How Deep Is the Dark Water? is an experimental game that imagines a cross-strait war. The player, guided by a fleeing man, slowly wanders through memories and visions constructed by the context of the war and individual experiences. At the same time, the player finds another layer of meaning of war for individuals, cultures and nations by discovering the messages hidden in each scene.

《烏水有多深？》是一件交互式实验游戏，它想象了一场发生在海岸的战争，玩家跟随一位因战争而逃难的男人的指引缓慢地游走，在由战争情境和个体经验所构建的回忆和幻象中游历。同时，玩家通过发现潜藏在各个场景中的文本，找寻战争对于个体、文化以及民族的另一层意义。

From historic dwellings to steam trains carrying displaced people, from bomb shelters filled with fear and violence to burned cultural traditions, from confrontations with the ghosts of refugees under the water to the emotional orgy of social media, what is always present in this game is the back of the fleeing man who represents a helpless individual and an object that cannot be possessed or perceived clearly. As a response to the tensions in the world, this work does not directly portray war, but tries to let the player feel the separation, fear, violence and trauma of war in the process of chasing the fleeing man. Water is an important imagery in the work and is almost everywhere. The black seawater carries not only the sound of shelling, but also individual nostalgia, love, hate, and confusion.

从带有历史痕迹的居所到装载离乡人的蒸汽火车，从充斥恐惧和暴力的防空洞到被焚烧的古老文化传统，从水底下难民幽魂的对抗到社交媒体的情绪狂欢，作品中持续存在的是一个逃难者的背影——他代表一个无助的个体，也代表一个无法被占有和看清的对象。作为对世界紧张局势的回应，本作品并不直接对战争进行直接描绘，而是尝试让玩家在追寻逃难者的过程中感受战争带来的离别、恐惧、暴力以及创伤。水是作品中的重要意象，它几乎无处不在。乌黑的海水不仅承载炮击，还承载着个体的乡愁、爱恨以及茫然。

How Deep Is the Dark Water? creates an interactive scenario that allows the player to read text (or short poems) hidden in the game space, by using the right mouse button to zoom in on an object, look away, and in some cases, to see the text superimposed on the object. This technique stems from the artist’s long preoccupation and experimentation with reading texts in virtual space, and is in line with the special significance of reading in this work – the texts are the weak repercussions that lurk beneath the surface of historical events.

《烏水有多深？》创造了一种特殊的交互方式来让玩家阅读藏在游戏空间中的文本（或称之为短诗），玩家通过使用鼠标右键放大视角来观察物体或是遥望远方，而在某些情况下，他能够看到叠在物体上的文字。这种手法源于作者对虚拟空间文本阅读的长期思考和实验，也符合阅读在本作品中的特殊意义——那些文本是潜藏在历史事件表象下的微弱反响。

How Deep Is the Dark Water? is presented in black and white, except for certain things accentuated with color in an attempt to achieve simple yet heavy quality. Minimalist and lacking a clear-cut narrative, the work explores the ability of video games to mediate reading and affect, guiding the player with cinematic interactivity and connecting the act of “wandering” in video games with the individual feelings in the time of war.

《烏水有多深？》使用黑白的视觉来呈现，只有那些特殊事物是有颜色的，它尝试营造出简洁而又沉重的气质。本作品力图极简，没有具体叙事，对电子游戏这一媒介在感受力和文本阅读上的能力进行探索，尝试用交互式的电影感受来引导玩家，尝试将电子游戏中的“游走”行为与战争之下的个体感受相连接。

CREDITS

Director / 3D Artist / Programmer / Sound Artist:
Rhett Tsai (Yuxiao Cai)

Proofreading:
Yuri Kuzmin

Title Font Design:
Mofan Zhai

Brazilian Portuguese Translation:
Pedro Fadel (Festival ECRÃ)

Special Thanks:
Chia-Lin Lee, Dongting Fu, Guangli Liu, Jiahui Wang, Lauren Moffatt, Lihao Shao, Wenjing Shen, Zhan Gao, Zhipeng Wang

Full sounds and assets credits inside the game.

Languages

– 简体中文
– 繁體中文
– English
– Português (Brasil)

Recommended System Requirements

– OS: Windows 10 64-bit
– Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
– CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60GHz
– RAM: 16GB

Matters Needing Attention / Assuntos que precisam de atenção / 必读 / 必讀

– Please make sure the game folder is placed under the Latin-letters-only path, otherwise some parts of the game content may be lost.
– Play in dark environments for best experience.
– Copyright ©2023 Rhett Tsai (Yuxiao Cai), All Rights Reserved.

– Certifique-se de que a pasta do jogo esteja no caminho somente letras latinas, caso contrário, algumas partes do conteúdo do jogo podem ser perdidas.
– Jogue em ambientes escuros para melhor experiência.
– Não use este trabalho para exibição ou uso comercial sem permissão.

– 请确保将游戏文件置于「拉丁字母（如英文）」路径下，否则将引起错误；
– 暗环境将提供最佳游玩体验；
– 版权所有，侵权必究。

– 請確保將遊戲文件置於「拉丁字母（如英文）」路徑下，否則將引起錯誤；
– 暗環境將提供最佳遊玩體驗；
– 版權所有，侵權必究。