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In Gold: A Materiality Simulator

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Play In Gold on the Web

This requires a browser supporting OpenGL. Best played in fullscreen. Note that, when played on the web, the game cannot be quit (simply close the browser tab when done) and is missing some of its elements.

Download In Gold

This is the more optimized and full-fledged version that has (some form of) an end state.

Simply download, unzip anywhere, and open In Gold.exe.

Description

In Gold is an interactive experience that asks what may (not) happen when you are told to sit in a room with a wet stone and an academic essay on materials? What are the materialities involved in doing such a thing, but more importantly, how can you have fun by doing such a thing?

More specifically, In Gold is a playful implementation of what I personally have found to be one of the most delightfully silly experiments ever to make it into an academic journal: Timothy Ingold‘s request at the introduction of his Materials against Materiality.

Before you begin to read this article, please go outside and find a largish stone, though not so big that it cannot be easily lifted and carried indoors. Bring it in, and immerse it in a pail of water or under a running tap. Then place it before you on your desk – perhaps on a tray or plate so as not to spoil your desktop. Take a good look at it. If you like, you can look at it again from time to time as you read the article. At the end, I shall refer to what you may have observed.

Timothy Ingold, Materials against Materiality, Archaeological Dialogues 14 (1) 1–16

You can find the whole paper here. It is unfortunately locked behind a paywall. While a solid read if you are into humanity scholars discussing materiality, I recommend to keep your money in your pocket. Also, you don’t really need to read the entire paper to play around with In Gold. (Also also, if you play your cards right, you can read a bit more of Ingold’s paper as well as receive some more of his thinking through the game).

In Gold plays around with its source material, but means no disrespect to the original work or author. In fact, while the original experiment was delightful as well as silly, it lacked an invitation to more materially as well as meaningfully engage with the subject at hand, the stone. I feel this can be done by asking it to have some fun with us, rather than just lying and drying. This is an attempt to transform and discuss this work by making it more overtly playful.

Although much more brilliant, beautiful and fun, I like to think of David O’Reilly’s Mountain as being somewhat of a companion piece for In Gold.

Technical bits and references

In Gold was made in Unity and is an absolute unoptimized mess. It’s my first ever 3D game. Since I am not a game developer by training or trade, I know I can’t promise to do better next time, but I’ll sure as all try!

In Gold could not have been made without incorporating the following assets from the Unity Store:

In Gold makes fair use of materials authored by Timothy Ingold by criticizing, transforming, and referencing the following :