Porpentine

Porpentine Charity Heartscape is a video game designer, writer and curator based in Oakland, California. She is primarily a developer of hypertext games and interactive fiction. Her work falls under the category of new media art and has been exhibited around the world. She was an editor for freeindiegam.es, the now-retired curated collection of free, independently produced games. She was a columnist for online PC gaming magazine Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Porpentine's games are mainly built using Twine.

Porpentine's 2012 Twine game Howling Dogs incorporates themes of escapism, violence and religious experience, though she has stated that it should be open to interpretation. She created Howling Dogs shortly after she started hormone-replacement therapy in 2012, in only seven days, while staying in a friend’s remodeled barn. It won the 2012 XYZZY awards in the "Best story" and "Best writing" categories. The Boston Phoenix listed it as one of their "Top 5 indie games of 2012".

During the 2013 Game Developers Conference, game designer Richard Hofmeier vandalised the booth he had been given to showcase his award-winning game Cart Life, spray-painting the words "Howling Dogs". He stated he wished to give greater exposure to Porpentine's game.

In 2015 she released Eczema Angel Orifice, a compilation of over 20 hypertext works from 2012-2015. The compilation includes critically acclaimed games such as With Those We Love Alive, a queer fable about isolation, abuse, and the relationship between art and power; and Ultra Business Tycoon III, a sprawling textual world disguised as edutainment software.

In 2016, Rhizome commissioned Porpentine along with Neotenomie and Sloane through the series First Look: New Art Online resulting in Psycho Nymph Exile. This work includes an online hypertext work, a booklet, and stickers. The project depicts the experience of PTSD as a visceral physical substance, not an invisible, abstract force.

• Psycho Nymph Exile (2016)
• Vesp: A History of Sapphic Scaphism (2016)
• Dream Crypt (2015)
• Beautiful Frog (2015)
• Neon Haze (2015)
• Aria End (2015)
• Eczema Angel Orifice (2015)
• Bellular Hexatosis (2015)
• This World Is Not My Home (2015)
• Pink Zone (2014)
• Skulljhabit (2014)
• With Those We Love Alive (2014)
• Begscape (2014)
• Everything You Swallow Will One Day Come Up Like A Stone (2014)
• Parasite (2013)
• How To Speak Atlantean (2013)
• Their Angelical Understanding (2013)
• Ultra Business Tycoon III (2013)
• Cry$tal Warrior Ke$ha (2013)
• Armada (2013)
• High End Customizable Sauna Experience (2013)
• Howling Dogs (2012)
• Cyberqueen (2012)

2016

• Creative Capital Emerging Fields for Aria End (in collaboration with Peter Burr)

2014

• XYZZY Best Writing and Best Individual NPC for With Those We Love Alive
• Wordplay Festival Award for Most Unique World: With Those We Love Alive

2013

• XYZZY Best Writing for their angelical understanding
• Indiecade Special Recognition for Porpentine’s Twine Compilation
• Porpentine’s Twine Compilation listed by the Museum of the Moving Image (New York City) as one of "25 Must-Play Video Games".

2012

• XYZZY Best Writing for Howling Dogs
• “Golden Banana of Discord” for Howling Dogs at the 2012 Interactive Fiction Competition, a prize awarded for the highest standard deviation "both the most loved and the most hated."

• "Creative Capital - Investing in Artists who Shape the Future". creative-capital.org. Retrieved 2016-02-26. 
• "2014 Awards results | The XYZZY Awards". xyzzyawards.org. Retrieved 2016-01-05. 
• "Hand Eye Society | WordPlay 2014 Photos and Awards". handeyesociety.com. Retrieved 2016-01-06. 
• ^ "The XYZZY Awards". 
• Goldberg, Harold (7 October 2013). "IndieCade Games Festival Celebrates Winners". ArtsBeat New York Times. 
• Indie Essentials: 25 Must-Play Video Games, Museum of the Moving Image (New York City), accessed 2014-11-02.

• Rougeau, Michael (December 4, 2014), "Making "With Those We Love Alive," a Game That Leaves its Mark on You", Animal, retrieved December 18, 2014 
• Hudson, Laura (November 19, 2014). "Twine, the video-game technology for all". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved November 23, 2014. 
• Klepek, Patrick (January 21, 2014), "Porpentine's Wonderful World of Slime", Giant Bomb 
• Charity Heartscape, Porpentine (May 11, 2015), "Hot Allostatic Load", The New Inquiry, retrieved February 26, 2015