Når vi taler om europæisk spiludvikling, er Polen ofte et af de første lande der nævnes. Dette skyldes, at denne tidligere sovjetrepublik huser nogle af de største IP'er i den globale industri i dag; The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, The Medium, Dying Light, Frostpunk, Blood of Dawnwalker...
Men hvor kommer al den kreativitet fra? Og hvorfor virker polske fantasy- og science fiction-fortællinger, selvom de er velkendte og alligevel stadig noget unikt? Alle disse spørgsmål har uden tvivl mange fortolkninger, men få svar bærer større autoritet end Jacek Dukaj, en polsk science fiction-forfatter, grundlægger af Dukaj Games og vinder af EU's litteraturpris. Vi havde fornøjelsen af at møde Dukaj på Madeira Summit, hvor han deltog i et panel sammen med Gathin Aldous (som vi også talte med), og vi fik mulighed for at tale med ham om science fiction, katedraler i deep space inspireret af Sagrada Familia, sovjetisk censur og meget mere. Et fuldt interview, som du ikke må gå glip af, som du kan finde nedenfor.
Tilbage til det spørgsmål, vi stillede i starten, spurgte vi Jacek direkte, hvorfor resten af verden - og især europæerne - er så overraskede over den rigdom, dybde og talent, der findes i polsk science fiction. Det hele begyndte for omkring 50 år siden...
"We had a very strong literary movement in 70s and 80s called sociological science fiction. You have to remember it was still during the communist era. So, it was written under censorship and basically all of this was used as a pretext of deep sociological critique of communist system. Because it was possible to write science fiction critiquing communist role, but not so-called serious literature, because censors didn't really focus on science fiction. So, a lot of really good works drawing from the tradition of Orwell, Zamiatin, all those big creation of dystopia."
"They laid the foundations for later generations of Polish science fiction writers, also game designers, because those that set up the biggest, most successful Polish game dev companies, they are all from this generation that was raised on those science fiction novels. So, they have it in their DNA. So, this is the way that something like Polish school of science fiction games came to be."
Faktisk er grænsen mellem hans arbejde som romanforfatter og hans arbejde som manuskriptforfatter til spil (og som gamer) papirstynd for Dukaj.
"·"I always played games and was fascinated by the games as a new form of culture, new form of art. So, even in my early writings there is a lot of things that can be described as a world building based on the set of rules taken from games. So, you treat the whole world as a kind of a game: You set up those rules. You look in what way it will develop. What kind of peculiar features it has."
"I've written something that was titled 'Irehare', novella, short novel, that was published, I think, 10 years before Matrix and it's basically the Matrix in different aesthetics. And also later on, I published a novel, Line of Resistance, which is more like a theoretical approach to this problem, mainly asking yourself in what way you can treat your whole life as a game. Can you gamify the whole world of human experiences? I will be going in this direction anyway."
Gå ikke glip af hele interviewet, hvor Jacek fortæller os om AI's rolle i at give spillerne absolut frihed til at udleve deres historier, og også diskuterer også sit store projekt med at adaptere The Cathedral hos Dukaj Games.