访谈：Ben Wheele 谈 Buitopia DVD、恐怖动画与生日

Games are a very versatile medium. From the smallest mobile games to the largest AAA releases, games can take any shape and form. Recently, a very different type of game caught my eye. Buitopia DVD is a game that is almost impossible to describe. The most straight forward overview is that it’s a point and click adventure game, but presented as DVD menus. Even a description like that feels like it doesn’t quite do it justice.

You’re transported into the DVD world of Buitopia on a strange and sometimes horrific odyssey. Your task? To find a birthday present for Buitopia’s one human inhabitant: Jess. Seeing such a fresh idea for video game presentation piqued my interest immediately, and I made sure to keep my eye on it. I recently had the chance to not only play Buitopia DVD, which is available now on PC via Steam, but to also talk to the lead from developer Nondoon Interactive—Ben Wheele. We hope you enjoy this exclusive interview, and we’d like to thank Nondoon Interactive for making this coverage possible!

Just for people who don’t know; who are you, and how would you best describe yourself?

Ben Wheele (BW): Hi folks, I’m Ben Wheele. I’m an animator and artist. I tend to make surreal, horror themed animations on YouTube.

You’ve been making art and short films since at least 2003. Have you been creating all your life and how did you discover that passion that could grow into all the things you’ve created? 

BW: I’ve always wanted to be an artist. My Dad worked as an illustrator and taught me a lot as I was growing up. Animation came later – I started off using Microsoft 3D Movie Maker and discovered a community online, then I became obsessed with East-European surrealist animation, and those elements kinda stuck with me.

You’re the mind behind the famous “Henry Eats” video, which really displays your unique style and humour front and center. How did you find that balance between the peculiar and horrifying that makes your projects so fascinating to watch?

BW: Thanks! When I made Henry Eats I didn’t set out to make a horror film, but it’s subsequently been interpreted in that way. I think humour and horror are closely linked. I’ve watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre too many times to count, and its absurd humour somehow makes the film more horrifying. Inversely, great comedy often has a dark side, which makes it funnier. Tim and Eric are amazing at this.

You used to mostly work in 2D, but have since shifted to a very multifaceted approach including 3D, collage work, and now pixel art. How do you find working in different mediums and how do you translate your style between them all?

BW: I’ve always struggled a bit with what my “style” actually is. I started off in 2D because I just didn’t have the skills to properly make stuff in 3D, and I was never taught animation traditionally so kind of made it up. It was only later that I studied the principles of animation. I do enjoy playing around with styles, being a bit of a chameleon and absorbing different looks into my work. 

Let’s get to video games! What would you say are your favourite games? How have they influenced you both in and outside of Buitopia DVD? 

BW: Phew. There’s so many… In terms of game design, I really love The Witness, The Outer Wilds and Myst. In those games, the player gains knowledge of the game world, and can subsequently complete the game. I wanted a similar thing in Buitopia – it can be completed very quickly if the player knows enough about the game world.

Most of my playtesters haven’t reached the canon ending yet… but that’s okay… I like it when games have a sense of depth that is hard to reach, but is actually hidden in plain sight. In terms of storytelling, 1000xResist absolutely blew me away, particularly the voice acting. In terms of visual style, I think weird visual novels like Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk were an influence.

I remember seeing an old website you had made that had some old GameMaker titles of yours on it. How was it returning to the world of game creation and how do you find using modern day game creation tools? Was there any struggle?

BW: Funnily enough, I didn’t use too many modern tools for Buitopia – I mostly used DVD Lab Pro 2.0 which is no longer in development. It was refreshing to use this old tool. It’s a beautifully designed piece of software, with wonderful, humorous documentation built-in. People talk about “enshittification,” and I honestly think it applies a bit to software too. Modern game engines are powerful, vast tools, but older software was really designed with the user in mind, and it was built to last. One of the main struggles was navigating the file structure created by ‘teenage Ben’. As a teenager I never followed any naming conventions, so the folders were like some dadaist labyrinth. The challenge was organising that chaos while keeping the energy intact.

Would you consider DVD games to be an unsung source for early gaming memories? Have we lost a medium for entertainment with the decline of DVDs?

BW: Well, I’m surprised there weren’t more interesting DVD games back in the day. Like where were the Visual Novels? Text Adventures? (I guess they had some in Japan…) In the West DVDs were associated with the film industry, not the games industry, so we didn’t get many original Interactive DVD-game IPs. I have a fond memory of finding Easter Eggs in DVD menus, and I always enjoyed exploring them.

My favourite DVD was Chris Morris’s Jam. It had two discs, and the second disc was a distorted / remixed version of the first disc. I hope there will be a return of DVDs and Blu-rays. Streaming is convenient, but with virtually infinite content to consume, it becomes disposable. With physical media, you get to curate your own collection with intention and care. It becomes an investment.

How did working within the confines of what a DVD player can do change the game design? What drew you to this format as opposed to, for example, a graphic adventure game?

BW: The biggest design challenge was the lack of a save-game feature. For me, the solution was designing an interesting ‘password save’ system. I also took some inspiration from The Outer Wilds, albeit on a much smaller scale; the player gains knowledge, and then has the ability to complete the game. Along the way, I discovered that DVD has it’s own weird little programming language too, and was surprised how deep it went. I’m convinced the creative potential of DVD games was never fully realised back in the day. QA takes on an added level of importance with DVD too. That was hard. If there are bugs or errors, there’s no way to patch everyone’s discs! I can’t guarantee I tested it for every possible bug… but I did a LOT of testing… oh boy…

What can we expect when we get to know Jess and the world of Buitopia?

BW: To me, the character of Jess embodies the dilemma of nostalgia. The allure of escaping into the past forever… and the dangers of becoming obsolete and the distortion of memories. It feels strange that Jess is going to be shared with the world… I feel like I’ve gotten to know her personally. 

There’s a dreamlike melancholy to your work and it is in spades when exploring Buitopia. What draws you to that motif, and was it in mind when first crafting the world of the DVD?

BW: So I actually started making Buitopia over 20 years ago, but lost the project on an old PC and couldn’t open it. When I finally recovered it, all these years later, I felt a profound sense of nostalgia. I was surprised how emotional it made me. I think that melancholy got reflected in the rest of the game. I made the decision to keep most of my original ‘teenage’ artwork unchanged, but to delve deeper inside the world itself. I suppose, this project has been my way of apologizing to Jess for abandoning her on a DVD for 20 years. 

Buitopia DVD contains a lot of shared themes with modern digital horror, particularly the theme of escapism. How do you think players will react to how they’re presented in Buitopia DVD?

BW: I’m fascinated by how escapism intersects with modern horror and web culture today. I love the Backrooms so much. It feels like an escape from reality, albeit a terrifying one. If given the choice, I think a lot of people would live inside the Backrooms. Honestly, I have no idea how people will react to Buitopia DVD. Some people have found it very sad, others find it funny or terrifying. It is a deeply strange game, with probably some frustrating aspects.  If I were to make a game from scratch today, it wouldn’t be like Buitopia DVD. But I felt duty-bound to finish this old project, even if it was started by an edgy 2000s teenager. 

What does a Wiggul taste like? My guess is blue raspberry, or maybe some sort of currant. 

BW: Blue raspberry is a suspiciously accurate guess there, Dante. Remember, consuming Wigguls in real life carries potential health risks!

And to wrap things up… What would you get Jess for her Birthday? 

BW: I think I’d just give her a hug.

The post Interview: Ben Wheele on Buitopia DVD, Horror Animation, and Birthdays appeared first on Final Weapon.