A Marxist Reading of Every Day the Same Dream
Contents
For such a short and simplistic piece, Every Day the Same Dream is capable of expressing an entire existential crisis. It uses mechanics as storytelling in a way that few other games have achieved. Every small detail tells its own story from the simple visuals to the use of color. Every Day the Same Dream attempts to show the degrading nature of the monotony of modern life through the avatar’s crisis.
The Player's Place in the World
The first thing that has to be considered is the game’s expression of the world. The player’s first interactions with the world are two fold: visual and auditory. The visual interaction comes in the form of a grey-scale landscape. There is nothing exciting (for the most part) about the world. It is simple, being composed of few, defined polygons and colored as simply as possible. This is no accident. The simplistic nature of the visuals makes everything look the same. Every car is the same and every person is the same, pressing the concept that whatever exists in the world is interchangeable and thereby also expendable. The auditory element is that of the music. It is eerie and haunting, hinting at the unease that is present in the world. It changes bleak visuals into a concerning affair by thematically coloring them.
Now that the player has been released into the world, the first thing that they will come into contact with is the dialogue of the game. Only two characters ever talk to the player: the wife and the boss. The sparse dialogue of both characters shows what is considered valuable in this world. Assuming that the player is to put on their suit, the wife’s dialogue is simply “C’mon honey you’re late”. When the player eventually reaches the boss, you are greeted with “you are late. Go to your cubicle!” These two character’s focus on the player’s work. Every line of dialogue is pointed towards how the player is performing at their job. Note that there are two key points implicit in this. One is that the player is defined by their relationship to their job. The other entities in the game only interact with the player to move them towards a productive existence, being defined here as the office job. The second is that the player’s relationships do not move beyond their job. The only phrase said between the wife and the player that is not work related is “morning dear”. That is an insubstantial phrase that could have the same impact if said by a passing stranger. With both of these in mind it can be seen that, at this moment, the player is their job. There is no distinction between the person and their labor within the social structure of the game’s world.
While the player’s social interactions are defined by the player’s work, the player does not view itself as being defined by work. This is shown through the cyclical nature of the game. The player can choose to go to work and sit at their cubicle ad infinitum. While on one hand this shows the futility of this action, as it will repeat forever and have no impact on any event in the game, what is more important about the cycle is what is not shown. What is hidden from the player is the player’s actual labor. The part of the player’s story that is important to the player is everything that occurs outside of the player’s job. In Wage Labour and Capital, Marx presents an understanding of wage labor as being the selling of a laborer’s time and thereby also their life. In the wage labor system, Marx argues that the laborer “works that he may keep alive. He does not count the labour itself as part of his life; it is rather a sacrifice of his life.” Taking from the Marxist perspective, the player does not see their labor because the labor is not a part of the player’s life. Labour, in Every Day the Same Dream, is only of value to allow the player to continue their existence, as the labor continues the cycle within the game.
The Five Alternatives to Labor
The cycle of labor only remains for so long, as the player is likely to become bored of the cycle. The next inclination of the player is to find something more meaningful, which is precisely what occurs as the player searches out the five alternatives to work. The five alternatives will be analyzed, for the sake of this argument, as being divided into three subsets.
Denial of Duty
The first subset is the denial of duty. Two alternatives are included in this group. The first is when the player refuses to wear their suit. The suit itself is a symbol of the middle-class working environment. Thereby it is also an identifier of the player’s job. By rejecting the suit the player steps beyond the realm of cycle, choosing an action that actively disrupts the norm; thereby the player also rejects their job. What the player is attempting to achieve is a re-appropriation of the time that was otherwise sacrificed to their job. With no labor would come no sacrifice and a full ownership of the player’s life. It would be a freedom from the destructive cycle of labor. However, a rejection of the player’s job is also a rejection of the player’s means of living. The other example of the denial of duty is the player’s suicide. Here the player leaps from a building after having come to work. Clearly there is a denial of the player’s job in the course of killing oneself. Instead of attempting to regain lost time, the player has chosen to deny any usage of their time by annihilating it. Without life there is no labor to be sold or time to be re-appropriated. It can be seen that both instances of the denial of duty lead to death, whether by having life taken from the player or destroying ones own life.
Return to Nature
The second subset is the return to nature. The two alternatives in this subset are when the player encounters the cow and when the player considers the leaf. Both of these endings follow the same logic. The player is searching out beauty and connection in the world. The beauty can be seen through the leaf as it is one of the few objects with any color. The player spends time gazing at the colorful object upon interacting with it. Connection is achieved as the player interacts seemingly meaningfully with the cow. With no other character does the player come into physical contact. In addition, the cow is an example of an entity beyond the system of wage labor and the player recognizes this. What is really being considered in this moment is a longing for the state of the cow, in other words a full ownership of ones life. While these appear meaningful at first, they are actually anything but. The return to nature alternatives are a form of bread and circus for the player. The concept of the bread and circus comes from Roman politics where populist leaders passed free bread reforms and put on large shows to curry the favor of and placate the masses. In this sense, the player is being placated or diverted from focusing on an issue. Unlike the other two subsets of endings, the return to nature does not bring about an end to the cycle. Instead, the two alternatives create a semblance of progress when they are actually only diverting attention from the real issue: the crushing cycle.
Existential Crisis
The final subset of alternatives is the existential crisis. When the player chooses to walk away from work, they come upon a character known as Homeless. The only action of this character is to “take you to a quiet place,” that place being a graveyard. Both Homeless and the graveyard share a common theme in that they are both entities beyond systems of labor. Homeless is seemingly poor being that he lacks a home. Thereby, Homeless is likely not working and also separate from the labor system. The graveyard, on the other hand, is a vacant spot. The purpose of a graveyard is to be an empty space, reserved for death. There is nothing that is less productive than death. This point is further solidified by the graveyard being a “quiet place.” Assuming that the graveyard is actually silent, there is no sound of labor whether that sound come in the form of traffic or actual work. It is the only space in the game that appears untouched by labor. In the graveyard the player is given the space to exist beyond labor as well, but only for a time. The player’s dwelling in the graveyard does not actually effect the cycle, thereby acting as a similar force to the return to nature. The player cannot stay in the graveyard because the player is still alive and, thereby, has a prerogative to remain alive. The means to life in this world is labor.
None of the subsets of alternatives create any meaningful change for the player. The denial of labor does not create freedom for the player. Instead, there is only death, the obliteration of life and thereby also freedom, at the end of either road. The player’s return to nature acts only as a momentary respite from the cycle. In the end, there is nothing gained by considering the beauty or connecting to the labor placement of nature. Neither is there purpose in the existential crisis. The player is trapped within the cycle because they live. While the player way wish to linger in the quite space, it only ever leads back to the player needing to maintain their life through labor.
The Final Cycle
All that is left to understand is the final cycle of Every Day the Same Dream. In this cycle, the player finds themselves alone. The wife, boss, coworkers, and even cars no longer manifest themselves. The player has become isolated from the entities that push them towards labor and the act of labor itself, which was embodied in the other workers. This is the one great deviation in the cycles. When the player makes it to the balcony, they are greeted with themselves leaping from the railing.
This new run is certainly an end to the cycle. There are two reasons that this is the case. First off, the elevator lady (the only character who points the player in any direction other than work) states that after the five alternative the player will “be a new person.” There is no reason to believe that what the lady says is wrong, especially seeing as finding the five alternatives has caused such a massive shift in the world. The other reason is that the game ends. It must be remembered that the cycle of labor was literally unending. The cycle would go on for as long as the player chose to sit at their desk. Given that the game does not repeat, instead going to the title screen, the physical repetition within the game (that was the repetition of labor) has ended.
With this in mind, there is one question left: why did this moment end the cycle? It is not the act of suicide, as the player has already committed suicide in one of the five alternatives and failed to end the cycle. What brought about an end was the act of viewing their own suicide. In some way this action has caused a transcendence beyond labor. The reasoning behind this may be able to be understood by looking at another philosopher: Heidegger.
Death as Own-Most Possibility
In his work “Being and Time,” Heidegger expresses the idea that all people are thrown. This, what Heidegger calls, throwness is the idea that people are born into systems that have been started by others and will be continued by the individual. In other words, every person is working towards goals that are not their own. Their goals were created by the prior generation. However, there is one act that a person is not thrown into. The act of death “can become manifest to Dasein that, in this distinctive possibility of its own self, it has been wrenched away from the ‘they'" (Heidegger 250). The term “Dasein” is simply Heidegger’s way of saying person (literally meaning “being there”). The act of death is a thing that can only be experienced by the self, for the self alone. In this sense death is not historical, meaning that it was not created or started by another person. Given that death is the only thing that a person is not thrown into, according to Heidegger, death is a persons “own-most possibility” (Heidegger 250), or the only thing that a person does independently.
By combining Heidegger and Marx one can see that by confronting death, the player has stepped beyond the confines of the system of labor. The wage laborer is not capable of leaving “the whole class of buyers…. unless he gives up his own existence” (Wage Labour). Thereby the laborer is tied into the machinations of the buyer, that being the capitalist class that hires workers. Their very existence is tied to the buyer. So, in order to actually escape the wage labor system that constitutes the cycle, the laborer must find a way to re-appropriate their own existence. In order to do so, the laborer must first escape the buyer.
The Player's Escape
The last scene of Every Day the Same Dream places the player in the position of escaping the buyer. By confronting the player’s own death, they come face to face with the only action that is their own and, in doing so, distance themselves from the other. The other, in Heidegger’s terms, is not any specific other but instead every other. Thereby the player distances themselves from the buyer class by considering their own death. Do note that it is the consideration that separates this scene from the alternative of suicide. By not actually acting out the suicide, the player is not actually participating a the denial of labor, but is instead a viewing entity beyond the system of labor. Through the consideration of the player’s own death the cycle is ultimately broken, allowing the player to escape the cycle of labor.
This is certainly a bleak ending. It only becomes more-so as there is not much that allows the player to consider what could happen beyond the cycle. The player is left in limbo, not being able to determine what an escape from the system actually implies. Personally, this seems to be an intentional touch. Every Day the Same Dream is not looking to give the player the answers, instead it asks questions.
Certainly there was more that could be discussed within this game, but what has already been said is comprehensive enough for the time being. I hope that these videos revealed a bit more about this strange little game. If nothing else can be taken from Every Day the Same Dream, it is the value of holistic design in a game. Nothing in Every Day the Same Dream was accidental and every small detail built up to a larger picture. Other games have attempted such approaches, but it seems that this game has succeeded if for no other reason than that it was small enough to make such holistic design easier.
Addendum: Why Marxism?
I’m sure that at least one person out there will ask, “why such a Marxist heavy interpretation?” The game is clearly saying something about the corporate work system, but the real push towards Marxism as a reading for this game comes from the company itself. On their webpage, Molleindustria puts a blurb on each game. For Every Day the Same Dream it was “a game about alienation and refusal of labor.” That takes sound bites straight out of the Marxist playbook.
Works Cited
Heidegger, Martin. “Being and Time.” Existentialism, Basic Writings 2nd ed., edited by Charles Guignon and Derk Pereboom, Hackett Publishing Company, 2001, pp. 211-254.
Molleindustria, Every Day the Same Dream. Molleindustria, 2009.
“Wage Labour and Capital. Chapter 2.” Marx Engles Archive 2006, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch02.htm
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