Sitzprobe Assemblage
A downloadable archival screenshot
An archival screenshot showing Mr. Candle's post mortem of an abandoned RPG called Sitzprobe Assemblage.
Includes the article as a .pdf and a transcribed .docx version. Since no interactive .pdf version of the screenshot exists, any links within the article are not functional. At time of writing, the rest of "Mr. Candle's Reviews & Ephemera" blog cannot be found, and Sitzprobe Assemblage itself left no trace beyond this post mortem.
Created for Lost, Broken, Unplayable~, hosted by snow.
Public domain credits...
Meditation No. 33 by Alexej von Jawlensky, courtesy of Artvee.
Three Fisher Boys by Frances Hodgkins, courtesy of Artvee.
Iconographic Encyclopedia of Science, Literature, and Art by Johann Georg Heck, courtesy of the David Rumsey Map Collection.
Candle vectors by OpenClipArt, courtesy of Pixabay.
"Flintlock pistol with ivory fore-end," courtesy of Rijksmuseum.
The Shell Fisherman by Jan Toorop, courtesy of Rijksmuseum.
Schets van een berglandschap monte generoso by Jan Toroop, courtesy of Rijksmuseum.
"Two writing boxes" attributed to Uematsu Hōbi, courtesy of Rijksmuseum.
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Comments
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This is such a cool concept, I love the layers of unfiction. I really want to see more of what Sitzprobe Assemblage "actually" looked like, but alas, that is the point of this all ain't it. We aren't allowed to see the whole thing.
Thank you! I'm not super familiar with the term "unfiction," and I'm excited to look into it. Feels apt. My original plan for this piece did actually include "screenshots" of Sitzprobe Assemblage, but I had to pivot and lean into that ambiguity in order to submit to the jam on time. Mr. Candle and his favorite forum are probably going to recur in my work, though, so maybe I'll end up making Sitzprobe screenshots sometime.
ooohhh yes I would love to see some more stuff from Mr. Candle!
And yeah, I don't think the term unfiction is super commonly used, but I like it and feel that it's a fitting word for works like this, where things appear to be real but also are very much not.
I thought this was pretty cool. I grew up with a very distant view of RM2K communities, and now find a lot of enjoyment in reading blogs and LPs that cover the ins and outs of projects I saw or heard of in passing during my RPG Maker youth. This reminds me a lot of those kinds of partially-concrete, partially-intuition analyses, so I think you did a great job with it!
Sitzprobe kind of reminds in part of OFF, mainly like the friction between two main characters and taking place in sort of an abstract place with like, abstract/symbolic dialogue, I guess. If it existed, I imagine I would play it through, take in all the vibes, then chew on a bunch of analysis by people a lot sharper than me XD
Thank you so much! This is great to hear. As someone who has also chewed through a lot of analysis of weird games, I'm so glad I captured the feel. Never played OFF, but I definitely was in the same internet circles as those who did.
If you want a super interesting exploration/critique of that dynamic between artists and the people who try to know them through their art, I'd recommend the Beginner's Guide. (I have been both of the people in that dynamic at various points.) Absolutely pivotal game for me.
I've played Beginner's Guide! I thought it was very sharp! Been a good while, would be good for a revisit. Not to wander too far in the weeds of it, just the other day I was thinking about some pages I follow on Itch and like, how eventually those pages will stop updating? I'll only ever know that person through the art they release and like, the graphic layouts, avatar, and fonts they chose to represent themselves in a specific space that is both kind of personal but also somewhat commercial and public. Even if the work resonates a lot? Guess that's in the Beginner's Guide's ballpark a little.
Won't talk your ears off with the musing, of course. Might make a game on it someday, maybe.
I think about that a lot, too. There are probably already numerous papers on the topic of micro-parasociality, for lack of a better term. But I think it'll be years until any of us can truly wrap our brains around the way "being online" has added all these overlapping layers between public and private, personal and commercial. Sometimes I get jealous of artists who have big platforms, but then I remember that while online presence can give someone that sort of reach, it can also render someone a "public figure" in an instant. Whether they want all those eyeballs on them or not! But then again, I cannot condemn the whole thing because I am grateful for what I've learned and experienced online. Especially what I've witnessed through the tiny windows of art.
It's hard to imagine a full understanding of social online spaces, but I am at least grateful to have expressive spaces that do not make one too vulnerable. At least, to some degree. Like you say once you get big enough to have like, gravity, you become "public" and your walled garden of sorts becomes an attraction instead. Which is good in some ways, like, a lot of artists who want to make a living of it need to self-promote, but it also seems exhausting to lose that barely perceived quality and becoming vulnerable through sheer spotlight, particularly with works of self-expression...I did appreciate how Candle in your piece insists on respecting sitzdev's peace; we've all read horror stories about folks who take playing detective too far in the gaming space.
Ultimately though I am appreciative of these windows too. I've learned a lot about myself through the graces of these lenses, and I've come closer to finding my voice with that help. Someday I hope to leave a trailmarker of my own, I suppose.
I feel really lucky that you've responded to Sitzprobe in this way. I think I've gotten maybe five-ish comments about the actual content of my games since I started posting them here in 2022, so it's really refreshing to hear what someone thinks about a thing I wrote. Comments like that can be trailmarkers in their own way. Thank you for your insightful words!