“NO WORDS TO SPEAK WITH (The Architect Saga, Chapter II)” by Yes Very Much (Miguel Rosso Godoy, Franco Belbey, Esteban Rivero Sosa & Alba Rosso Godoy) & Julián Espino Ojeda.
In the first part of The Architect Saga, we played a blameless citizen in a surreal, consumerist as well as authoritarian state. We enriched our otherwise barren apartment by buying a so-called “pet friend”, an oversized version of Sea-Monkeys. However, the exact specimen we acquired was of a very special quality. Not only did it display consciousness as well as intelligence and started to talk to us, but it also seemed to have a very different, deeper understanding of the world than we did. “NO WORDS TO SPEAK WITH (The Architect Saga, Chapter II)” explains the story of how this pet friend came to be.
This time we play a factory worker who apparently produces goods for the in-game department store called “The Paradox”. We stand at an assembly line where we hand the eyeless pet prototypes their first food and then send them through the tube to the next stage of their ‘production’. When we are not working, we are in a small cell with nothing more than a bed, an air vent and a door. Now, even though you might think that this could only be meant as punishment, there is no evidence that we are criminals in this abstruse world. Rather, it seems to be a kind of ideologization measure. The dazzling leader of this universe, who is always called only The Architect, wants us to be at his side.
Every day we receive an envelope through the slot of our cell door. If we open it and read the accompanying message, we as players will be stunned at first. The notes, advertised as learning unit, want to make the character believe that meat is actually called rock and that a bottle of red wine is a book that can explode. Of course, these messages make no sense to us as players. However, the world that The Architect has built and its inhabitants seem to have no doubt about what he has said. With this Orwellian scenario, “NO WORDS TO SPEAK WITH (The Architect Saga, Chapter II)” lets us sense the power of this leader, even if we have no idea what motives are behind his activities. But where words no longer reflect any truth, a song can possibly help…. See you again at the third chapter. [PLAY]
