that questions societal norms and embraces the transformative potential of technology.
Famous Quotes
Specific famous quotes require further research and access to interviews or published writings.
Residence and Financial Status
Residence: Oakland, California.
Main Milestones
Birth and Early Life
1987
Porpentine Charity Heartscape is born in 1987. While details of her very early life are kept private, her experiences navigating the world as a transgender person would later profoundly shape her creative output, providing a foundation for the themes of identity and transformation that permeate her work.
Discovery of Interactive Fiction and Twine
Early 2000s
During the early 2000s, Porpentine discovers interactive fiction, particularly the accessibility of tools like Twine. This marks a turning point, as Twine offers her a platform to express her unique artistic vision without requiring extensive coding knowledge. The tool's simplicity allows her to focus on crafting intricate narratives and creating immersive, text-based worlds.
Release of "Howling Dogs"
2012
"Howling Dogs", a Twine game released in 2012, becomes a breakthrough work, bringing Porpentine wider recognition. The game's surreal imagery, exploration of body horror, and deeply personal narrative resonate with players and critics alike. "Howling Dogs" establishes many of the themes and stylistic elements that would become hallmarks of her work.
Release of "Eczema Angel Orifice"
2012
In the same year as "Howling Dogs", Porpentine releases "Eczema Angel Orifice". This game is another demonstration of her specific style of bizarre world-building, focusing on the exploration of a damaged and strange world through vivid textual descriptions and visceral player choices.
Release of "With Those We Love Alive"
2013
Porpentine collaborates with developer Liz Ryerson to release "With Those We Love Alive", a game that merges interactive fiction with unique physical interaction. Players are prompted to draw on their own bodies, and the game responds to the drawings, creating a deeply personal and unsettling experience. The project is a commercial success, and serves as another springboard for her growth as an artist.
Featured in "GQ's" 50 Most Powerful People in Video Games
2015
Porpentine is recognized by mainstream media, being listed in "GQ"'s 50 Most Powerful People in Video Games. This acknowledgement speaks to her growing influence and the impact of her work on the broader gaming landscape. It also highlights the increasing visibility of indie game developers and the recognition of interactive fiction as a valid art form.
Arcadia Award Win
2016
Porpentine wins the prestigious Arcadia Award, recognizing her significant contributions to interactive fiction and her unique artistic voice. This award solidifies her position as a leading figure in the field and further validates the importance of her work.
Continued Creative Exploration
2018 - Present
Porpentine continues to create games, write, and curate, exploring new creative avenues and pushing the boundaries of interactive fiction. She remains a powerful voice in the indie game community, inspiring other artists and continuing to challenge conventions with her innovative and deeply personal work. She also does contract writing work for larger game studios, for example, contributing to the script of "Eliza".
Porpentine's 2012 Twine game Howling Dogs incorporates themes of escapism, violence and religious experience, though they have stated that it should be open to interpretation.[11] They created Howling Dogs shortly after they started hormone-replacement therapy in 2012, in only seven days, while staying in a friend's remodeled barn.[12]
It won the 2012 XYZZY awards in the "Best story" and "Best writing" categories.[13]
The Boston Phoenix listed it as one of their "Top 5 indie games of 2012".[14]
During the 2013 Game Developers Conference, game designer Richard Hofmeier used the booth he had been given to showcase his own award-winning game Cart Life to showcase Porpentine's Howling Dogs instead. Hofmeier spray-painted the words "Howling Dogs" across the banner of his own booth, and showed Porpentine's game instead of his own. Hofmeier stated he wished to give greater exposure to Porpentine's game.[15][16]
In 2015 they released Eczema Angel Orifice, a compilation of over 20 hypertext works from 2012 to 2015. The compilation includes critically acclaimed games such as With Those We Love Alive, a queer fable about isolation, abuse, and the relationship between art and power;[17] and Ultra Business Tycoon III, a sprawling textual world disguised as edutainment software.[18]
In 2016, Rhizome commissioned Porpentine along with Neotenomie and Sloane through the series First Look: New Art Online resulting in Psycho Nymph Exile.[2] This work includes an online hypertext work, a booklet, and stickers. The project depicts the experience of PTSD as a visceral physical substance, not an invisible, abstract force.[19]
In 2022, Porpentine published their first full-length book Serious Weakness, a 625-page novel exploring themes of trauma, neurodivergence, and manipulation. The title is a translation of an autoimmune disease called myasthenia gravis, which causes weakness and fatigue within the skeletal and central nervous systems.
"Golden Banana of Discord" for Howling Dogs at the 2012 Interactive Fiction Competition, a prize awarded for the highest standard deviation "both the most loved and the most hated."
^"Artist Profile"(PDF). ICAVCU.org. Institute for Contemporary Art. April 21, 2018. Archived(PDF) from the original on January 10, 2021. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
This is a community hub built on top of the Porpentine (game designer) Wikipedia article. Here, you can discuss, collect, and organize anything related to Porpentine (game designer). The purpose of the hub is to connect people, foster deeper knowledge, and help improve the root Wikipedia article.
This is a community hub built on top of the Porpentine (game designer) Wikipedia article. Here, you can discuss, collect, and organize anything related to Porpentine (game designer). The purpose of the hub is to connect people, foster deeper knowledge, and help improve the root Wikipedia article.
