Discussions from the window of a car, of a bus. Stickers with anti-nationalist motifs, huge stickers decorated with LED lights, rolling paper. one boombox that paves the way for a mix of nineties vibes; thousands of urban and electronic rhythms that give off values ​​and a desire to live. Go up to any rooftop with a brother to spend another car; change the reel. Vandalism making art, art making vandalism. Everything is contained, drawn, rendered in an almost inexplicable, unbelievable virtuality, but, at the same time, everything seems so familiar, so close, so mine. Umurangi Generation, the first and last game created by Naphtali Faulkner (a.k.a. Veselekov), configures an experience openly disturbed by our global situation; for the point of no return to which we are facing - if we have not already passed it - from an ecological point of view and, consequently, for the future of our civilization. However, in its artistic-playful duality, it seems even more concerned with providing us with a safe space in which to be and be than to force us to deliver its message. 

Playing Umurangi Generation is an experience as refreshing as it is strange for the blockbuster fan, and it makes sense that this is so given his particular way of understanding the action. Even among the intersections of the so-called open worlds that the industry oozes for hundreds of years with the passing of each year - and that regularly boast of waving the banners of media freedom [1]— there is a very marked linearity; a series of missions, tasks and tasks that rarely give us the possibility to enjoy their mechanics and environments without time trials or pressures imposed by the rhythm of the narration. Stripped of challenges and understanding its progression more as a tool to present itself as a video game than as a series of obstacles for the player, the proposal of Veselekov, who prefers to put in our hands a camera before a rifle or a Glock, a mask or gloves, makes it easier for anyone to navigate the notion of play as a communicative act and the construction of meaning, without more impositions than those of walking and studying the environment from an artistic perspective. In the eye of a maelstrom of graffiti and neon lights waiting to be caught by our lens, it's just us and our camera, and we have all the time in the world for that relationship to sprout a symbiosis capable of satisfying us, filling us and liberating us so much artistic and personal level.

The act of existing and being in the video game, however, should not be postulated as something reserved neither for this class of intimate court productions nor for adventures like Proteus or The Beginner’s Guide, who understand such an action as a pivot point on which to govern the rest of the narrative and playable conglomeration. After all, both concepts can show off their excellent relationship with the inmersion, a controversial but omnipresent term in the study and understanding of the playful work that tends to be usually misinterpreted by the community (understanding it as the capacity of the medium to insert us under the skin of others and give us avataridad [2] rather than as one that allows us to empathize with the narrative developments that our characters are always subjected to). It is only the immersion, like Tao del videojuego—over and above the purpose of having fun or entertaining—that allows us to inhabit the streets of Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto IV; walk through them, visit their parks and establishments until we detach ourselves from the notions of duty and time; until our game experience is governed by those micronarratives that emerge from urban idiosyncrasies, crossed by traumas, desires and hopes.

As players, we have the immense luck of regularly accessing a universe characterized by a very powerful duality, which can be enjoyed in the least personal, emotional and intellectual way possible (this being an ironically widespread situation in titles for mobile devices and / or multiplayer). It's good that this is so, because there must also be room for empty entertainment, for escapist gaming [4]. However, I do not think that any of these experiences need to eclipse in our optical cone their artistic counterparts, for which, more than identification, a vital involvement with the game is required on the part of the one who consumes it, who observes it , that perverts it, that lives it. So let's go to the video game; let's contemplate his marabunta, let's study his non-places. Let's inhabit it without haste, without prejudice, from nothing to nothing, because that's the only way we can be, at least for a few moments, in a space and time different from ours. With any luck, maybe there we will find a less uncertain future.