AS Photography
Jude White
Press E to Enjoy
In recent years, video games have been striving to become more and more interactive, allowing players to control events. However, recently the new ‘Call of Duty’ game, ‘Advanced Warfare,’ became something of a joke amongst the gaming community. In a funeral scene during the game, players were told to ‘Press E to pay respects,’ an unnecessary and almost laughable attempt at player interactivity. This made me wonder how enjoyable games would be if players were put in control of the character’s whole life. I found this prospect quite amusing, a game about the monotony of ordinary life; games are, after all, a form of escapism, and so I decided to create a shoot revolving around this idea. I photographed several uninteresting moments from my daily routine, from a first person perspective, and edited these to look like complete video games, using objective lists, mini-maps and inventory screens to further boost the illusion. I even removed some of the detail from the images in Photoshop to make them seem more artificial, using the 'Dust and Scratches' filter option.
In the style of a classic RPG (Role Playing Game), I have featured a book being read to gain 'experience' in the world of the game, mirroring experiences gained from reading it in real life. In order to highlight the book, I drew lines and semitransparent boxes around it in photoshop.
This image not only mocks the monotony of some games, by using a very dull moment as its basis, but also my own love of coffee. I created an inventory screen in photoshop, as well as a mini-map.
In this image, I continue to mock the unnecessary nature of constant interactivity, but also the ridiculousness of QTEs (Quick Time Events). I took the most monotonous task I could think of, and made it seem supposedly exciting by using a bold, destroyed font, a huge button prompt and a threatening red aura around the edge of the screen, like many real QTEs in games.