The strange and surreal Kids is part of the game, the short film

At the very beginning of Kids, you help a small group of faceless bodies fall into a black hole. You do not have much to say about it either: a crowd forms around the edge of the ink pit and, when you touch the screen, they all rock. In the next scene, these same bodies float helplessly in apparent nothingness. You can not stop them, but if you hold a finger on a body, it will temporarily slow down before falling back. I played several times during this first part and I still do not know what it means. It's a bit of a point. "The reactions differ according to the actors", explains Michael Frei, filmmaker and Swiss artist who co-created Kids. "Some see it as something dark, others find it hilarious."

Kids is available today on PC, iPhone and Android, and lasts maybe 30 minutes in total. The entire game is in black and white and consists of a series of strange, curiously hypnotic interactive vignettes. Kids is an experience about the crowd and its coexistence. In one scene, faceless humans will argue about where to go, while in another, you'll help the characters navigate pulsating tubes. You are never told what to do and, in many ways, Kids looks more like a toy that makes you think, rather than a traditional game.

If this sounds familiar to you, it may be because Kids is a spiritual successor. In 2012, Frei released a short film titled Plug & play, about two characters that look like electrical outlets, navigation relationship issues. Then, in 2015, he teamed up with game designer Mario von Rickenbach to make it a more interactive tool. After this experience, the two men decided to continue working together, with an emphasis on interactivity from the beginning.

"It was hard to find anyone who had no preconceived ideas about what a game is," says Frei about his initial quest for a business partner. game development. "I had a lot of people who wanted to turn my Plug & play short film in a point-and-click adventure, and that's not what I was looking for. I've tried to stay true to what was envisioned in the first place. Mario had a more experimental approach to game design. Our working methods worked well together. That's also why we decided to do another one.

Plug & play was a short film that was turned into a game but with Kids, the team went in the opposite direction. They started by creating a gaming experience and then created a short film using the animations created during this initial process. Full time development on Kids started in 2016 and during this period, the two men learned a lot about the differences between film and games.

"In the film, it's a lot of timing, pauses to find the right rhythm," says Frei. "In the game, things on the screen always give an answer to the player, there must always be something to do. It is therefore much more difficult to time something. "I think working on an interactive thing from the beginning has had a lot of influence on the film because the film was done in the end, from what we did for the game."

Photo: Playables

They even went further: Kids It's not just a game and a short film. It is also an exhibition. Last February at the Museum of Digital Arts (MuDA) in Zurich, an interactive exhibition Kids The installation included playable versions of the game, as well as a slightly modified movie iteration depending on the number of people present. There were even disturbing versions of the characters in the game, similar to stuffed animals, and customers were encouraged to pick them up and carry them around. The installation has since circumnavigated the world and lands everywhere from London to Tokyo.

It does not matter which version of Kids you meet, the actual message is deliberately vague. Developers clearly have things to say about society and how people interact in large groups, but despite all these strange images, you will not find any specific messages. "It's important that he stays open to interpretation," says Frei.