"Phantoms: The Bridge Remains" is a just-released video game about the defense of the Old Sava Bridge in Belgrade. He was attacked by phantoms, armed and numerous. First they come on foot, then they arrive with machinery, they attack from the air, they are increasingly difficult to overcome. The player defending the bridge has none of that, but he has everything they don't: non-conformity, sense of justice, respect for values. Sound familiar?
Photo: Private archiveLuka Tillinger
The author of the video game "Phantoms: The Bridge Remains" is Luka Tillinger. He is 33 years old and has a master's degree from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. He says about himself that he is first and foremost a book illustrator, and that he is involved in the development of video games and animation. He considers it his personal lucky circumstance that both his father and mother spent their working lives as urban planners, and that his sister works in landscape architecture and environmental protection.
"I believe that growing up in such a family environment directed me to see the destiny of the city as a summation of the personal destinies of all of us who live in this city," he says for the "Vremena" portal.
In the beginning it was the General Staff
According to the original idea, he says, the phantoms attacked the General Staff. "The city government is constantly trying to demolish that protected building in an exclusive location, I remember similar announcements from 2013." Now they are offering us a 'great' opportunity for development: to raze our cultural monument, a place of remembrance of NATO aggression and a masterpiece of modern architecture, so that an American company can build a magnificent hotel on that place”.
"Despite the pressures of the authorities, the front of resistance to that destruction is wide and strong, which is best evidenced by the list of signatories of the Declaration on the Fate of the Belgrade Fair and the General Staff." Since I am professionally engaged in creativity, I felt that it was my duty to contribute, in my own way, to this struggle and to point out the state's self-destruction of heritage."
He explains that he decided to tower defense because "the conventions and mechanics of that genre were the most similar to the situation we found ourselves in: In these games, the player is in the role of a defender, with the task of building defenses (originally defensive towers, hence the name tower defense), to protect his 'fortress' ' from the onslaught of aggressive madmen, who persistently attack, coming in a column, in ever-increasing numbers, along one and the same well-trodden path".
Why phantoms?
In the role of the attackers, the phantoms from Savamala are a symbol of the "arrogant and violent attitude of the authorities towards the law, the city and the citizens", so it was "obvious to him that in the game I am making, the phantoms should be the performers of all future demolitions".
"The defenses the player sets up taunt the phantoms more than they attack them. Plants, animals, monuments, various symbols are available to the player - a rebellion of nature and society," explains Luka Tillinger.
And then some daily responsibilities came up, and the pressure to collapse the General Staff temporarily subsided, so he put the video game on hold, he says.
Old Sava bridge
"The defense of the Sava Bridge became a topic for me when the bridge was officially closed to traffic, and when the 'The Bridge Remains' initiative began with blocking illegal works and setting up a camp to defend the bridge. Before that, the plan to demolish the bridge ('remove') was not in my mind as serious, I saw it as another piece of nonsense that will eventually come to nothing - the Gondola on Kalemegdan, the Panoramic Wheel on Ušće, there are plenty of such visions. "
He says that "The Old Sava Bridge is much older than most of us who have to watch it disappear, which means that the need to preserve it is not a matter of nostalgia."
"It disgusts me when I hear that the bridge, which we crossed until yesterday, is labeled as 'Nazi', as if it is not a living part of our collective memory, thoughts and images of the Belgrade we live in and love. I cannot accept that the bridge is being demolished as unsafe, without raising the question of who is to blame for the fact that, after extensive reconstruction completed in 2008, it was left to deteriorate to the point of being unusable. And so on."
He sees the "The Bridge Remains" initiative as a "brave articulation of civic consciousness", and because of them he continued the video game he started.
"During November, I added everything else to the game: the Sava bridge, a camp from which light comes even in the dead of night, music, and, most importantly, the characters of the Bridge Guardians who help the player. I drew them with the intention that they resemble the people I met in the Mostaje camp, in the hope that all the citizens and activists defending the bridge can be recognized in them."
He points out that music is "especially important, because it is the link between the real and the virtual world. From a small radio in the corner of the screen, you can hear the songs of performers who in reality, with their performances and speeches, stood up for the defense of the Sava Bridge" and lists that the songs for his video game were given by Daniel Kovač and Jesenji Orkestar ("Promaja") and Horkestar ("No Pasaran").
We are not helpless
The game was published on the website of the initiative "The bridge remains", and of course - it is free. The challenge to pass the 50th level is addressed to everyone who wants to defend the bridge in reality!
It was important to him that the video game be "fun, and that the comedy of the situation be in the service of a call to rebellion." I made the game with a similar reasoning as when I draw a cartoon - I think that laughter is healing as much as it unmasks the projected untouchability of the powerful."
"I believe that political satire that invites us to just 'laugh bitterly at our misfortune' is harmful. It's good to laugh at the predicament we find ourselves in to encourage ourselves, but I think the most important thing is to fight against the propaganda that 'programs' us to believe that we are helpless, defeated, divided and few. That's why a video game is a suitable medium to share a message of dissent. Video games are a challenge, you have to pass the level, solve the "quest", defeat the "boss". "Game over" does not mean that it is over, but that you should play again, to be better. Split, phantoms - The bridge remains!"
