This article aims to approach the problem of avant-garde digital games by analyzing them as proof of avant-gardes’ vitality and/or their demise. First, it seeks to investigate the presence of avant-garde as a term within contemporary digital game discourses. Second, it focuses on the digital games somewhat inspired by works and practices of avant-gardes and tries to investigate how the presence of avant-gardes within contemporary games may also indicate its demise. To deal with that ambiguous position, the concept of arrière-garde is proposed, as prescribed to contemporary works of art inspired by avant-garde movements and continuing their actions. The article concludes with two case studies, focusing on intertextual references to the Surrealism found in titles by Bedtime Digital Game and of cozy games which, despite not offering direct continuity, utilize art and mood as a means of political protest in a similar way to Czech Poetism.
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