Saint Simon’s Saw by Samuel Thomson
Saint Simon’s Saw is of course not strictly speaking a piece of interactive fiction, since it is not a piece of fiction. Rather, it is an alternate tarot deck, complete with a way to lay out the cards and interpretations for each of them. In form, it is a piece of 3D Unity software, looking good and with nice illustrations for the cards.
I have little experience with tarot, but I fancy that I understand the basic mechanics. One does not (need to) suppose that the cards ‘foretell the future’. Rather, by contemplating a particular sequence of meaning-laden pictures, one sets in motion thought processes that allow one to plumb the depths of one’s own mind. What is crucial to this is that the cards themselves combine polysemy (having a multitude of meanings, and thus being applicable to many situations) with unity (being a single strong symbol or archetype rather than a loose collection of ideas). And if one wants to create an alternate deck, this is going to be the big challenge.
It’s a challenge that Saint Simon’s Saw seems to both succeed at and fail. Many of the cards present really interesting symbols! The intertwined snake and ladder, for instace, or the printing press that is being carried around. Normally, the printing press creates books that are then carried around, the press itself being stationary. What’s going on here? What does this symbolise about mobility, knowledge, burden, capital? It’s an intriguing card. Or what about the Other, portrayed as a body in an anatomical theatre? Genius! One feels that Thomson has put a lot of creativity and thought into these cards.
On the other hand – and this is the ‘failure’ part of the equation – the accompanying texts are less than ideal. They are convoluted, confusing, and most importantly, too theoretical. The power of tarot is that the symbols speak to us at, well, precisely a symbolic level; what Jung would call the level of archetypes. They take us beyond or behind rationality, and can be applied across time and even to a certain extent culture. But here’s a reading that Saint Simon’s Saw gave me:
The RECIPROCITY card foregrounds the question with the figure of an actor distributing effort or energy, and taking responsibility. The card in the second position represents a focussing-in on a particular part of the issue at hand, in this case, through the OTHER card’s focus on the constraints placed on the self by over-emphasizing the delimitation of corporeality. The PRINTING-PRESS card proposes codifying the systems, operations, and beliefs that structure lived experience as a possible circumvention. A boundary marked by an unexpected ability, drawn from an openness to change will signify a passing of the question through the UNICORN card.
This reads like post-structuralist theory, chock-full of jargon, and of dubious coherence and sense. I have no idea what could be meant by “constraints placed on the self by over-emphasizing the delimitation of corporeality,” and I’m a professional philosopher and have managed to actually read Foucault and Derrida! How do you codify (?) something as a possible (?) circumvention (?)?
Conclusion: great cards, work on the text.