Two Rail - Shooters - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 50

Now on to the other stuff; endorphins are pain killing chemicals, analgesics and
anesthetics that are produced naturally in the brain to reduce pain. They are also
produced as a result of exercise, sexual activity, bungee jumping and other extreme
sports and, interestingly, laughter. So-called thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies
may not be addicted to the rush of adrenaline but to an endorphin high. We might
view endorphins as the brain's chemistry of pleasure, in other words, the mechanism
by which we feel the aesthetic pleasures of games. This means that Rez is an “ endor-
phin machine” because its gameplay stimulates aesthetic pleasures to a high degree.
Actually, all good games should do this, but Rez is designed to do this in particular
ways and this is where that word synesthesia comes in.
In the previous section we noted the importance of music and graphics to the
aesthetic pleasures of Rez. These turned an old game form into something that
seemed new and even revolutionary, but there is much more to it than just interesting
sound and graphics, and, indeed, vibrations in the Japanese version of the game. In
the development of Rez, sound and graphics are synchronized as part of an integrated
or synthesized aesthetic experience, synesthesia. This is a phenomenon that has been
discussed by artists since a hundred years ago, people like the painter Kandinsky
and the composer Scriabin, who were looking at the way different senses work
together or cross over.
For example, when you hear something, those sounds might create a picture in
your mind. You might smell something, and link that to a visual image. Now we
can create art that combines different senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, and so on,
together. Rez attempts to put this into practice because the messages it sends to dif-
ferent senses are not discrete components of the experience. They all interact with
and infl uence each other.
Mizuguchi explains it best himself. “Basically, in our use, whenever you hear
a sound it evokes a visual representation and whenever you see a visual image
there is always the sense of its representation in sound. Or when you smell some-
thing it reminds you of a sound you've heard. Any time there is one sense intercon-
nected with another, that's synesthesia: the interconnection of all the senses. So to
use synaesthesia is to provide an experience on many different sensual levels” (quote
from an interview no longer available).
For a number of years Clive regularly took the Circle Line train in London
between Victoria Station and Earls Court. He would arrive at Victoria main line
station, go down the escalator and walk through the underground subway passages
and then fi nally up a fl ight of steps to fi nally arrive at the far end of the Circle Line
station. At that end of the platform and only at that end there was a smell; something
to do with oil and electricity and grime and something else. But that smell always
reminded Clive of his grandmother's breakfasts and bubble and squeak in particular.
It always brought to his mind a picture of the family sitting down to breakfast and
all the furniture, the pictures on the walls, the open fi re, and so many other details
he was always surprised that he remembered. All because of a strange smell on the
London Underground. That' s synesthesia.
What Mizuguchi doesn't say in the above quote but which does become appar-
ent in another interview (Mizuguchi) is that the visual and auditory synesthesia