Toen mijn vader de afgelopen weken snel achteruit ging, bedacht ik dat ik nog eens een goed gesprek met hem wilde voeren. Misschien, zei ik tegen mezelf, moet ik hem interviewen.

Het is niet alsof ik mijn vader niet ken. Maar als ik aan hem denk zie ik vooral een opeenvolging van beelden: achter het stuur in zijn geliefde Volvo Amazone, vloekend bij het in elkaar zetten van een bureaustoel, op de bank met koffie met zoveel suiker dat je als de koffie op was suikerprut kon lepelen.

Ik ken mijn vader vooral van bijna 40 jaar samen zíjn, en misschien een beetje van de verhalen die hij vertelde, vaak over vroeger, maar het is niet alsof we lange diepe gesprekken voerden. Er is veel wat ik weet, maar nog veel meer wat ik niet weet.

Het mooie van een interview is dat je je kunt verstoppen achter je rol als journalist: vertel de mensen nu eens hoe het écht zit, meneer ’t Hooft. Dat je een vragenlijst kunt voorbereiden. Onschuldig kunt beginnen en dan opbouwen naar levensvragen. Dat het erbij hoort dat je je van de domme houdt en steeds om verduidelijking vraagt.

Misschien had hij het niet eens gewild, misschien zou het niet uit de verf zijn gekomen. Misschien zou er geen tijd meer voor zijn. Toch begon het idee van een interview te rijpen in mijn hoofd.

Maar elke keer dat ik mijn vader sprak was hij vermoeider en praatte hij moeilijker. Heel soms was er hoop dat zijn situatie misschien weer zou verbeteren. Op die momenten vulde ik mijn vragenlijstje aan. Bereidde ik me voor.

Hoe was het om in de jaren ’50 en ’60 naar school te gaan?

Wat wilde hij worden als hij later groot was?

Waarom had hij eigenlijk voor de fotografie gekozen? 

Die merken van hem, Coca-Cola, Canon, Camel, Volvo… waarom juist die, en waarom ging hij er zo prat op?

Ik was benieuwd waar de dingen vandaan kwamen die na afloop vanzelfsprekend leken.

Hoe dacht hij dat het zou zijn om kinderen te krijgen? En hoe was het om ze uiteindelijk te hebben? Als hij op de vraag wat hij voor zijn verjaardag wilde steevast antwoordde “lieve kindertjes”, hoeveel procent daarvan meende hij dan?

Vond hij ons een beetje gelukt? Hij zei nooit veel over trots of zo, maar je voelde wel dat hij het was, denk ik.

Hoe was dat met zijn kleinkinderen?

Hoe vond hij het eigenlijk om zijn ouders oud te zien worden en dood te zien gaan?

Hoe vond hij het om zelf oud te worden?

En: hij wist vanaf het begin dat hij net als iedereen een keer dood zou gaan. Wat vond hij daarvan toen hij jong was? En hoe veranderde dat toen het een actuele kwestie werd?

De vraag waarmee ik het interview had willen openen was de volgende: wat is eigenlijk je allereerste jeugdherinnering?

Míjn eerste jeugdherinnering van mijn vader is een foto. Foto’s zijn toch een soort nepherinneringen, chemisch verankerd in lichtgevoelig papier, die je als het ware van iemand kunt overnemen.

Het is een foto waarop mijn vader met zijn broer en zus in het zwembad is, ergens in Indonesië, waar het gezin vanaf kort na zijn geboorte woonde. Hij is droomachtig die foto, de jungle lonkend op de achtergrond, een symbool voor de paradijselijke jeugd in een tropisch land die mijn vader zich herinnerde, waar hij volgens mij eigenlijk altijd naar terug wilde.

Er is meer te zien op die foto. Mijn oom Theo en mijn tante Joke zwemmen, maar mijn vader zit op de rand, zijn benen opgetrokken, en hij kijkt een beetje angstig. Als enige wil hij niet het water in.

Ook dit is een symbool. Theo zwom, Theo die naar Australië emigreerde. En Joke zwom, Joke die met haar gezin onder andere op Curaçao woonde. En mijn vader, die zat op de rand, mijn vader die als enige niet het diepe in wilde, die als enige in Nederland bleef, en bijna 40 jaar voor dezelfde baas werkte.

Dit is die foto:

Toch anders dan ik me hem herinnerde, zoals dat gaat. Er is niets van een jungle te zien, er is sowieso weinig exotisch aan, het zou eigenlijk net zo goed een Nederlands zwembad kunnen zijn. Mijn oom en tante hebben zwembanden, dat was ik vergeten.

En mijn vader heeft zijn benen helemaal niet opgetrokken op het droge. Hij kijkt helemaal niet angstig, hij kijkt blíj. Als hij een afkeer van water had zie je dat niet aan deze foto. Het zou zomaar kunnen dat hij na dit poseermoment opstond, een duik nam, en verder zwom.

Dit is trouwens kort geleden in Thailand:

De gebroeders ’t Hooft dragen zwemvesten, maar zwemmen kunnen ze, en ze lijken het nog leuk te vinden ook.

Toen we de afgelopen dagen papa’s Dropbox-map doorzochten, vonden we een nog oudere foto, deze:

 Lekker vaag is hij, zoals het hoort bij een foto van een leeftijd waar maar een enkeling heldere beelden bij heeft.

Mijn vader werd 8 op de dag dat het gezin Indonesië verliet, de scheepskok had taart voor hem gemaakt. Joke was al een tiener, haar herinneringen aan die tijd zijn heel concreet. Theo herinnert zich minder, hij was 9, maar mijn vader? Volgens Theo herinnerde Adri zich “helemaal niets”. Behalve dan dat de taart op de boot niet lekker was geweest.

Begin dit jaar, in januari, ging papa terug naar Indonesië, en na afloop zei hij dat het er meteen vertrouwd was. Je hoort wel vaker dat mensen zich vooral de geur, de sfeer, het gevoel herinneren. Het is misschien makkelijker om je aan zo’n gevoel vast te houden dan aan iets concreets.

Ik had hem willen vragen nog eens over Indonesië te vertellen. Wist hij echt nog maar zo weinig?

Herinnerde hij zich de periode erna nog wel? Hoe had hij het gevonden om in dat natte koude land te komen wonen?

Vanaf dat punt wilde ik mijn vragen duwen in de richting van verwachtingen. Hoe had hij zijn leven voorgesteld toen hij opgroeide? Wat was er van die ideeën terechtgekomen? Was hij daar boos over, of tevreden? Had het hem verrast of juist niet?

Jaren terug vond ik een schrift op zolder, uit zijn jeugd waarschijnlijk, waarin politieke kreten stonden geschreven. Ongeduldige vragen over oorlog en vrede. Dierenwelzijn. Dat soort kwesties. Een preciezere beschrijving heb ik niet, want voor mij is dit ook een jeugdherinnering, en ik zou niet weten waar dat schrift nu zou moeten zijn.

Ik had hem ernaar willen vragen omdat ik wilde weten welke plek die grote kwesties hadden gekregen in dat grotendeels rustige gezinsleven van hem, en die grotendeels stabiele baan. Had hij nooit meer de behoefte om de wereld te veranderen, of in elk geval te bevragen?

Mijn vader was een tiener in de jaren ’60, een jongvolwassene in de jaren ’70, hij groeide op met ideeën van liefde en vrijheid, hij moet een easy rider geweest willen zijn. Hoe kwam de rest van zijn leven daar precies uit voort?

Als kind zie je je ouders als een soort superhelden, goden, onsterfelijke alleskunners. Maar dan blijk je op je 10de al beter dan zij in Super Mario. Willen ze ineens niet meer met elkaar verder. Blijken het heel gewone mensen met gebreken te zijn. Die uiteindelijk ziek en zwak worden, tot ze niets meer kunnen behalve liggen, en niet eens meer echt zijn.

Ik weet nog dat mijn vader bijna 20 jaar geleden een opdracht deed voor een kennis van me, en dat die kennis niet blij was met het geleverde werk. Het was voor het eerst dat ik stilstond bij het idee dat mijn vader misschien helemaal niet goed was in wat hij deed, of althans niet altijd, of niet voor iedereen.

Later hadden we het uitgebreider over zijn werk, over klussen die de mist in waren gegaan, over conflictsituaties waarin hij terecht was gekomen. De fout lag dan meestal bij de ander, wat ik een beetje verdacht vond.

Mensen hebben altijd gezegd dat ik zo op mijn vader lijk. Mijn buurjongetje noemde mijn vader laatst “de oude Niels”. Daarom vond ik het falen van mijn vader extra moeilijk. Alsof het ook iets zei over mij.

Hij was trouwens wél goed in zijn werk. Zijn oud-collega Peter van Mulken omschreef hem afgelopen zondag in een mailtje als “ervaren, betrokken, stabiel, degelijk, betrouwbaar, oplossingsgericht”. Dat herken ik: hij zorgde dat duidelijk was wat er moest gebeuren, begon dan ook meteen, en werkte noest door tot het af was.

Hij was ook degene die de fotodienst Biologie aan de Universiteit Leiden het digitale tijdperk in sleurde. Die zó blij was met de komst van de pc en van Photoshop, ook omdat hij daardoor geen doka meer hoefde te bouwen om zelfstandig opdrachten aan te kunnen nemen.

Hij was geen kunstenaar denk ik, maar wel een vakman. En hij was geen ondernemer. Daarnaast had hij paar keer gewoon pech. De digitale revolutie waarover hij zich verheugd had, zorgde er tegelijk voor dat mensen dachten dat ze ‘zelf wel even wat foto’s konden maken’, zeker in tijden van bezuinigingen. Dat kostte hem uiteindelijk zijn baan.

Daarna had hij een paar magere jaren met veel te weinig echt werk, met gesollicileur en rotbaantjes, tot hij eindelijk met pensioen kon, meer financiële ruimte kreeg en zijn tropische droom kon najagen.

Maar goed, dat had ik dus ook wel aan mijn vader willen vragen: in hoeverre vond hij nou dat ik op hem leek? Iedereen zei het, maar wat vond hij?

Nu zal ik het moeten doen met mijn eigen antwoord: natuurlijk lijk ik op hem, maar ik ben vooral ook mezelf.

Zelfs als ik dezelfde soort grapjes maak ben ik mezelf.

Zelfs als ik dezelfde soort flarden van liedjes zing.

Zelfs als ik dezelfde soort uitspraken blijf herhalen, als die eenmaal in mijn hoofd zijn gekropen.

Als wij vroeger ruzie maakten, zei mijn vader vroeger bijvoorbeeld: “Kinderen, zoals professor Barabas al zei, bemint elkander.” Dat is bij mij dus ook blijven hangen. [Voetnoot: ik heb eens een shirt laten maken met ‘Bemint elkander’ erop. Dat had ik die dag aangetrokken.]

Als er geklust werd en de rolmaat kwam tevoorschijn, dan was het altijd, echt altijd: “Meten is weten!”

Of, als we ’s morgens beneden kwamen: “Dat de abrikozen in de scheiding van je haar mogen groeien.”

Mijn zusje Lieke dacht dat dit een Chinees gezegde was, maar hij had het gewoon zelf verzonnen, of opgevangen van een poëtische collega. [Voetnoot: op de rouwkaart hebben we het aan mijn vader toegeschreven, in de citatenboekjes mag hij nu dus tussen de Chinese wijsgeren.]

Wat was het nou in zo’n uitspraak dat hij bleef hangen? Het absurdistische? De soepele kadans? De vruchtbare positieve wens?

Wat is de zin van het leven volgens jou?

Zal ik deze zomer bij je langskomen in Thailand?

Eén vraag die we hem wel hebben kunnen stellen is of hij nog wensen had. Drie weken geleden was dat, na het eerste gesprek met de oncoloog. “Heb je eigenlijk een bucket list, pap?” vroeg Lieke.

Hij zei toen alleen dat hij nog wel meer van de wereld had willen zien. En dat hij wist dat het niet meer kon, “vanwege de financiën” zei hij, maar we wisten allemaal dat er nog een andere reden was.

Hij voegde eraan toe dat hij zich er ook op verheugde weer een thuis te hebben. We hadden een appartement voor hem geregeld aan de Diamantlaan, voor als hij opgelapt zou zijn. Een appartement aan het water. “Dan gooi ik een hengeltje uit, door het raam,” zei hij.

Waar hij vervolgens aan toevoegde: “Maar ik hou helemaal niet van vissen. Zielig voor de dieren.” Wat niet wegnam dat hij ze met uitjes op een broodje heerlijk vond.

Maar goed, misschien wilde hij het dus al die tijd allebei tegelijk. De wereld zien, de wereld verbeteren, idealistisch leven, maar ook een eigen plekje hebben, pragmatisch leven. Imagine all the people maar óók Our House. [Voetnoot: deze 2 liedjes kwamen voorbij tijdens de plechtigheid.]

Het mooie is dat beide zijn gelukt. Jarenlang had papa dat eigen plekje met zijn gezin. En de bucket list ten spijt was het reizen er ook van gekomen. In de jaren ’80 speurde hij het Victoriameer in Tanzania af naar regenboogvisjes. Na de scheiding was hij een tijd in Australië. Nog niet heel lang geleden fotografeerde hij eeuwenoud schoeisel in Egypte. En de afgelopen 2,5 jaar woonde hij grotendeels in Thailand.

Ik denk dat we allemaal een beetje sceptisch waren toen papa daarheen ging. Wat dacht hij daar dan precies te vinden, wat wij hem hier niet konden bieden? Natuurlijk ging het niet om ons, maar in zo’n situatie denk je zulke dingen nu eenmaal.

Maar toen ik zag hoe opgewekt, en blakend van gezondheid, hij de eerste keer na driekwart jaar Thailand terugkwam wist ik dat het goed was. Ik zag iemand die na een leven zelfverkozen thuiszitten toch nog even vrij was.

Dat hij bijna al zijn spullen had weggedaan, ook een vorm van vrijheid, is nu heel praktisch. Er hoeft niets uitgezocht, niets verdeeld te worden, want hij had niets meer, nou ja, een koffer, een telefoon en een gigantische Dropbox-map met foto’s. En veel van zijn schulden waren afbetaald.

Heeft hij die vrijheid voluit kunnen voelen? Was het een opluchting? Was hij gelukkig?

De 2de keer kwam hij heel anders terug. Vermagerd en met een grauwe huid. Achter het glas van de bagageband-hal op Schiphol zag ik hem trillend, tergend traag de simkaart van zijn telefoon verwisselen, de Thaise voor de Nederlandse.

Iedereen die hem zag wist dat er iets niet goed was. Hij had pijn in zijn onderbuik en een teruglopende eetlust, tot hij niets meer door zijn keel kreeg.

In de hotelkamer waar hij een paar weken zou verblijven, vond mijn zusje Myrddin toen ze zijn spullen ophaalde een zakje pinda’s, een bifiworstje, stroopwafels, een Twix. Als hij iets wegkreeg dan waren het die dingen, zijn favoriete lekkernijen. Maar hij had er hoogstens een muizenhapje van kunnen nemen.

Hij werd 2 keer geopereerd aan zijn darmen, het liep toen al bijna verkeerd af, maar hij herstelde wonderwel. Maar toen hij na een maand ziekenhuis naar de herstelzorg in Leiderdorp mocht, begon hij toch weer achteruit te gaan. Eerst langzaam, toen snel, toen zelfs nog sneller.

Hij mopperde niet eens zo heel veel, vond ik, wat ik wel had verwacht van iemand die altijd mopperde dat zijn ouders – zeker naarmate ze oud en ziek werden – zoveel mopperden.

Hij rookte tot het laatst, tot het zelfs een beetje gevaarlijk was omdat hij door de morfine niet helemaal door had wat hij deed. Dronk koffie voor zover dat nog ging, een nog grotere verslaving.

Heb je spijt van die slechte gewoontes nu je weet hoe je eindigt?

Hoe was het om alweer bijna 15 jaar geleden eerst blaaskanker, daarna een hartinfarct, en toen ook nog diabetes te krijgen? Voelde je je verraden door je lichaam?

De laatste notitie die hij op zijn telefoon maakte was een reeks gestaag dalende gewichtsmetingen. Want meten is weten.

Mijn vader was moe. Hij had er genoeg van. En hij was altijd heel duidelijk geweest: niet te lang lijden, geen kasplantje, als het nergens meer op lijkt dan moet het maar afgelopen zijn.

Het duurde niet te lang. 2,5 dag maar vanaf het 2de gesprek met de oncoloog, waarbij hij in slaap viel, te moe voor de uitslagen van zijn onderzoeken. Wat maakte het ook uit dat hij waarschijnlijk in zijn buik en botten uitgezaaide blaaskanker had. [Voetnoot: uit de obductie zou nog blijken dat het niet in zijn botten zat, wel in zijn nieren en lymfeklieren. Same difference.]

En we waren er allemaal: zijn vier kinderen, en zijn zus, met af en toe wat aanhang en kleinkinderen. Alleen Theo was op afstand, maar die is er nu ook bij.

En er werden grapjes gemaakt, en er werd muziek van vroeger geluisterd, en er werden verhalen van vroeger verteld, zoals hij het had gewild denk ik, dus dat was mooi. We dronken samen zelfs alvast een blikje cola op zijn nagedachtenis.

En er was een verloren moment waarop ik dacht, o, nu gaat mijn interview dus niet door.

Op 3 oktober werd duidelijk dat hij ons binnen afzienbare tijd zou verlaten, maar met Leids Ontzet had hij weinig als iemand die in Hengelo, Overijssel geboren was, en overal en nergens woonde, en dus werd het 4 oktober, Dierendag, waarop hij overleed. Maar niet te vroeg want zoals hij zei als hij de katten ’s ochtends eten gaf, “eerst de dieren, dan de mensen”. De dieren kunnen namelijk niet voor zichzelf zorgen.

Toen mijn vader hierachter zaterdag lag opgebaard leek hij volgens mijn dochter Sun een beetje op een poes. Ze had gelijk, want door hoe de mensen hier hem hadden gedrapeerd zaten er wat rimpels langs zijn gezicht die wel wat deden denken aan snorharen, en hij had een nog smaller gezicht dan de laatste tijd, een spits kattenneusje. Alweer op weg naar een ander leven, of gewoon geëindigd als kat.

Voor de zekerheid had ik hem nog willen vragen hoe hij de dood zag, of hij nog ergens in geloofde of zo, maar ik zal genoegen moeten nemen met dat ik denk dat ik het antwoord wel weet.

Haruki Murakami: “I think video games are closer to fiction than anything else these days.”

Interviewer: “Video games?”

Murakami: “Yes. I don’t like playing video games myself, but I feel the similarity.”

The above fragment comes from the interview literary magazine The Paris Review did with the popular Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. It struck a chord with me.

12 or 13 years ago I somehow started reading Sputnik Sweetheart, or maybe South of the Border, West of the Sun. Someone had recommended Murakami to me, or maybe I read an article. Actually, now I think about it, the first one was South of the Border. I recall choosing it because it was significantly shorter than his other novels in the bookstore. Short novels are a fine way to get to know a writer.

After that I read pretty much all of Murakami’s novels and story collections that’d been translated to Dutch or English.¹ My thirst just couldn’t be quenched. Right from the start I was struck by how these books were both exotic and strange, and so very familiar.

Over time my passion waned a bit. Kafka on the Shore was the first book that disappointed. It set up a lot of great stuff, the first part totally had me, but it didn’t really come together in the end. I also started noticing the repetition of themes and motifs between books. But while I got a little less hyped which each successive story, I kept devouring the work. It became a bit of a guilty pleasure, never surprising but always comfortable. And I kept wondering how books by a Japanese man twice my age could feel so close to home.

Then I stumbled upon the above quote, and I thought: of course! It’s games! Long before I read Murakami, I played video games. Especially in the nineties, when they were my favorite hobby, games were very much a Japanese thing. Nintendo games like Mario and Zelda, and more narrative stuff like Final Fantasy,² lead to my writing about games as a journalist (then writing novels, and finally writing stories for games), and may explain why I understood this writer instantly. The types of characters, worlds, creatures. The tone and humor. I’d seen them all in games.

This doesn’t explain why millions of other westerners fell in love with Murakami too,³ many of whom never played any games. I suppose the short answer is: one way or another, Japanese pop culture became more common in the western world.

So yeah, the quote struck a chord, and I made a note promising myself I’d do something with it someday. Then the Murakami Weekend came along last January, an event with lectures, musical performances and more, celebrating the Dutch release of Killing Commendatore. (Yes, it came out almost a year before the English translation.)

As my last novel was published by Murakami’s Dutch publisher, getting through to the organizers was easy, as was suggesting to them I do a talk about the connection between Haruki Murakami and games. They instantly said yes, which meant there was no way back. I’d now have to do research, talk to people, read stuff, and think things through, to support my claim that there’s more to the similarity Murakami says he feels between games and fiction. (Especially, I’d add, his own work.)

Photo by Sandra Wouters.

So there I was, in a ballroom on a cruise ship in the Rotterdam harbor. It was early on the first day, but there were already quite a few people in attendance. My talk lasted 45 minutes and I had fun all the way through.

Looking back, I think you can call what I did a broad high-level exploration. Which resulted not in a connection, but a bunch of them. I even found a couple of unmistakably Murakami-inspired games, and one that may have inspired Murakami! Reason enough to write it all down here for posterity, and for your enjoyment.

I’ve divided everything into six themes, which I’ll tackle one by one. Oh, and please be cautious: there may be some Killing Commendatore spoilers. Now let’s go!

1. Magic Realism

First, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Magic realism is very common in games, but not so common in (western) literature. Yet Murakami’s particular brand of magic realism, fusing a very normal foundation with a few sprinkles of the weird, is teaching game makers new tricks.

You know what I’m talking about, right? You’re reading a serious story about adults with grown-up problems, and then there are talking cats. Or how about 1Q84’s Little People? In Japanese fiction this is not so strange. Maybe because of Japan’s background of Shinto, the animistic religion in which any natural object (a river, a rock, a shrubbery) can be a god (‘kami’).

You see the cultural descendants of Shinto in Nintendo games and Ghibli movies, among many others. So it’s not the supernatural that typifies Murakami’s work, it’s the way it pops up in otherwise serious narratives, like the giant frog below Tokyo in the After the Quake story collection.

Illustration by Isabella Thermes.

Games almost always feature some kind of mix between the real and the unreal, usually tending towards the latter. I think because of their nature as abstract systems dressed as something recognizable. And by often being a rather similar kind of unreal, games painted themselves into a corner for a long time. They all looked alike and spoke to a largely homogenic group.

Indie game makers have already made big strides here, by drawing from more diverse influences, with Murakami serving as a guiding light for some. A few game makers explicitly say they’re inspired by his writing, while for others it’s an implicit or even subliminal influence.

Take, for example, Cian Rice, who organized a Murakami game jam last year. A game jam is a pressure-cooker type creative challenge, and with this particular jam, the goal was to take something from Murakami’s work and make a small game out of it. Rice told me the following:

Murakami’s habit to combine everyday life with sudden detours inspires me. Mundane things seem more surreal when something strange happens.

That rings very true, and feels like something more game makers should be able to work with!

Another recent example is Memoranda, a Kickstarter-funded game made in Teheran, Iran, about a girl who’s forgetting her own name. The developers were inspired by Murakami, the trailer below even says so. It wasn’t received that well, apparently the puzzles are a little too weird, but it’s an interesting glimpse of what Murakami’s fiction world looks like through the eyes of game makers.

2. Parallel Worlds

Let’s zoom in on one common magical-realistic Murakami element. Even when there are no concrete parallel worlds present, like the highly surreal one in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World or the more subtle one in 1Q84, there are usually hints of a division between the real and the non-real. The regular and the special.

Killing Commendatore’s main character comments on how he finds it increasingly hard to separate what’s normal and what isn’t. His house on the hill seems to be a special place, with its own special rules. Everything outside it he calls “the normal world”. Other people mostly just pass by. Looking at them from the house, they only seem to have half an existence.

This is similar to the concept of the ‘magic circle’ from game studies. A kind of metaphorical bubble that envelops you and others as you play a game. The game rules create a local, temporary, special reality.

Illustration by Richie Pope.

The well from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is probably the most famous example of such a ‘bubble world’ in Murakami’s writing. Commendatore’s hole under the temple is another. So is the wind cave the main character’s sister disappeared in decades ago. When she returned, the main character said it again: “Let’s go back to the real world.”⁴

Games aren’t just bubble worlds themselves, they often feature parallel worlds too. Take, for example, the Persona games by Atlus. Japanese role-playing games in which the main characters enter parallel worlds shaped by their suppressed subconscious.⁵ The Persona developers clearly had Murakami on their minds, as they namedrop The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in the fourth game in the series.⁶ Although, the author is so famous in Japan, it would be much weirder if no media ever referenced his work.

Guan van Zoggel, a friend and Japan expert, was skeptical of this connection when I asked him about it. He told me that ‘isekai’ (parallel worlds) are so common in Japanese media, it’s become almost a genre by itself. He implied: you should take a closer look at Murakami’s parallel worlds and those in video games, and try to draw more specific parallels. I agree (as does Guan’s wife, he noted), but for this overview it should suffice to say that, yes, there indeed are similarities.⁷

Illustration by Grant Snider.

3. First-person

Many games are seen from a first-person perspective, and of course many novels are written from the first person. Yet to me Murakami’s books can feel more similar to first-person games than to other first-person novels.

The first-person game perspective became popular because of shooters like Doom and Quake, and you still usually fire guns from this view. That’s a world away from Murakami… Or is it? In 1Q84 Aomame is an assassin, and Ushikawa rents an apartment to wait for Tengo to show up. There even is a word for this in the gaming world: ‘camping’.

Waiting and watching is important in Killing Commendatore too, as the main character’s neighbor, Menshiki, observes his (possible) daughter with binoculars. He does this with such devotion, his whole being is seemingly sucked into his first-person observation. Costing him a lot of energy!

Menshiki’s ritual brings to mind the Hindu concept of the Avatar, where a god descends from the heavens and takes control of a human’s body.⁸ This concept has been adopted by games (and software), as your representation in a game is called an avatar (as is the picture next to your Twitter account). The ‘Idea’ in Commendatore is clearly an avatar in the Hindu sense. With effort, he spiritually moves from one place to another, ’transfiguring’ from one form to another. And both Menshiki and the Idea have to charge up when they’re done.⁹

So why do Murakami’s first-person stories feel so gamelike? I think it’s because they’re real-time. I use the phrase as in games terminology: while a movie is tightly edited, so only the most interesting action is shown, many games are played in real-time, with the action flowing naturally. Montage (at moments decided by the game designer, for example) would feel odd and jerky. Which means that sometimes you just walk, or drive, or fly, while nothing happens. Even in a non-arthouse game.

Similarly, in Murakami’s fiction, you often follow what the main character is doing, even if he’s just going through his daily habits, taking a walk or fixing a simple meal. This gives the prose a very specific, rather hypnotic (and game-like) rhythm.

It’s not just the action, the psychology unfolds in real-time too. Especially in the later stories you truly step inside the character’s head, and see what goes on in there. Each change of mental state is observed closely, thorough and honest, with lucid detail. There’s a touch of Asperger too, a certain distance to the world, holding you ever more captive in that first-person view, like Menshiki in his binoculars.

Promotional artwork for the game Mirror’s Edge.

4. Player vs. Programmer

The first quote I jotted down when reading Killing Commendatore was this: “I was simply being dragged along by all kinds of circumstances.” A typical Murakami sentence, I thought, spoken by an artist who accidentally has a career painting commercial portraits. Murakami’s heroes sometimes do want something, but it’s their surroundings that ultimately decide their destiny.

In the Paris Review interview at the top, the author elaborates on this himself:

In my books and stories, women are mediums, in a sense; the function of the medium is to make something happen through herself. It’s a kind of system to be experienced.

So indeed, it’s not the main character, but others, specifically women, who propel the fiction forward. For example, in Commendatore the main character’s wife divorces him, setting the story in motion at the very start.

In Dance Dance Dance Murakami explains what this lack of agency has to do with games. He does this through the voice of the Rat, expressing the idea that he has a meaningless life and never gets anywhere:

I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pac-Man, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.¹⁰

Murakami goes even further by comparing his writing process to video games. He does this in the Paris Review interview, but elsewhere too, like in a Dutch interview by Auke Hulst, that was published in newspaper NRC. Here he says:

You know, my brain is rather odd. When I’m writing, I can split it in two. […] I could simultaneously program games and play them too, without me, the player, knowing how I, the programmer, meant the game.¹¹

You could call this empathy: the capacity to imagine what readers will experience when reading your work. But this is a much nicer image: the writer as level designer, creating mazes through which characters (and thus readers) roll like marbles.¹²

So how is this style of writing reflected in the work? I asked blogger Nate Davis about this, whom I tracked down as he wrote about Murakami and games as early as 2004. He said:

While Murakami’s characters may explore and learn about their environment by themselves, ultimately they wait for a clue for the action that will take them to the next level. They’re looking for the hand of a creator who wants them to advance. And you get the sense that the novel just isn’t going to progress until they work it out.

These characters have a lack of free will, just like game characters waiting for you, the player, to solve a puzzle. Like adventure games,¹³ a Murakami story is “a system to be experienced”, as he called it himself.

5. Routines

I first noticed this in Killing Commendatore, but it must’ve been in his work for much longer: Murakami is always building routines for his characters, from their simple meals, via sex with married women, to their work processes. In Commendatore he explains his main character’s portrait painting routine in beautiful detail. And we already discussed Menshiki’s routine, observing the girl who might be his daughter.

Routines are so common in the Murakami universe, they’re expected. When a mysterious bell rings at night for a second time, it’s already clear that this is going to happen every night. Couldn’t it just be a coincidence? Nope, of course not!

Talking to Nate Davis again, he mentioned this:

The character in Hard-Boiled Wonderland falls into that alternate simulated world in his own head, where he’s kind-of suspended in an infinite loop of diminishing time intervals that will ultimately destroy his body.

Davis is right. These routines are ‘loops’ that the characters fall into, and ultimately escape, one way or another. Nearly as important as characters building up routines, is that they’re always breaking out of routines too. Even if it’s just to move into new ones.

This reminds me of improvised jazz: the musical performers build up a repeating groove, which they then riff on. Once the routine’s possibilities have been explored and the groove has grown stale, it’s time to transfer into something new.

Photo by Patrick Fraser/Corbis Outline.

It’s easy to see where the routines come from, with an author famous for his routine-heavy life. Murakami wakes up early in the morning to write and exercise, which he talks about extensively in What We Talk About When We Talk About Running.

Now, games are made of routines, ‘systems’, that interact with each other and with you, the player. You grow crops and harvest them. You drop blocks to form disappearing lines. You beat enemies to score money, to buy increasingly powerful weapons, to beat bigger enemies, to earn more money, etc.

In fact, each video game, each software program,¹⁴ is a routine at its core: a ‘loop’ that runs from player input to audiovisual output. The program checks whether you’re pressing a button, processes that, changing values in its memory, and shows you the results. This loop is processed dozens of times per second.

Menshiki seems to refer to the dynamic values of software when he talks about the “information world” in which he works, where you can “lose some and win some”. The calculator in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, juggling numbers among his two brain halves, is another externalized example of this returning motif.

6. Art for Everyone

This is another theme I hadn’t noticed in Murakami’s work before Killing Commendatore, I think because it wasn’t in there. But this time, it’s front and center. Does the main character follow his artistic urges, or does he give people what they want? Or can these two things somehow be combined?

While this discussion might be new in his fiction, it’s always been present in the discussion about it. Is it literature with an uppercase or a lowercase L?

In all literature, and all art, there’s a friction between complex, difficult work that the creator makes for herself (without caring about the audience) and accessible work meant for the widest possible audience (without caring about any kind of ‘internal need’ on the creator’s end). But with Murakami this friction is amplified. It’s Nobel Prize worthy literature with deep and important themes, that anyone can understand.

All of this reminds me of games, although the starting point is pretty much the opposite. A game is clearly a working and understandable product first (as it has to function as expected, and is often sold as a commodity), and art second. Since the rise of indie games the latter has grown in importance, but mostly games are still seen through the lens of the user, like industrial design.

Like with magic realism, Murakami could give game makers some guidance for a different position on the spectrum of art and product. And also like magic realism, there are already some good examples. Most importantly Kentucky Route Zero, one of my favorite games of recent years. It’s not a Murakami game in the literal sense, but sure feels like one of his books. Much more than the aforementioned Memoranda, to be honest.¹⁵

Anyway. Murakami’s accessibility is a very conscious effort on the author’s side. He apparently once said that in his native country, 1 out of 10 people should be able to understand him. Which sounds humble at first, until you realize Japan has about 125 million inhabitants.¹⁶

So he writes short, clear, literal sentences, with real-time patience so there are no jarring jumps to decipher. He doesn’t eschew copy writing tricks: the prose is ‘actionable’, and there’s foreshadowing and cliffhanging all over the place.

Where does all this come from? Well, I was intrigued to find that the young Murakami was acquainted with Shigesato Itoi. The Japanese ad man famous for his talk show appearances and daily haiku-like blog, who provided the voice of the father in My Neighbor Totoro and, yes, came up with the ‘Game Boy’ brand name.

Here’s the kicker, though: Shigesato Itoi is the maker of Mother, a series of role-playing games that achieved cult status in the nineties. Mother 2 was released in English, as Earthbound, but only in the USA.¹⁷ It plays like a Murakami story, with a normal world where strange things take place. In the trailer below the characters even descend into a well!

Murakami and Itoi don’t just know each other, they worked together. Itoi invited the writer to produce short stories for brands, and they even published a story collection together, Yume de Aimashou (‘Let’s Meet in a Dream’) in 1981. It was never released in English, but there’s a fan translation online.¹⁸ According to one rumor, Earthbound hides one of the Yume de Aimashou stories, but this is false. There are similar bits of writing in there though.

Did Itoi and his games influence Murakami? That’s hard to say, but I’m pretty sure the both of them were thinking about some of the same things when they were creating their art.

In the world of games, Earthbound made a lasting impression for sure. It inspired recent games like Undertale and Omori. The makers of YIIK, which comes out soon, say they were inspired by both Earthbound and Murakami, tying all of this together neatly.¹⁹

Finally

I want to close off with the quote I started with:

Haruki Murakami: “I think video games are closer to fiction than anything else these days.”

Interviewer: “Video games?”

Murakami: “Yes. I don’t like playing video games myself, but I feel the similarity.”

Murakami’s first remark is actually a bit longer:

So fiction itself has changed drastically—we have to grab people by the neck and pull them in. Contemporary fiction writers are using the techniques of other fields—jazz, video games, everything. I think video games are closer to fiction than anything else these days.

If you ask me, all media forms are close. Have always been close. It’s just that digitalism has made it more obvious. As such, they all inform each other, ultimately helping them toward the goals of (on one hand) giving the creator’s subconscious a voice and (on the other) giving you a great experience. Which doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to take a closer look at some of their similarities!

That’s it! If you have something to add, or if you caught untruths, shout out. I look forward to further hybrid writing explorations, so keep me updated if you’re working on anything. Finally, feel free to share this article with your friends. I want this to be useful for as many people as possible. While preserving what I set out to say!

Links

• Murakami-interview The Paris Review
• Murakami-interview NRC / Auke Hulst
• Blogpost Nate Davis uit 2004 (waarin hij een verband legt tussen Murakami en games)
• Tim Rogers over de game Metal Gear Solid 2, Murakami en postmodernisme
• Artikel over Murakami en postmodernisme in de jaren tachtig in Japan
• Blogpost over de little people (inclusief illustratie Alex Mercado)

Meer over het dwarsverband Murakami/Itoi

• Over de verhalenbundel Let’s Meet in a Dream
• Fanvertaling van de bundel
• Over de onbekende verhalen die Murakami in opdracht schreef
• Meer over die onbekende verhalen
• Blogpost over de schrijfstijl van Shigesato Itoi
• Analyse van Mother 3 (het nooit in het westen uitgebrachte vervolg op Earthbound)
• Meer over literaire games, van Earthbound tot Undertale

Genoemde games

• Memoranda
• Artikel over Memoranda
• Kentucky Route Zero
• Persona 4 (transcriptie waarin De opwindvogelkronieken voorkomt)
• Undertale
• Omori
• YIIK

This edition goes back three weeks, and a lot happened even though I’m still running at half-speed. I really want to return to the weekly rhythm, like it was for years before the damn surgery. People are telling me I can’t rush things, so we’ll see.

Last week I attended a hackathon at the VPRO, focusing on digital literature. In two days, my team (with 2 friends and 2 unknowns) made a prototype and presentation for a new kind of literary magazine. ‘Krek’ is designed for quick bursts of quality, context-sensitive poetry and prose, and looks hot as hell! I’m quite proud of our teamwork and results, and was amazed that I wasn’t a tired wreck afterwards.

Antegods is the ‘stonepunk arena action’ multiplayer game (and comic book) I’m working on with Codeglue. I lended a hand setting up the Fig crowdfunding campaign that’s launching today and that you can help announce!

RIVE is a shooting/platforming game for PS4 and Steam, for which I created the world, story and dialog. Recently, I helped push out the game’s latest update (featuring bug fixes and 5 new languages) and announce the upcoming Nintendo Switch version! The game was featured in the Humble Monthly, a popular subscription service, so it got a huge wave of new players over the past few days.

Radio Laika is a monthly mini-mockumentary I make for literary audio magazine Ondercast. I write it, record some of the voices, send parts off to actors, and stitch the whole thing together. The latest edition is called ‘Noodkreet’ (‘Distress Call’) and was featured in Ondercast #34.

KVB Boekwerk is a ‘knowledge and innovation platform for the book sector’. Together with Paulien and Emma I prepared for a scan of innovative digital literary projects worldwide, and I’ll really get to work on it this week.

What else? I attended the kick-off of startup competition Renew the Book, had lunch with Sigfrid, and dinner with David and Arjan. I also got a Nintendo Switch review unit, which I wrote about for NRC. My first newspaper article in nearly two years! (Spoiler: it’s a promising piece of hardware, and the new Zelda is great.)

Average step count per day: 5.965
Average staircase count per day: 10
Average sleep per night: 8:17
Average weight: 85,5

I’m still recovering from my kidney removal surgery, just over a month ago. It had a 75 mm tumor in it, but the cancer hasn’t spread. I feel fine, trying to ramp up my production as well as my step count. Over the last two weeks I was able to sleep regular hours again, a bit more than before actually. Still, I get tired quickly. Sometimes at unexpected times! Although this is a minor complaint, it can be hard not to get frustrated. Just how long will I be running at half-speed like this?

I’ve decided to use these low-key weeks to write the first real draft of Geometry Girl, my upcoming app novel. I work on it nearly every day, and so far am halfway through the story. (Though the first half was further along to begin with.) Now I just have to keep going until I reach the end.

Work for Codeglue has picked up too. Antegods is the Rotterdam-based studio’s ‘stonepunk arena action’ multiplayer game. I helped get the concept together in 2015, created a companion comic book in 2016, and now we’re working on something big that’ll be revealed this Spring probably.

Similarly, RIVE is a shooting/platforming game for which I created the world, story and dialog. It’s out on Steam and PlayStation 4, and now the writing is done, I’m involved in support and marketing at studio Two Tribes. A lot of my recent working hours were spent here.

What else? I #hobbydevved with Hessel. Had tea with Paulien. Got acquainted with Anna. Saw The Founder with Fredo, which was OK. Played a bunch of board games, including Codenames, which comes recommended. Read some books and listened to even more podcasts. Trying to take it easy!

Average step count per day: 6.414
Average staircase count per day: 7
Average sleep per night: 8:43
Average weight: 85,0

Because of my recent kidney removal, I skipped another round of weeknotes. Surgery is terrible like that! I’m doing pretty OK actually. No pain, just tired quickly. Both physically and mentally. The stitches have been removed from my surgery wound, and I’m phasing out the painkillers.

Turns out it really was cancer, a ‘clear-cell adenocarcinoma’ to be precise. The doctors were hoping to remove my 75 mm tumor, but ended up taking out the kidney in its entirety. It was too large and in too deeply, all the way in the renal pelvis. My remaining kidney has taken over the work, which is apparently normal but completely biological-miraculous to me.

The prognosis is still good, there’s no sign of the cancer spreading. I’ll be under regular check-ups for the coming 10 years, though, starting with an abdominal ultrasound, chest X-ray and blood test in May, in case the cancer festers anyway. (I have to say I’m more worried about Donald Trump and the upcoming European elections. Speaking of malignant growths.)

I’ve been taking it easy over the last two weeks, mostly reading and listening to podcasts. I did some work here and there, and met up with folks, but haven’t left Utrecht so far.

One thing I finished is a rather autobiographical Radio Laika, my monthly mini-mockumentary for literary audio magazine Ondercast. I started it before my surgery and finished it right after. The voices were recorded by Ondercast hosts Lisa Weeda and Dennis Gaens, and my friend Sjors Houkes. Check it out at around the 1:22 mark in episode 33. And get a free subscription for your monthly dose of Dutch literature!

Finally, Control posted the video of my RIVE talk way back in September. Watch it below!

As mentioned here before, there was a 75 mm growth in my left kidney. Last Wednesday in the early morning I was in surgery for this, for a little less than two hours. The doctors attempted to spare the kidney, cutting out the growth, but ultimately the entire kidney was removed. I’ve been told that my remaining kidney is doing well and should be capable of handling all the work. If I take good care of it, of course.

Since Wednesday I’ve been in recovery in the hospital. Friday was the worst day, with little sleep and lots of pain. By the time I’m writing this, everything is much better. All the various tubes coming out of my body have now been removed, and I only take pills to deal with the remaining, limited pain.

I’m returning home tomorrow, but will be in a very slow mode for the foreseeable future. Either way, my unwelcome passenger was kicked out, which is good. I’ll still get to hear what it was as it gets researched in the lab.

What else? In the days leading up to the surgery, I got a lot of smaller work-related things done. On Tuesday afternoon I attended a knowledge session of KVB Boekwerk, which was educational. And that was it.

As you may already know, a growth was recently discovered in my left kidney. It’s likely cancer, and even if it’s not, it has to be removed. This week I got some new test results and it still seems like whatever the 75 mm ball in my kidney is, it really hasn’t spread (the CT scan of my lungs came up clean). So come Wednesday, January 11th, I will be in surgery. The doctors will remove the growth, trying to save the rest of the kidney. I’ve been told I’ll be in the hospital for 5 to 10 days.

This week I had a bit of a tour through the hospital, talking to a few people in the healthcare chain. Which gave me a sense of control over the whole situation. I mean, I don’t really have a clue of what’s coming and how bad I’ll feel, but I still felt empowered. In a way I can’t explain entirely, I started looking forward to the surgery a little bit.

I don’t know exactly how long I’ll drop off the map, so this week I tried to get my work in the kind of state that’d allow me to be away for a while. One biggie is that I finished the Antegods comic for Codeglue, tweaking the lettering and doing some clean-up of the pages. I was at Two Tribes for two days, working on the next RIVE update, and marketing beyond that.

Average step count per day: 7.957
Average staircase count per day: 11
Average sleep per night: 7:02
Average weight: 87,1

Two weeks ago, I wrote that I have a 75 mm unwelcome passenger in my left kidney, and here’s a little health update. The doctors are assuming it’s cancer, and will be removing the growth (not the entire kidney) on January 11th. That is, if my lungs turn out ‘clean’ on an extra CT scan next week. Weirdly, my left side started aching on the exact day I got the news; this was the passenger announcing itself, of course. This situation lasted for nearly two days, I got my first morphine ever, and I’m doing fine again as I write this.

It feels rather weird writing work notes in this situation. But then again, the damn growth already made me miss a week for the first time since starting this in 2011. So here’s what else I did recently.

RIVE is a shooting game for which I created the world, story and dialog. It’s out on Steam and PlayStation 4, and now the writing is done, I’m involved in support and marketing at Two Tribes. Two weeks ago I helped push out another update, bringing the new 1.1 expansion content to PS4, along with smaller fixes on all platforms. I also worked on localizing the game in a few new languages.

Radio Laika is a monthly mini-mockumentary I make for literary audio magazine Ondercast. I write it, record some of the voices, send parts off to actors, and stitch the whole thing together. Just before Christmas it was time for a very special Radio Laika: its presenter’s origin story. It appeared in the third Ondercast Christmas extravaganza.

What else? Not much! I got into quite a groove writing my app novel Geometry Girl, until my body started hurting. And I watched movies and reads books. Here’s hoping for a rapid recovery in 2017, and tons of boring weeknotes without any health updates at all.

Average step count per day: 1.638
Average staircase count per day: 6
Average sleep per night: hard to track
Average weight: 86,5

After being diagnosed with diabetes a few years back, I get regular check-ups. Recently, my measured values seemed to indicate something was off with my kidneys. So this week my belly got a CT scan. It turns out there is a 75 mm unwelcome passenger in my left kidney. I’ve seen it, and it’s like a ball pushing my kidney apart… The doctors disagree about what it is: cancer or a renal cyst possibly caused by my diabetes. I’ll hear what their suggested course of action will be in a couple of days; worst-case scenario seems to be that my left kidney has to removed. If it’s cancer, it seems like it hasn’t spread. I’m spooked but weirdly calm. Let’s see how this develops.

Super Mario Run was released on iOS, Nintendo’s first real smartphone game. Quite an event. I appeared on the Dutch Radio 1 early in the morning on release day to talk about this, calling Mario a ‘marionette’, among other things. The item was turned into a blog post.

I’m trying to focus on writing for the last bit of the year. I got started with a new approach, hopefully the final approach, to finishing the Geometry Girl story. I also started drafting a new Radio Laika episode.

What else? I visited Codeglue for our monthly Antegods meeting, and worked on procedural text stuff as well as wrapping up the first comic book. I visited Two Tribes to work on the upcoming RIVE 1.12 update, including Dutch translations for new content. I did a game studies panel at Leiden University, together with Aïda de Ridder and Paul Deetman, on Joris Dormans’ invitation. I had coffee with Kars to discuss an upcoming article, and chocolate milk with Dore. Finally, I #hobbydevved with Hessel.

Average step count per day: 8.810
Average staircase count per day: 13
Average sleep per night: 6:53
Average weight: 88,4

Geometry Girl is my upcoming app novel, a literary story taking the shape of an innovative app. It’s also the start of a general iOS reading engine, which I hope will become a thing in 2017. This week I discussed strategy with Menno, and I visited Paulien Loerts at Singel Uitgeverijen to demo the engine, which was great. I also did some actual writing!

KVB Boekwerk is a ‘knowledge and innovation platform for the book sector’. This week I met up with Jurriaan Rammeloo and Ezra Homan of the organisation, together with Suzanne Meeuwissen from the Dutch Foundation for Literature and committee colleague Paulien Dresscher, preparing for a seminar on January 19th, as well as a publication.

RIVE is a ‘vintage action game’ for which I created the world, story and dialog. It’s out on Steam and PlayStation 4, and now the writing is done, I do support and marketing at studio Two Tribes. This week I was there for two days, working on new translations among other things, and getting together with Stephanie and Bram from Game Drive. Their practical advice on Steam marketing was super useful.

Antegods is the ‘stonepunk arena action’ multiplayer game (and comic book) I’m working on with Codeglue. This week I continued drawing speech bubbles and lettering the comic, drawn by Robin Keijzer, among other things.

Every Wednesday night I #hobbydev with my friend Hessel, working on personal game projects together alone. We sit at the same kitchen table and curse at our laptops… This week I continued with my autopilot roguelike, getting the encounter (battle) system to work as intended.

What else? I had coffee with Sytze, beer with Sander, coffee with Martijn, and tonight I’m playing board games with Kars, Hessel and others.

Average step count per day: 6.954
Average staircase count per day: 12
Average sleep per night: 6:51
Average weight: 89,0

Antegods is the ‘stonepunk arena action’ multiplayer game (and comic book) I’m working on with Codeglue. This week I spent a day drawing speech bubbles and lettering the comic, which was drawn by Robin Keijzer (as opposed to the above concept art, which was drawn by Tom Rutjens) and I also edited a blog post about the game’s audio by Rik Nieuwdorp.

RIVE is a 360-degree platformer/shooter for Steam and PS4, for which I created the world, story and dialog. This week I was at studio Two Tribes for two days, where among other things we got together with games scientist Joost and student Tiina, who will be diving into the game’s marketing.

Geometry Girl is my upcoming app novel, a new literary story taking the shape of an innovative piece of software. This week I made a list of to-do’s for the engineering department, including detailed designs and descriptions. It’s the final stretch, but there’s still a lot to do.

Every Wednesday night I #hobbydev with my friend Hessel, working on personal game projects together alone. This week I was still stuck on a data problem in my autopilot roguelike. The next day I took another approach… to then completely lose myself in the project for probably too long.

What else? I met up with Joni van der Leeuw from Abbey Games, talking about the creative process and Nintendo games. I also wrote Sinterklaas poems, as my family and I celebrated this national holiday on Saturday.

Average step count per day: 7.594
Average staircase count per day: 11
Average sleep per night: 7:18
Average weight: 88,6

RIVE is a ‘vintage action game’ for which I created the world, story and dialog. It’s out on Steam and PlayStation 4, and now the writing is done, I’m heavily involved in support and marketing at studio Two Tribes. This week we pushed out a major update we worked on for the last two months or so, featuring two new ways to play: Challenges and Battle Arenas. I wrote about this in a blogpost, and the game was discounted on Steam for the first time.

There’s a program for digital literature at the Dutch Foundation of Literature that more authors should know about! (There are actually two relevant subsidies: Interdisciplinary Talent and Digital Literary Projects.) I’m in the committee helping to decide what gets funded, and this week I attended a session of authors live-annotating their plans.

Radio Laika is a monthly mini-mockumentary I make for literary audio magazine Ondercast. I write it, record some of the voices, send parts off to actors, and stitch the whole thing together. The installment in Ondercast 31 is a little different, as actor Amy van der Weerden did almost all the talking.

Geometry Girl is my upcoming app novel, a new literary story taking the shape of an innovative app. It’s also the start of a general iOS reading engine, which I hope will become a thing in 2017. This week I talked about it with Chris Kooi at De Bezige Bij / Cargo and Jan Paul Grollé at Renew the Book / Rockstart, among other things.

Every Wednesday night I #hobbydev with my friend Hessel, working on personal game projects together alone. We sit at the same kitchen table and drink beer, so there’s a social aspect, but there’s lots of staring at screens in confusion and silence too. Hessel is a professional Unity developer, and I’m just starting out, but it seems like programming frustration is universal. This week I made a lot of progress on what is essentially an autopilot roguelike, to then trip over saving data between level switches.

Finally, on the personal side, I was in the hospital for a test related to my diabetes. Something might be up with my kidneys, so there will be further investigations. On the plus side, I saw Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, which I loved!

Average step count per day: 8.862
Average staircase count per day: 10
Average sleep per night: 7:27
Average weight: 88,8

This week on Thursday I traveled to post-Brexit England for a couple of days. My trip pretty much took place on the stretch you see to the right. I landed at Gatwick Airport, visited Saskia at Goldsmiths University, caught up with Martijn and Jo and stayed at their house a.k.a. the Snap Finger Click office.

Martijn and I attended the exposition and some of the talks during WordPlay London at the British Library (photo below by Martijn), which was interesting but also leaned a bit too much towards interactive fiction for my tastes. My friend Takashi joined us there too, and I had dinner with him afterwards. I’m back at Gatwick as I type this, waiting for my plane home.

What else? I…

• Visited Codeglue to talk about procedural text stuff as well as strategy/funding/marketing for Antegods, both the game and the comic.
• Visited Two Tribes, working on RIVE marketing and development, including translations work for the next update and a quick draft of a blog post.
• Read Dutch Foundation for Literature digital literature talent development grant applications for the committee meeting next week.
• Did a small translation job for SonicPicnic.
• Wrote a new Radio Laika, and sent it off to actor Amy van der Weerden for voice-over work. It’ll be in Ondercast at the end of the month.
• #hobbydevved with Hessel. I continued getting to grips with Unity, changing some boolean 2D arrays to GameObject 2D arrays. (So the player object can easily see who the enemy objects on the grid next to him are, of course.)

Average step count per day: 8.646
Average staircase count per day: 17
Average sleep per night: 6:28
Average weight: 88,6

This was a week of rude awakening. Literally: I fell asleep on Tuesday confident that Hillary Clinton would be elected, not giving it a second thought. Wednesday’s first peek at the smartphone screen was a punch in the face and the start of a gloomy feeling that would stay with me all week.

Figuratively, too: the sense of waking up to a world drifting away from the simple and obvious humanist ideals that I grew up with: cooperation, empathy, nuance, intellect. Do we really need world wars for a few decades of consensus about these things, before entropy kicks in?

It’s tempting to seek comfort in the idea that the USA is far away, and that we’ll never find ourselves in this situation without that terrible two-party system (or, similarly, referenda with two extreme options and irresponsibly large consequences like ‘Brexit’). The Dutch diffuse party system institutionalizes cooperation, right? I’m starting to wonder whether that’s too easy, though, and what I can and should do, as an artist and otherwise. Which I suppose is a healthy thing to think about.

So yeah, life and work continued, but with a heavier heart. I kicked off the last round of designs for Geometry Girl, handing them over to Saskia, and I got acquainted with Mick Niepoth, talking about possibly helping out with the reading app business idea. I gave a guest lecture to third-year ArtEZ creative writing students, looking for a possible intern, and attended a very interesting workshop at the Dutch Foundation of Literature about the ‘biography of the future’ by Liesbeth Dolk, with Lidewijde Paris, Jan Paul Grollé, Lydia Rood, Richard Osinga and Miriam Rasch, among others.

What else? I…

• Received Robin Keijzer’s cover for the Antegods comic, which rounds off the project for now. (The first episode anyway; we’re still deciding on a publishing strategy. Hope to be able to share something soon!)

• Spent a day at Two Tribes, working on the next RIVE update and marketing stuff. We launched new Steam bundles, among other things.

• #hobbydevved with Hessel, finally booting up Unity again, cleaning up my roguelike pathfinding code for a new game idea featuring an astronaut jumping through black holes. Running from alien blobs and space junk, of course.

• Had lunch with Tim.

• Had funky beers with Kars, Simon, Hessel (again) and Tim (again).

• Played Kentucky Route Zero episode 4 with Geert, although we didn’t make it to the end. (This one seemed slower and more wordy than earlier episodes… or maybe we were just tired. It was still super-pretty, like in the above screenshot.)

Average step count per day: 7.870
Average staircase count per day: 13
Average sleep per night: 6:41
Average weight: 88,5

Ten years ago this week I got married, right here in Utrecht, in the Dom tower. So my wife and I went out for pancakes with our daughters. That’s how simple and effective anniversary celebration can be.

A large chunk of the week was spent on Two Tribes stuff, getting organized and preparing the next RIVE update. The game was discounted for the first time post-launch, in Europe and Australia on PlayStation 4, and I sent out the accompanying social media messages. On Friday we had a call with Joost Rietveld, as one of his students is going to crunch our numbers to draw Interesting Scientific Conclusions and help our marketing too.

On the Geometry Girl front, I met up with Menno, looking ahead at the coming months and 2017. I also visited Mizzi van der Pluijm at my publishing house, Atlas Contact, to give her an update. The current goal is clear: I have to finish the app! There will be good things beyond that, too.

What else? I…

• Gave a guest lecture at the TU Delft, talking about the art of the essay, or as they call it, ‘reflection by writing’. There was another, shorter talk at the Dutch Game Garden, about the Creative Europe grant application I wrote for Codeglue’s Antegods a while back.

• Speaking of which, I visited Codeglue for a team meet-up. Later in the week, Robin Keijzer’s colored Antegods comic book pages came in, looking positively stunning. I hope I can share some of it soon!

• Listened to the new episode of my mini-mockumentary series Radio Laika in Dutch literary podcast Ondercast. This one is about two couples spending a long weekend together, and you can find it in episode 30 at the 1:23 mark. Additionally, Kevin King published his RIVE podcast interview with me.

• Continued the #hobbydev tradition with Hessel, working on personal game projects one evening a week. I tried to figure out what to make next, designing it on paper before I start building again. (I admit there’s some Unity fear involved in my procrastination here.)

• Prepared for a trip to London later this month.

• Did my quarterly revenue taxes. Exciting!

Average step count per day: 8.875
Average staircase count per day: 11
Average sleep per night: 6:25
Average weight: 88,0

This week was shorter than usual, as my daughters had an extra day off on Monday, and we all went to Sea Life in The Hague.

After two weeks of writing in Amsterdam and one in Frankfurt for the Buchmesse, things finally went back to normal. So I took the time to clean up and organize. I moved my to-do backlog from the back of my Kanban booklet to the doors of a cabinet in my home office, getting my projects up to date and setting OKR’s for the current quarter. I did some design work on Geometry Girl and organized my writing, and sent out a bunch of Frankfurt follow-up e-mail.

The last two days of the working week were spent at Two Tribes, as co-founder Collin will leave the country soon and I’m taking over some of his duties. It’s a lot to take in, but it’ll be quite educational to do even more on the marketing and development side; yes, RIVE is out, but we’re still working on some updates and other things.

What else? Not too much, really. It was a rather easygoing week, which I think is important to have sometimes. In closing, here are three things I’d like to discuss briefly:

• I’m really jealous of Black Mirror, I wish I’d made something like it. I’d been waiting for the six new episodes to come out on Netflix last Friday, and watched them in a few days. I love how real the characters feel, and how different each episode is. It turns out creator Charlie Brooker is a former games critic, which explains the many game references and consistent game ‘feel’. My favorite episode is San Junipero, one of the less gloomy ones.

• Last week I didn’t mention Nintendo’s Switch announcement, but driving home from Germany I actually stopped at a Raststätte to watch the video as it came online. I’m really happy that Nintendo’s hardware seems to be converging, so its game development teams can focus on just one platform ultimately. The supposedly ARM-based architecture is tied more to the smartphone market, which should help both financially (as prices come down over time) and technically (including power-efficiency). I have a lot of questions, though, especially about price and software services (give me a subscription-based Virtual Console!). Hopefully it’ll be the ultimate social Nintendo machine that fits snugly between the ubiquitous, surface-level smartphone and in-depth solitary console experience of the PlayStation 4.

• This week I watched Apple’s keynote. The new MacBook Pro looks great, if I had the budget I’d probably leave my ultra-portable MacBook for it. Overall though the feeling grows that Apple grinds ever more to a halt in the Mac department, especially in the desktop segment, compared to Microsoft’s recent hardware announcements for example.

Average step count per day: 8.735
Average staircase count per day: 11
Average sleep per night: 7:09
Average weight: 88,0

This week I visited the Frankfurter Buchmesse. The Netherlands and Flanders were honorary guest and, happily, I was able to attend the official opening, which included a passionate speech by President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz that seemed to make a lot of people instant fan (I was certainly triggered too).

During my days at the fair I sought out companies in the digital-literary sphere, attended parties, shook hands with many interesting people and handed out some of the Geometry Girl flyers I’d made. I dropped in and out of Dutch/Flemmish activities and was impressed by all the work that’d gone into that. Afterwards I was tired.

What else? I…

• Worked on the Geometry Girl app, pushing the writing ahead, but mostly tweaking the build I showed off in Frankfurt. This included an English version and layered audio, allowing more control over aural transitions.

• Received Robin Keijzer’s line drawings for the Antegods comic, gathered feedback, added my own and sent it off.

• Met up with Collin and Martijn at Two Tribes, and worked on a new update for RIVE as well as some planned marketing activities.

• Finished writing the new Radio Laika episode, sending it off to four voice actors.

Average step count per day: 8.145
Average staircase count per day: 8
Average sleep per night: 7:43
Average weight: 87,8

This was my second and last week in the Amsterdam Translators’ House, and it was super productive. I didn’t have a big breakthrough, but a number of smaller breakthroughs added up to figuring out how I’m going to tell the Geometry Girl story in my upcoming app novella. I think.

Among other things, I typed in a lot that I’d previously written on paper, organized a bunch of notes, and went through the original serial story from 2008-2009 that this is based on, choosing bits and pieces that I want to reuse.

Everything is now very roughly in place, and the next step is to go through everything bit by bit, turning it into a cohesive whole. I won’t be able to do that in the wonderfully quiet environment of the Translators’ House, unfortunately, but I’ll finish it soon nonetheless.

Besides writing, the Frankfurter Buchmesse was on my mind, the world’s biggest book fair that takes place next week. I prepared for my visit, booking an AirBnB, making promotional flyers, getting a tuxedo for the official opening… I also worked with Maurice at Codeglue, Yorick at SonicPicnic and translator Jenny Watson to prep the next app prototype to showcase in Frankfurt.

What else? I…

• Attended the opening of TQ on Tuesday.
• Sketched out a new episode of Radio Laika.
• Dropped by the Two Tribes office to discuss the plan for RIVE for the coming few months. Also did an interview with Cubed3 about the game.
• Edited a new Antegods blogpost, which isn’t online yet.
• Visited the Tinguely exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum, which is right next to the Translators’ House. Here’s a nice short radio documentary (in Dutch) about the exhibition.
• Watched a movie every night, including Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing, my favorite by a long shot. Super powerful film!

Average step count per day: 8.199
Average staircase count per day: 15
Average sleep per night: 8:05
Average weight: 88,4

This week¹ I stayed at the Amsterdam Translators’ House, away from my family, with a simple task: finishing the Geometry Girl story. A huge luxury to be able to do so, and the days seemed to be a lot longer than normal. I walked through the city, thought a lot, took tons of notes; it’s been a while since I felt so at ease. And I took my work very seriously, starting with getting the right equipment: notebooks, post-its, markers, and big sheets of paper that I stuck to the wall.

At the same time, though, writing didn’t come easy. I feel like I have yet to crack how I’m going to tell this story (even though I cracked it a couple times before). Well, I still have another week at the Translator’s House!

It didn’t help that I had another big task running through the week: finishing my new Creative Industries Fund NL grant application, for which I had to get five letters of intent from involved parties. I did it in the end, though. Hurray!

What else? I…

• Worked on the Geometry Girl app a bit, and planned for my trip to the Frankfurter Buchmesse in two weeks’ time.
• Got the sketched page layouts for the Antegods comic from Robin Keijzer, which look amazing. I gathered feedback from the team at Codeglue, added to it and sent it off to Robin, who is now deep in line work. I also edited a new blog post for Codeglue.
• Had dinner with Collin, who came to Amsterdam. We discussed travelling the world and marketing RIVE, among other things. Later in the week I made some tweaks to the RIVE website.

Average step count per day: 7.667
Average staircase count per day: 9
Average sleep per night: 7:53
Average weight: 88,0