Porpentine Charity Heartscape
Porpentine in 2016
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Video game designer, artist
Years active	2012–present

Porpentine Charity Heartscape (born 1987)^[1] is a video game designer, new media artist, writer and curator based in Oakland, California.^[2] They are primarily a developer of hypertext games and interactive fiction mainly built using Twine.^[3] They have been awarded a Creative Capital grant, a Rhizome.org commission, the Prix Net Art, and a Sundance Institute's New Frontier Story Lab Fellowship.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7] Their work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial.^[8] They were an editor for freeindiegam.es, a curated collection of free, independently produced games.^[9] They were a columnist for online PC gaming magazine Rock, Paper, Shotgun.^[10]

Game design

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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.

Selected works

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Howling Dogs (2012)^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]
Their Angelical Understanding (2013)^[20]
Ultra Business Tycoon III (2013)^[18]
With Those We Love Alive (2014)^[17]
Everything You Swallow Will One Day Come Up Like A Stone (2014)^[21]
Neon Haze (2015)^[22]
Aria End (2015)^[23]
Psycho Nymph Exile (2016)^[2]^[19]
No World Dreamers: Sticky Zeitgeist (2017)^[24]
"The Decision So Many People Were Forced To Make Throughout History", Whose Future is It? (2018)^[25] (short story)
Serious Weakness (2022)

Awards

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2012

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XYZZY Best Writing for Howling Dogs^[20]
"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."

2013

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XYZZY Best Writing for their angelical understanding^[20]
Indiecade Special Recognition for Porpentine's Twine Compilation^[26]
Porpentine's Twine Compilation listed by the Museum of the Moving Image (New York City) as one of "25 Must-Play Video Games".^[27]

2014

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XYZZY Best Writing and Best Individual NPC for With Those We Love Alive^[28]
Wordplay Festival Award for Most Unique World: With Those We Love Alive^[29]

2016

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Creative Capital Emerging Fields for Aria End (in collaboration with Peter Burr)^[23]
Otherwise Award Fellowship^[30]

2017

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Prix Net Art, in collaboration with Rhizome and Chronus Art Center^[31]
With Those We Love Alive and howling dogs included in the Whitney Biennial^[8]

2018

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Sundance Institute New Frontier Lab Programs Fellow^[32]

References

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^ "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.
^ ^a ^b ^c Kazimarki, Donna (November 22, 2016), "Porpentine Charity Heartscape's New Novella is Science-Fiction About Living with Trauma, and Slime Sex", East Bay Express, archived from the original on November 24, 2016, retrieved December 3, 2016
^ Ellison, Cara (April 3, 2013). "Hypersexed Hypertext: Porpentine and the Twine text game revolution". PCGamer. Archived from the original on May 7, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
^ "Creative Capital – Investing in Artists who Shape the Future". creative-capital.org. Archived from the original on March 15, 2017. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
^ "Announcing Rhizome's Fall 2015 Program". Rhizome. Archived from the original on March 15, 2017. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
^ "Rhizome Names Three Winners of Third Prix Net Art Award | ARTnews". www.artnews.com. February 16, 2017. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
^ "Sundance Institute's New Frontier Story Lab Explores the Future with Six Creative Teams and Projects". www.sundance.org. Archived from the original on July 25, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
^ ^a ^b "Whitney Biennial 2017". Whitney Museum of American Art. Archived from the original on February 6, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
^ Ellison, Cara (April 10, 2013). "Anna Anthropy and the Twine Revolution". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on February 3, 2019. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
^ "Live Free, Play Hard #1". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. August 12, 2012. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
^ ^a ^b Short, Emily (November 23, 2012). "Interview with Porpentine, author of Howling Dogs". Archived from the original on July 25, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
^ ^a ^b Hudson, Laura (November 19, 2014). "Twine, the video-game technology for all". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on January 29, 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2014.
^ ^a ^b "XYZZY Award Winners". Archived from the original on March 24, 2010. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
^ ^a ^b Meyers, Maddy. "Outside the box: PC indie games of 2012". Boston Phoenix. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
^ Alexander, Leigh (March 29, 2013). "IGF winner Hofmeier pays it forward for Porpentine's Howling Dogs". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on May 18, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
^ Conditt, Jessica. "IGF grand prize winner gives his booth away to 'Howling Dogs'". Joystiq. Archived from the original on June 3, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
^ ^a ^b Rougeau, Michael (December 4, 2014), "Making "With Those We Love Alive," a Game That Leaves its Mark on You", Animal, archived from the original on December 18, 2014, retrieved December 18, 2014
^ ^a ^b Alexander, Leigh (August 19, 2013). "The poignant vocabulary of Porpentine's Ultra Business Tycoon III". www.gamasutra.com. Archived from the original on March 10, 2016. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
^ ^a ^b "FIRST LOOK: PSYCHO NYMPH EXILE". Archived from the original on March 11, 2016. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
^ ^a ^b ^c "The XYZZY Awards". April 6, 2014.
^ "Storycade: Twine "Everything you swallow will one day come up like a stone"". April 18, 2014. Archived from the original on October 25, 2016. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
^ Budgor, Zach. "Play This: Elegant Indie Cyberpunk Text Adventure Game 'Neon Haze'". Forbes. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
^ ^a ^b "Creative Capital – Investing in Artists who Shape the Future". creative-capital.org. Archived from the original on January 15, 2016. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
^ Muncy, Julie (September 13, 2017). "Porpentine's new Twine game isn't just a Twine game". Wired.
^ "Porpentine Charity Heartscape" in Cellarius Stories, Volume 1. Cellarius, Ed., New York: 2018, ISBN 978-1-949688-02-3.
^ Goldberg, Harold (October 7, 2013). "IndieCade Games Festival Celebrates Winners". ArtsBeat New York Times. Archived from the original on April 13, 2014. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
^ Indie Essentials: 25 Must-Play Video Games Archived November 2, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Museum of the Moving Image, accessed 2014-11-02.
^ "2014 Awards results | The XYZZY Awards". xyzzyawards.org. April 27, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2016.
^ "Hand Eye Society | WordPlay 2014 Photos and Awards". handeyesociety.com. November 9, 2014. Retrieved January 6, 2016.
^ Notkin, Debbie (December 15, 2016). "2016 Otherwise Fellowships « Otherwise Award". Otherwise Award. Retrieved February 16, 2020.
^ "WINNERS OF THE THIRD ANNUAL PRIX NET ART: Eva and Franco Mattes, Porpentine Charity Heartscape, Bogosi Sekhukhuni". Prix Net Art. Archived from the original on March 15, 2017. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
^ "Sundance Institute's New Frontier Story Lab Explores the Future with Six Creative Teams and Projects". www.sundance.org. May 12, 2016. Archived from the original on July 25, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2020.

Further reading

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Klepek, Patrick (January 21, 2014), "Porpentine's Wonderful World of Slime", Giant Bomb
"Hot Allostatic Load", The New Inquiry, May 11, 2015, retrieved February 26, 2015
Cotter, Holland (April 26, 2019). "Spring Gallery Guide: Below and Above Canal Street". The New York Times. Retrieved May 30, 2021.
Iadarola, Alexander. "Interview With Game Designer Porpentine Charity Heartscape". Mask Magazine. Archived from the original on July 28, 2019. Retrieved May 30, 2021.
Pearson, Lauren. "Porpentine Charity Heartscape on Experiment and Exploration". Arts Research Center. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved May 30, 2021.

External links

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Porpentine (game designer)

Porpentine (game designer)