Gameplay Journal #4 — Bio Tek Kitchen
In terms of art mods for games one topic that always seems to be a common theme is commentary on real life events. That theme continues with the Bio Tek Kitchen mod for Bungie’s Marathon. This mod takes what is by default a Doom like sci-fi first person shooter and turns it into a kitchen infested with mutated, sentient vegetables. The vegetables have bee mutated because of genetic modification at the hands of an evil corporation hell bent on taking over the entire food chain. Its probably pretty obvious from that description, but the mod was made in protest of increased practice of genetically modifying crops in real life. The mod is by no means a total conversion, but it includes enough graphical and narrative changes to completely change the game from what it once was.
To me this comes as a perfect example of how art mods end to follow “The tendency to privilege foregrounding over transparency runs in tandem with another principle of countergaming: aesthetics are elevated over gameplay.” (Galloway 115). Changing the gameplay itself was not the focus of the mod, as stated before it still controls the same and the player is still using ‘weapons’ of some sort to kill ‘enemies’. However with the changing of weapons to cooking and cleaning implements, and the enemies into mutant vegetables, it removes most of the standard conventions of sci-fi FPS games of the time. And through this removal of conventions the game shifts drastically, which shows how much can be achieved with just some aesthetic choices being elevated over gameplay to turn the game into a commentary piece instead of just an action shooter game.
Galloway, A. R. (2006). Gaming essays on algorithmic culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
