Porpentine

Porpentine Charity Heartscape (born 1987) is a video game designer, new media artist, writer and curator based in Oakland, California. They are primarily a developer of hypertext games and interactive fiction mainly built using Twine. They have been awarded a Creative Capital grant, a Rhizome.org commission, the Prix Net Art, and a Sundance Institute's New Frontier Story Lab Fellowship. Their work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial.

Biography Porpentine Charity Heartscape was born in 1987. In 2012 they contributed a weekly series to the online PC gaming magazine Rock, Paper, Shotgun titled "Live Free, Play Hard".

Porpentine's 2012 Twine game Howling Dogs incorporates themes of escapism, violence and religious experience, though they have stated that it should be open to interpretation. They created Howling Dogs shortly after they 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 used the booth he had been given to showcase his own award-winning game Cart Life to showcase Porpentine's Howling Dogs instead. Hofmeier spray-painted the words "Howling Dogs" across the banner of his own booth, and showed Porpentine's game instead of his own. Hofmeier stated he wished to give greater exposure to Porpentine's game.

In 2015 they released Eczema Angel Orifice, a compilation of over 20 hypertext works from 2012 to 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.

In 2022, Porpentine published their first full-length book Serious Weakness, a 625-page novel exploring themes of trauma, neurodivergence, and manipulation. The title is a translation of an autoimmune disease called myasthenia gravis, which causes weakness and fatigue within the skeletal and central nervous systems.

Artistry Trash has been a common theme in Porpentine's art since their early works, such as Howling Dogs. Trash is glorified, representing that which is disposable and considered worthless, but which people can reclaim and find refuge in. They made most of their early games free on their website so that more people, who might not be able to buy their games, had access to them. 2015 Neon Haze

2015 Aria End

2017 No World Dreamers: Sticky Zeitgeist

2026 Money for Girls: Amortized

Written works

2016 Psycho Nymph Exile Novella

2018 The Decision So Many People Were Forced To Make Throughout History Short story in Whose Future is It?

2022 Serious Weakness Novel

2024 Torture Works Short story collection

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".

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

2016 Creative Capital Emerging Fields for Aria End (in collaboration with Peter Burr) Otherwise Award Fellowship

2017 Prix Net Art, in collaboration with Rhizome and Chronus Art Center With Those We Love Alive and howling dogs included in the Whitney Biennial