Kokoromi is a term with two distinct primary meanings: a Japanese noun meaning "trial" or "experiment," and the name of an experimental video game collective based in Montreal, Canada.
Japanese Language
In Japanese, kokoromi (試み, こころみ) is a noun meaning "trial," "experiment," "attempt," or "endeavor." It is derived from the verb kokoromiru (試みる), meaning "to try" or "to attempt." The word is part of JLPT N2 and N1 vocabulary. Example usage includes:
- Kore wa yashin-teki na kokoromi datta. (これは野心的な試みだった。) — "It was an ambitious attempt."
- Sono kokoromi wa shippai ni owatta. (その試みは失敗に終わった。) — "That effort failed."
Experimental Game Collective
Kokoromi is also a group formed in 2006 with the intent of promoting video games as an art form and experimental gameplay worldwide. The collective consists of independent video game creators and curators: Damien Quartz (also known as Damien Di Fede), Phil Fish, Heather Kelley, and Cindy Poremba. Most of the members met in 2005 while working on a small game project for a cultural event in Montreal.
The group was a pioneer in what came to be known as the "New Arcade." Throughout its growth, Kokoromi organized several game-related shows, including the Gamma events (Gamma: Audio Feed, Gamma 256, GAMMA 3D, and Gamma IV), which encouraged designers to consider gameplay in experimental ways. Award-winning games submitted to and launched at Gamma include Jason Rohrer's Passage, Steph Thirion's Faraway, the Copenhagen Game Collective's B.U.T.T.O.N., and Kokoromi's own SuperHyperCube.
The group has also designed several independent game projects, including the dance party game Dancingularity and its Drinkularity spin-off. Founding member Phil Fish later formed the independent game company Polytron, which developed the critically acclaimed title Fez. In 2015, the collective announced that superHYPERCUBE was being redeveloped for Sony's PlayStation VR, and it was released as a launch title for the device on October 13, 2016.
