After winning the jury prize at the Vienna Shorts Festival, the video game Everything is nominated for a place among the finalists at Oscar night
What if a video game won an Oscar? It may seem like a provocation, but a video game is also in the running for the next Academy Awards. It's called Everything and it's a title that is revolutionizing, even in a philosophical sense, the way we play.
Everything is a candidate for the list of possible Oscar winners thanks to the victory of the jury prize at the Vienna Shorts Festival. A festival dedicated precisely to short films. The video game impressed everyone in the animation field. But what surprised the judges was not the graphics or the plot of the game, but its meaning. That is, the purpose behind the video game. Everything's goal is to analyze in a philosophical way the world we live in. Starting from the animal kingdom to get to the plant and mineral kingdom. A 360-degree view of the ecosystem in which we live.
How to play Everything
The game has been described by experts as a lesson in metaphysics fun. You can play the game by taking on the role of anything present in it. From an aquatic animal to a bird. But you can also be a plant or a small grain of sand. And even excrement. Everything, in fact, as the title itself says. The goal is to interact with other animals and objects in the game, each of which will offer us insights based on their mental state and a personal view of the world. Many of the phrases in the game are taken from the dialogues on the Big Bang by the English philosopher Alan Watts. Everithing is a holistic world where the dualistic boundary between the various players in this world seems to break down. The developers of the game want to offer players the same look at the world as they had as children. Eyes full of trust and hope for a world that seems huge and with endless possibilities. It's a bit like regaining faith in ourselves and the rest of the world, like when we were kids and dreamed of being anything: an astronaut, an engineer, a scientist, a pilot, an artist, an athlete or a doctor.