One of the earliest forms of art that have ever I done was modification of game content. In former Soviet Union personal computers were not common. One of the first build your own schematics were date to 1986. They were text based terminal stations, with processor architecture similar to Sinclare Comondore Line. My father who is Computer Engineer build me one of these beasts, the computer case was build out of titanium and was roughly 24"x24"x8". It had whooping 64kb of RAM without any HD. It did not even have a disk drive! The only way to load program on it was to use tape deck. Naturaly the first thing I have done was to start playing computer games...
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There were two types of games that were common place for that system (RK86), there were uncompiled games made in basic or compiled binaries in assembler. Naturally the first thing I have done was to play computer games, there was one game in particular called "Воры и Охраники" ("Guards and Thieves"). It was a Puzzle Platformer all done in glorious B&W ASSCI. After a while I got stuck in one level and and was not able to beat the game, I started to figure out how to cheat a game...
My computer had a built-in hex editor to edit RAM content. I have decided to EDIT the compiled game. After some trial and error I was able to find out place in the RAM where walls and floors of each level were stored, by figuring out HEX values of the ASCI characters I was able to edit the level to make it easy to play through. This lead me to idea. Why not modify game for the LEVELS to have subversive content. Mind you, it was already 1988, two years into Glasnost program. The old regime was crumbling, people were beginning to wake up from the slumber of oppression. So I was not in any danger of punishment for my silly transgressions. I then propagated my subversive art although back at that time I did not considered it to be art, I was just 12 years old kid. Eventually other people caught on and begun making their own modifications.
In 2014 my homeland Ukraine, suffered cataclysmic events, cedented land grab by Russian Federation. While doing project in Istanbul I have had access to the Russian Cable television. What I found was that Russian Media created a mythos around event in Ukraine. From the news I learned that Ukraine has been taken over by Russian hating Fascist dictatorship, that want to kill any one who speaks Russian. I was horrified by the amount of miss information, hysteria and hate that was generated by the Russian News. Naturally I decided to make fun of them, and what is better way of doing that if not hacking graphics of beloved recognizable classic, Wolf3D.
Wolf3D was the one of the earliest 1stPeson Shooter games, it had sprite graphics, 8bit colors and was made for Microsoft DOS. My partner has strange obsession with that game. We would spend hours playing it together. She would press fire button and I would be responsible for moving and dodging bullets. Thus the choice for the game was obvious. what was more important, the game is build around the image of the commando who takes on the entire NAZI Germany. The "Myth Of The Hero" is apparent. The myth of the strong and just ruler is one of the cornerstones of Russian Psyche. President Putin has found a way how to tap it's potential. Especially after the annexation of Crimean Peninsula, and East Ukraine intervention. Each hero needs a monster to fight agains, Ukranian uprising has provided the basis of the narrative. Facts became “Fake News”, hysteria is the norm of communication. Putin became the hero who alone protects Russian soverenigity. For me analogy became thus apparent. The only thing left was to figure out how to hack the graphics…
Wolf3D had stored all of the sprite information in the WAD files. There were bunch of graphics editors written for modification of the game. My initial idea was to run a virtual machine that would support WindowsXP and run most of the MOD Editors from there. There were however limitations that I did not like, #1 Windows Xp licenses needed for virtualization, #2 Adherence to strict rules of compliance, etc. I did however find that ID Software developer of the game, has made a Java Script version of the Wolf3D. Because of this I was able to modify graphics very efficiently, and present modified version of the software within a moth from conception.
This route for game modification is the simplest one, it does however poses challenges for the artists. Will the game logic be enough to fulfill the needs of the project, or the logic has to be modified as well. The best games to be used for the art projects are the ones who either have built-in level and logic editors (Minecraft, Syms etc) There is no preset workflow, but they key element in my opinion is this “How can I decontextualize the narrative, of the game by going the path of the least resistance and complexity).
I am currently working on Trump version of the game to be played simultaneously with Volk3d. The images change but perverted nature of the “Hero Myth” remains the same.
PS Just realized that link to the game that I posted does not work properly. My old website was hacked few days ago, so stay put