Hypnogenesis

Hypnogenesis is a video synthesis arcade game designed by Andy Wallace and Allen Riley. The game is a psychedelic space shooter that uses video feedback as a core gameplay mechanic. The game state directly modifies frame buffer values in a customized version of Andrei Jay’s open source Video Waaaves software. Player controls are connected to parameters of the video synthesis software integrated into the game, so that by exploring the game, players simultaneously experiment with the creation of emergent visuals. Before video games, televisions were mostly not interactive; they were one-way receivers for broadcast signals. In the 1960s and 1970s, video artists like Nam June Paik artistically experimented with ways of interacting with video, for instance by placing a magnet on top of a television to warp the image, or by creating video feedback by pointing a video camera at its own output monitor to create emergent visual patterns. We imagine that Hypnogenesis is part of an alternate history of games that followed from this spirit of experimentation. In other words, what if video games were based on video synthesizers? This game is intended to be shown in an arcade format with a dual joystick controller and CRT monitor.