Bruxólico Inspirations and thoughts

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Bruxólico Inspirations and thoughts

 

For some time now, I have had a desire to make a game inspired by the traditional culture and folklore of the place where I was born, grew up, and have lived. In 2019, I made a demo of the game's first stage for modern computers in Mega Drive-style graphics. The game was already named Bruxólico, and the general idea around the story of the bottomless well was defined in my head. But I had to leave the project on hold to finish other things I started earlier. Now, finally, I can present the final, matured, and polished result, in multiple aesthetic languages, or multimedia if you prefer to call.

This has been my most ambitious project to date. Not only because it was a large game by the standards of those I have made before on 8-bit computers but also because of my search to do "something more" than just a game. In my mind, the game and the illustrated book, as well as other related arts, complement each other and together have a different effect than when enjoyed separately. It was eight months of intense work, 8 to 14 hours a day, 5, 6, sometimes 7 days a week, designing, programming, making graphics, composing music, writing, illustrating, and other productions and post-productions that a independent and authorial work requires.

For the narrative of the illustrated book, I took inspiration from the greats like Saint-Exupéry or Lewis Carroll, even though I know I cannot reach their level. For me, the reading needed to work with enough layers to interest both a child and an adult. Also, it had to work both in isolation and together with the game, although only the latter option gives a complete overview of the story and characters. That's why I didn't get too caught up in describing the creatures, which are detailed in the illustrations, or the action scenes, which are exactly the game's experience.

The idea of layered reading, using witches and the whole universe of the story as metaphors, also aims to honor the work of Franklin Cascaes, the main artistic inspiration for the game's universe. His work not only depicts old folk customs and legends but also creates and uses them as metaphors to express his worldview. Without intending to make a biography, even a brief one, it is necessary to synthesize who he was and the importance of his legacy.

Franklin Joaquim Cascaes (1908-1983) dedicated his life to a work that not only recorded a local culture, originating in some measure from the Azores but also created a whole imaginary and a unique art. He would drive his Kombi to the old communities on the island and do field studies of customs and legends among the people. Then, he would produce sculptures, drawings, and tales that portrayed this culture. Finally, he would return to the community and hold exhibitions, giving feedback to the people and showing that their customs and legends were worthy of recording and memory, of becoming art.

In his last decade of life, Cascaes, already the director of the anthropology museum at UFSC, had the help of Gelci José Coelho, known as Peninha, an artist and history student at that university. Peninha not only worked tirelessly, even after Cascaes' death, to publicize and preserve his entire body of work but also collaborated in the creation of a whole series of legends and tales, maintaining a rich production of drawings and texts in parallel.

Many of these legends and customs initially came with immigrant settlers from the Azores Archipelago in Portugal. But here they gained their own characteristics and merged with many other traditions. There is an old anecdote, said to be true, that when Cascaes first visited the Azores, he was surprised that the Boi-de-Mamão (Papaya-Ox) festivity did not exist. Despite a certain previous heritage, the "displaced" culture always develops in a unique way. The Cult of the Ox, as a figure of fertility in the narrative of death and rebirth, is present in many ancient cultures. The dances and the play of Boi-de-Mamão also have a lot of influence from the culture brought by enslaved Blacks, as well as the indigenous peoples who were subjugated here. Legends and mythical creatures such as Boitatá, a corruption of M'boitata, the Tupi "Fire Snake," are the fruit of this unique development and mixing of traditions "by forceps."

Although the tales and illustrations of witches are only a part, and not even the largest part, of Cascaes' work, it was the one that gained greater prominence due to its fantastic nature. I think that Peninha, knowing the appeal of these stories, was one of the great responsible for this fact.

I do not see the mystical creatures of the drawings and tales left by Cascaes as an end in themselves, but also as a means for him to speak about other real themes: metaphors beyond. I believe that he saw witches as materializations of misunderstandings, fears, repressions, and other conflicts that people experienced.

For those who are willing to search on the internet for images of Cascaes' works, they will quickly recognize several creatures that are also present in the game, such as bewitched brooms, or the Witchlish Swing, among others, as well as the ones that I created based on this rich and fantastic universe.

The fairy creatures in Bruxólico are not only a tribute to Cascaes, but also a reason to talk about and show my view of our culture and the place where I live, my vision of this world and its problems. That's why I portray places like some of the old trails in the city, such as Gravata or Sertão do Assopro, which I have already walked along with my wife, who loves to be in touch with nature and appreciate the natural beauty of the landscapes. In the last three years, she patiently listened to all my ideas for the game while I was inspired by the native forest and information about these ancient paths. I think I created more than half of the game's levels on my head while walking these trails.

Above: Respectively fragment of “O Balanço Bruxólico”

and “Witches Steal Canoe” by Franklin Cascaes.

It was also through Ju's history thesis, more than 15 years ago, that I learned a lot about Cascaes' figure and the discussions about the political meaning of his life and work. This debate even inspired me to compose a song titled "Mané" and make a completely pixel art music video for it in 2008. It was a critique of the real estate exploitation of the Island and the way culture is treated here, with references to political events of that time.

Another important contribution to the game's maturity and narrative came from the initiative and invitation of my friend Luiz Souza to collaborate with “Anacronia Magazine”. The interviews we did with Peninha greatly fueled my imagination. But also, the dialogue with my friend's production is part of it all. He who noticed in a very original way a relationship between the "Mendes Goat" from hermetic literature and the figure of Boitatá, and reinvented the concept of Matárius, the "beach of forgetfulness".

An interesting story is related to all of this. In 2014, I drew a creature that I called the Ghost Bull, for a project that I never realized called "Bestiary of the Island". I also created a small narrative, creating the legend of a sighting of the creature by Portuguese garrisons here on the island, even before the arrival of the Azoreans. In 2019, my parents made a banner of this illustration and paraded it alongside another one reproducing one of Cascaes' Boitatás.

Well, talking about it with Luiz, he asked me what would be the reason, the intention of the creature in being sighted. I said I wasn't sure, but that it probably just wanted to be seen. Based on his readings in Hermetic magic, especially the concept of "form-idea", Luiz created a tale called "Ghost Ox", describing how these fantastic creatures only exist as long as they are remembered and worshipped because if not, they end up in a place called Matárius, the beach of forgetting. If you found the idea familiar, it's because it's in many places, like Neil Gaiman's "American Gods", which certainly got it from the same source as Luiz, the Hermetic literature.

Regarding the aesthetic choices of the game, I need to point out a few things. It's been almost 10 years since I create authorial video game. Lately, I've been working a lot within the limitations of these 8-bit computers from the 80s. I'm still amazed at how memory limitations force us to come up with creative solutions, and how this also gives me new ideas for the general aesthetic creation of the game.

At other times, I've talked a lot about the technical limitations and memory limits of these computers, and even the "Engine" I’m using, MPAGD. The main thing is that I continue to use these large blocks of 8x8 pixels to draw the backgrounds and illustrations that are in the game and in the illustrated book. I try to do pixel art with an esthetician's head, like a painting, always considering the image as a whole and not just its individual elements.

In the quest to make the scenarios "alive" and detailed, I chose a "fake 3D" visual. Thus, I created an effect that is visually impressive and also contributes to the "level design": I make it clear to the player what is the background scenario and what are the elements with which he collides and interacts, such as the ground, platforms, walls, and enemies.

In an attempt to overcome the technical limitations of the machine, the Engine, and my own limitations as an artist delving into programming rather than being a coder, I created ways to simulate the screen scrolling by using sprites (the small elements that can move freely on the screen like the player) that are programmed and conditioned to a variable that turns their movement on or off. Despite the maximum limitation of 12 sprites per screen, it was possible to manage the resources and have the player, their attacks, and the enemies, along with these effects, all moving simultaneously.

One special and noteworthy thing here is the idea of using the audio recorded on the tape. Since the memory space is very limited, I couldn't afford to include a large amount of narrative text in the game program. But this was an impasse, as the story is long for the standards of this type of game. As someone who didn't grow up playing games on cassette tapes, I found myself wondering if it was possible to have audio recorded on it after the game program and played back by the microcomputer. This way, I would have a cool result: narrations of the stories in analog audio quality and memory savings to include more screens and boss levels.

I talked about this idea with Filipe Veiga, asked if it was possible, and if any past or present developer had used this feature. He then introduced me to the games of Automata, and in particular their masterpiece, the game "Deus Ex Machina," which I found fantastic. I can only draw a parallel between such an innovative and astonishing game and something in the style of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick on the Wall" movie. I was sure that I wanted and needed to use this feature in Bruxólico, not in an experimental or as well-executed way as the folks at Automata, because I don't yet have the means to program synchronization between my game's action and the audio in that complex way, but in a creative way that added to the player's experience.

These were some of the main inspirations and reflections of these 8 months of Bruxólico production, a game that has actually been gestating for much longer. Like in previous works, it is the synthesis of many ideas and objectives that I have set for myself when creating my games. From the idea of not ending the creation solely in the game, but expanding it to other aesthetic languages, to always being in dialogue with culture, with the artistic productions that I have access to in various languages, whether comics, cinema, literature, visual arts, etc., from different eras.

Bruxólico is very special to me because of all its affective value, Cascaes' work, and the generation of artists who continued it, such as Peninha and my parents. I hope that you also find your own meaning while playing, reading, listening, and seeing the images of all this long work. And thank you for flying with me this far.