General Track
_transfer
Hyacinth Nil Ramsay & Reed Lewis
_transfer is a queer posthuman narrative about memory, identity, and the end of the world. It is a multifaceted interactive story mostly told through conversations between a group of artificial intelligences where players select dialogue options to choose the flow of conversation. Once they’ve finished a route, they can start again as a different character and experience the story from another perspective. The game uses text, as well as audio and FMV to develop the sense of a ruined world that is implied but never explicitly shown and to ask the players what they should do with it and those they’re left with.
A Mile in My Shoes
Karen Royer
A Mile in My Shoes is a gameboard platform that utilizes a game board with tactile elements built into it to enable players to immerse themselves further in the lives of the characters they are playing. The gameboard is completed by the game host using artwork, objects, or tools that are meaningful to them that will allow their players to get to know the game host through their creation. The board I built for my story has eggshells, doll eyes and doll making tools, quilting, a picture of a lobster, a book cover, mosaics, a recipe, a C++ code snippet, lace, a paintbrush, puzzle pieces and sheet music on it. All of these items tell something about me as an individual. I want other game hosts to do the same. Unlike most games, the players do not win. The game host is more likely to win by being heard. Like Scrabble, the game has tiles that the players use but, instead of building words, they are recreating stories or experiences of the game host. The re – creation process helps the players to perceive the game host’s point of view. It is fun to make up a story and to be transported into a character but this re – creation is not all recreation. The game can build understanding between people. It will make some players uncomfortable. It will challenge some game hosts to open up emotionally. It is an experiential role-playing game but players role play serious characters for serious reasons. This is an art game in the same way that “Train” by Brenda Romero is an art game, however, it is not a one off game. Anyone can be the game host and many will be able to play.
Karen Royer
A Mile in My Shoes is a gameboard platform that utilizes a game board with tactile elements built into it to enable players to immerse themselves further in the lives of the characters they are playing. The gameboard is completed by the game host using artwork, objects, or tools that are meaningful to them that will allow their players to get to know the game host through their creation. The board I built for my story has eggshells, doll eyes and doll making tools, quilting, a picture of a lobster, a book cover, mosaics, a recipe, a C++ code snippet, lace, a paintbrush, puzzle pieces and sheet music on it. All of these items tell something about me as an individual. I want other game hosts to do the same. Unlike most games, the players do not win. The game host is more likely to win by being heard. Like Scrabble, the game has tiles that the players use but, instead of building words, they are recreating stories or experiences of the game host. The re – creation process helps the players to perceive the game host’s point of view. It is fun to make up a story and to be transported into a character but this re – creation is not all recreation. The game can build understanding between people. It will make some players uncomfortable. It will challenge some game hosts to open up emotionally. It is an experiential role-playing game but players role play serious characters for serious reasons. This is an art game in the same way that “Train” by Brenda Romero is an art game, however, it is not a one off game. Anyone can be the game host and many will be able to play.
Anthology of Intimacy
Allison Kyran ColeAnthology of Intimacy is an art book about the process of creating Larps about relationships with people I knew at different levels of intimacy (from a complete stranger to a dear friend of 23 years). It includes letters between creators, artist statements that describe the impact of the process on your relationship, and photographs/video of play. The resulting games are also compiled into PDFs to be displayed with the book and documentation of play.
Allison Kyran ColeAnthology of Intimacy is an art book about the process of creating Larps about relationships with people I knew at different levels of intimacy (from a complete stranger to a dear friend of 23 years). It includes letters between creators, artist statements that describe the impact of the process on your relationship, and photographs/video of play. The resulting games are also compiled into PDFs to be displayed with the book and documentation of play.
Artifacts II
Christina “Phazero” Curlee
Jacaranda is a broken-memory-space that intersects overlaying the island of Artifacts (like a transparent color card laying over another that reveals a new wavelength).
It is a digital-fantasy/folklore based on a true story about adapting to and developing in an environment of emotional abuse and isolation, and in particular, how computers and the internet provided a way to develop identity and personal boundaries through many times questionable means. The main character is a child who raised themselves through a trial and error unique to the digital age, the computer however makes for a very dysfunctional parent and playground for a child.
The game is an Adventure-RPG with elements of the walking simulator (i.e. Life is Strange, What Remains of Edith Finch), the ‘twist’ being you are learning “”magical”” spells of the internet age as you increase in power and proficiency an a Technomancer.
In line with with the RPG genre there will be secret spots, interactable objects, spell-casting, inventory system and NPCs. Ideally the environments are small (but feel large), prop-filled and fully interactive.
Bathroom Borderland
Ian Steinberg
Bathroom Borderland is a co-operative table top game for 2 to 6 players. The purpose of the game is to find and renovate three bathrooms to provide access to all the players before someone poops their pants. The game uses access to toilets as a play objective in order to teach the players about social inequity issues that impact homeless, disabled and transgender people.
Ian Steinberg
Bathroom Borderland is a co-operative table top game for 2 to 6 players. The purpose of the game is to find and renovate three bathrooms to provide access to all the players before someone poops their pants. The game uses access to toilets as a play objective in order to teach the players about social inequity issues that impact homeless, disabled and transgender people.
Bear & Butcher
Kate Olguin
Bear & Butcher is a game based on an almost universal LGBTQ+ experience: escaping a family reunion. The protagonist, Bear (represented in the game as a literal bear) is a closeted gay male. He’s kept his sexual orientation a secret from everybody except his best friend, Butcher, a lesbian. Bear & Butcher is a boss rush bullet hell, where the bosses are your homophobic family members, and the bullets are the harmful words that they casually say to you. However, in this bullet hell, and like in most family reunions, you can’t fight back. Instead, you have to have a thick skin and dodge bullets until you’ve run out the clock enough to make a graceful exit.Bear & Butcher is meant to be a humorous yet sympathetic look at one of the ways being a closeted LGBTQ+ individual can be difficult. Through this game, I hope to garner empathy from non-LGBTQ+ players so that they may be a bit more understanding of how difficult certain seemingly innocuous events can be for LGBTQ+ people. Additionally, I hope to give fellow LGBTQ+ players reassurance that their struggles are valid. Most games that I have seen tackle LGBTQ+ issues focus on the internal, cognitive journey of coming out or recognizing oneself as LGBTQ+. I hope to provide a different perspective, since the conflict in Bear & Butcher comes from external forces–your family members. By striking a mixture of dialogue and gameplay, this game will hopefully appeal to players who are more engaged with story as well as players who are more focused on gameplay.
Kate Olguin
Bear & Butcher is a game based on an almost universal LGBTQ+ experience: escaping a family reunion. The protagonist, Bear (represented in the game as a literal bear) is a closeted gay male. He’s kept his sexual orientation a secret from everybody except his best friend, Butcher, a lesbian. Bear & Butcher is a boss rush bullet hell, where the bosses are your homophobic family members, and the bullets are the harmful words that they casually say to you. However, in this bullet hell, and like in most family reunions, you can’t fight back. Instead, you have to have a thick skin and dodge bullets until you’ve run out the clock enough to make a graceful exit.Bear & Butcher is meant to be a humorous yet sympathetic look at one of the ways being a closeted LGBTQ+ individual can be difficult. Through this game, I hope to garner empathy from non-LGBTQ+ players so that they may be a bit more understanding of how difficult certain seemingly innocuous events can be for LGBTQ+ people. Additionally, I hope to give fellow LGBTQ+ players reassurance that their struggles are valid. Most games that I have seen tackle LGBTQ+ issues focus on the internal, cognitive journey of coming out or recognizing oneself as LGBTQ+. I hope to provide a different perspective, since the conflict in Bear & Butcher comes from external forces–your family members. By striking a mixture of dialogue and gameplay, this game will hopefully appeal to players who are more engaged with story as well as players who are more focused on gameplay.
Bulge Lab
Michael Anthony DeAnda
Bulge Lab is an online Alternate Reality Game that is played across a series of web-based platforms and explores body image, masculinity, and viruses. In this experimental ARG, I wanted to explore the way media literacies and gaming literacies can intersect to tell a story. I created this experience over a series of websites to create puzzles for players. Email functions as the way to progress through the game, and inspired by early text adventure games, I developed a series of canned responses and filters for the email to communicate with the player.The game begins with “Bulge Lab,” a custom men’s underwear shop hiding secrets, and then centers around Alejandro, a creative man in his twenty trying to juggle his gender identity, body image, and gender performances.This game is a commentary on the way toxic masculinity impedes our ability to expand our understandings of gender, creating a situation that wanting to conform to such a high standard of masculine beauty can be detrimental when considering other ways we exist in the world and have to take care of ourselves and others.
Michael Anthony DeAnda
Bulge Lab is an online Alternate Reality Game that is played across a series of web-based platforms and explores body image, masculinity, and viruses. In this experimental ARG, I wanted to explore the way media literacies and gaming literacies can intersect to tell a story. I created this experience over a series of websites to create puzzles for players. Email functions as the way to progress through the game, and inspired by early text adventure games, I developed a series of canned responses and filters for the email to communicate with the player.The game begins with “Bulge Lab,” a custom men’s underwear shop hiding secrets, and then centers around Alejandro, a creative man in his twenty trying to juggle his gender identity, body image, and gender performances.This game is a commentary on the way toxic masculinity impedes our ability to expand our understandings of gender, creating a situation that wanting to conform to such a high standard of masculine beauty can be detrimental when considering other ways we exist in the world and have to take care of ourselves and others.
Bun Run
NO ICEM
in and Ivory sometimes like each other more than just as friends, but have to bend some way to fit each other in their own lives.Bun Run is an interactive comic game where you follow the two characters in their mundane moments and shape their relationship through traditional paneling techniques. Every change you make to the format of the comic alters their interactions and reveals more about their personalities, potentially influencing their dynamic in the long run.
NO ICEM
in and Ivory sometimes like each other more than just as friends, but have to bend some way to fit each other in their own lives.Bun Run is an interactive comic game where you follow the two characters in their mundane moments and shape their relationship through traditional paneling techniques. Every change you make to the format of the comic alters their interactions and reveals more about their personalities, potentially influencing their dynamic in the long run.
Coffee Date With Friends
Kay Cormier & Allison Kyran ColeCoffee Dates with Friends is a roleplaying game that takes place over a queer coffee date where one question reigns supreme: is this a date date? Through a whimsical lense of fantasy and magic, it explores the overlapping roles of friendship and romance in our experiences as queer folk. It also delves into the way heteronormative behaviour has seeped into our still very queer dating circles. All while you get to pretend to be a werewolves and merpeople.
Kay Cormier & Allison Kyran ColeCoffee Dates with Friends is a roleplaying game that takes place over a queer coffee date where one question reigns supreme: is this a date date? Through a whimsical lense of fantasy and magic, it explores the overlapping roles of friendship and romance in our experiences as queer folk. It also delves into the way heteronormative behaviour has seeped into our still very queer dating circles. All while you get to pretend to be a werewolves and merpeople.
Confessions of an NPC
Charles Hans HuangConfessions of an NPC is a Twine game where players interview six characters in a fantasy world with analogs to political crises in modern America, including school shootings, mental health, racism, intergenerational conflict, sex work, and corporatism. The stories emphasize realism through their dilemmas, but light fantasy elements allow a level of abstraction to make the topics more palatable to a consumer audience. Through the players’ choices, players find out about the characters’ stories, and are posed with what they would do in the characters’ position, while the characters’ stories continue unchanged. By respecting the characters’ agency, players can empathize with their conflict while circumventing the problem of erasing the validity of that characters’ choice, which is a common fear for writing marginalized video game protagonists.
Charles Hans HuangConfessions of an NPC is a Twine game where players interview six characters in a fantasy world with analogs to political crises in modern America, including school shootings, mental health, racism, intergenerational conflict, sex work, and corporatism. The stories emphasize realism through their dilemmas, but light fantasy elements allow a level of abstraction to make the topics more palatable to a consumer audience. Through the players’ choices, players find out about the characters’ stories, and are posed with what they would do in the characters’ position, while the characters’ stories continue unchanged. By respecting the characters’ agency, players can empathize with their conflict while circumventing the problem of erasing the validity of that characters’ choice, which is a common fear for writing marginalized video game protagonists.
Distance
carol mertz
It’s hard to maintain a long distance relationship. Life is constantly moving, you both head in your own directions, and it takes a lot of effort to keep your partner turned on before they fade away. All you can do is try to find opportunities to meet somewhere in the middle before your passion fades.
carol mertz
It’s hard to maintain a long distance relationship. Life is constantly moving, you both head in your own directions, and it takes a lot of effort to keep your partner turned on before they fade away. All you can do is try to find opportunities to meet somewhere in the middle before your passion fades.
do something
carol mertz
Do something.” was created to capture the feeling of having performance anxiety. You’re told to “do something,” but have no instructions or concept of what to do, so you have to figure it out on your own. The controls randomize with each playthrough, so you can never truly know how to perform to please the audience.
carol mertz
Do something.” was created to capture the feeling of having performance anxiety. You’re told to “do something,” but have no instructions or concept of what to do, so you have to figure it out on your own. The controls randomize with each playthrough, so you can never truly know how to perform to please the audience.
Don’t Bleed Through Your Pants
Diana Poulsen
Don’t Bleed Through Your Pants is a series of developing mini games based on menstruation. It’s your job to attempt to get good care, and not bleed for your pants! Try to make it through a cycle, do you go out? Or risk the possibility of ruining your pants? Do you go to work? Take the day off sick? Now try talking to a doctor about your symptoms. Can you get them to listen to you? Or are they gonna tell you it’s all in your head?
It’s feminist political Wario Ware Smooth Moves of menstruation.
I made this game because I am tired of all the misunderstanding around periods. I was a patient expert on heavy menstrual bleeding and I’ve played this game in real life for 20 years. I suck at it. This is a darkly humourous look at all the absurd things people have to do to get through a cycle. Whether you have a period that’s like clock work, one that sneaks up on you like a ninja
Diana Poulsen
Don’t Bleed Through Your Pants is a series of developing mini games based on menstruation. It’s your job to attempt to get good care, and not bleed for your pants! Try to make it through a cycle, do you go out? Or risk the possibility of ruining your pants? Do you go to work? Take the day off sick? Now try talking to a doctor about your symptoms. Can you get them to listen to you? Or are they gonna tell you it’s all in your head?
It’s feminist political Wario Ware Smooth Moves of menstruation.
I made this game because I am tired of all the misunderstanding around periods. I was a patient expert on heavy menstrual bleeding and I’ve played this game in real life for 20 years. I suck at it. This is a darkly humourous look at all the absurd things people have to do to get through a cycle. Whether you have a period that’s like clock work, one that sneaks up on you like a ninja
Dysphoria
Mikel Matticoli, Issa Shulman, Tyler Sprowl, Alexander Bell, & Regina Reynolds
Dysphoria is a text-based RPG placed in Eorundem, a typical fantasy world populated by humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, and all manners of other fantastical creatures, peaceful and malevolent alike. It is a vibrant land, rich with lore, and ripe for questing and gallivanting. The forests bristle with magic, the rivers teem with treasure, the caves shiver with beastly roars, and every corner is overrun by parties of intrepid adventurers committing acts of derring-do. For all intents and purposes, Eorundem is a very normal fantasy world. It even has an ancient evil—aptly named Ye Olde Evil—that regularly plagues the land every few years. To slay Ye Olde Evil and return it to its long slumber is the greatest honour any adventurer can claim. However, there is something slightly different about Eorundem; in this world, adventurers are assigned their party roles. Rather than being allowed to choose one’s party role—knight, rogue, mage, guardian, or ranger—adventurers registering at the Adventurers’ Guild are assigned their role by a guild master. No one strays from their assigned roles, and these roles never change—that is, until the player character joins the guild. This setting allows players to better understand gender nonconformity and struggles with gender identity through the lens of a roleplaying game.This game adopts the tropes of traditional high fantasy games, with ancient evils running amok and brave adventurers sallying forth in a manner akin to Dungeons & Dragons. Dysphoria draws tonal inspirations from other text-heavy titles such as Pillars of Eternity, Baldur’s Gate, and the Divinity: Original Sin series. The latter contributes greatly to our stylistic approach—in particular, its self awareness and its ability to balance irreverence with solemnity. However, we are limited by the Twine engine and its many constraints; because Twine was created with text-based games in mind, and was designed to allow writers to create games with minimal required coding, many of our original plans to introduce an actual combat system in our game had to be scrapped. Due to these constraints, Dysphoria is more of an interactive novel in the guise of a roleplaying game than a traditional roleplaying game; Dysphoria uses the roleplaying genre as a vessel through which we introduce the concept of gender dysphoria.Dysphoria presents gender dysphoria, a real-world social issue, through the lens of a high fantasy roleplaying game. In a world where adventurers are assigned their party roles, the player character feels as if they were assigned the wrong one.
Mikel Matticoli, Issa Shulman, Tyler Sprowl, Alexander Bell, & Regina Reynolds
Dysphoria is a text-based RPG placed in Eorundem, a typical fantasy world populated by humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, and all manners of other fantastical creatures, peaceful and malevolent alike. It is a vibrant land, rich with lore, and ripe for questing and gallivanting. The forests bristle with magic, the rivers teem with treasure, the caves shiver with beastly roars, and every corner is overrun by parties of intrepid adventurers committing acts of derring-do. For all intents and purposes, Eorundem is a very normal fantasy world. It even has an ancient evil—aptly named Ye Olde Evil—that regularly plagues the land every few years. To slay Ye Olde Evil and return it to its long slumber is the greatest honour any adventurer can claim. However, there is something slightly different about Eorundem; in this world, adventurers are assigned their party roles. Rather than being allowed to choose one’s party role—knight, rogue, mage, guardian, or ranger—adventurers registering at the Adventurers’ Guild are assigned their role by a guild master. No one strays from their assigned roles, and these roles never change—that is, until the player character joins the guild. This setting allows players to better understand gender nonconformity and struggles with gender identity through the lens of a roleplaying game.This game adopts the tropes of traditional high fantasy games, with ancient evils running amok and brave adventurers sallying forth in a manner akin to Dungeons & Dragons. Dysphoria draws tonal inspirations from other text-heavy titles such as Pillars of Eternity, Baldur’s Gate, and the Divinity: Original Sin series. The latter contributes greatly to our stylistic approach—in particular, its self awareness and its ability to balance irreverence with solemnity. However, we are limited by the Twine engine and its many constraints; because Twine was created with text-based games in mind, and was designed to allow writers to create games with minimal required coding, many of our original plans to introduce an actual combat system in our game had to be scrapped. Due to these constraints, Dysphoria is more of an interactive novel in the guise of a roleplaying game than a traditional roleplaying game; Dysphoria uses the roleplaying genre as a vessel through which we introduce the concept of gender dysphoria.Dysphoria presents gender dysphoria, a real-world social issue, through the lens of a high fantasy roleplaying game. In a world where adventurers are assigned their party roles, the player character feels as if they were assigned the wrong one.
Edge of Healing
Emperatriz Ung & Temitope Olujobi
“Edge of Healing is a short, experimental environment storytelling game that uses the virtual environment to simulate the practice of Restorative Justice in ways that illustrate the experience of the participants while also imagining speculative futures for the designs and functions of spaces that Restorative Justice can take place in. The idea for the project developed from two major interests.The first was a desire to depart from pervasive depictions of prisons in games which are often abstract representations of America’s prison nation. These abstractions in games typically manifest as business simulations like in the game Prison Architect by Chris Delay, escape puzzles as seen in the “Hartman Federal Penitentiary” level of Mafia II by Daniel Vávra and/or as placeless vacant playgrounds like in the “Alcatraz” level of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 by Neversoft. When a game uses prisons as part of its narrative or gameplay there is a tendency to neglect how our punitive justice system disproportionately victimizes and disenfranchises people of color, poor people, and those who are mentally ill. There is also a failing to show the inimical impact mass incarceration has on all society. This misinformation to the public disregards a designer’s role in socially constructing real world understanding of crime and punishment. It is true that no representation will be complete and without abstraction. This project developed as an effort to create a game that connects the conversations on the real world practice of Restorative Justice to video games. Restorative Justice is unlike our punitive justice system as it represents justice that is focused on healing the victim and the community while also rehabilitating offenders back into society through an ethos of reconciliation and understanding.The second major interest the project developed from was how mental health is portrayed in games and how trauma is represented in media. We have plans to work on a game titled Piercing. Piercing focuses on autobiographical experiences testifying in court as a sexual assault survivor. The interest in justice in games aligned with the interest in plans to present justice in Piercing, and we began researching Restorative Justice. While one focus was on environmental storytelling, another focus was on narrative and communication. “
Emperatriz Ung & Temitope Olujobi
“Edge of Healing is a short, experimental environment storytelling game that uses the virtual environment to simulate the practice of Restorative Justice in ways that illustrate the experience of the participants while also imagining speculative futures for the designs and functions of spaces that Restorative Justice can take place in. The idea for the project developed from two major interests.The first was a desire to depart from pervasive depictions of prisons in games which are often abstract representations of America’s prison nation. These abstractions in games typically manifest as business simulations like in the game Prison Architect by Chris Delay, escape puzzles as seen in the “Hartman Federal Penitentiary” level of Mafia II by Daniel Vávra and/or as placeless vacant playgrounds like in the “Alcatraz” level of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 by Neversoft. When a game uses prisons as part of its narrative or gameplay there is a tendency to neglect how our punitive justice system disproportionately victimizes and disenfranchises people of color, poor people, and those who are mentally ill. There is also a failing to show the inimical impact mass incarceration has on all society. This misinformation to the public disregards a designer’s role in socially constructing real world understanding of crime and punishment. It is true that no representation will be complete and without abstraction. This project developed as an effort to create a game that connects the conversations on the real world practice of Restorative Justice to video games. Restorative Justice is unlike our punitive justice system as it represents justice that is focused on healing the victim and the community while also rehabilitating offenders back into society through an ethos of reconciliation and understanding.The second major interest the project developed from was how mental health is portrayed in games and how trauma is represented in media. We have plans to work on a game titled Piercing. Piercing focuses on autobiographical experiences testifying in court as a sexual assault survivor. The interest in justice in games aligned with the interest in plans to present justice in Piercing, and we began researching Restorative Justice. While one focus was on environmental storytelling, another focus was on narrative and communication. “
Flip the Script
Jess Marcotte
“Flip the Script! explores real-life societal issues through the use of roleplay, puppetry, technology and theatre. It is a physical-digital hybrid game involving bespoke handmade puppets, BBC micro:bits, and neopixel LEDs, inspired by Brechtian and Boalian theatre and sociodrama. It also requires a moderator (usually me) to help players through the game.In it, players use puppets to first identify a systemic issue and then play through anecdotal aspects of it in scenes. The game ends with players formulating a statement together about the way that they would like the world to be in relation to this issue. For example, in a first playtest where players talked about immigration, migrants, and the problematic idea that some migrants are somehow “”good”” because they assimilate in certain ways, or come from certain backgrounds, they came up with the statement:
“”Use what privilege you have to act in concrete, actionable solidarity.””This game is still in active development, but there is a finished “”build.”” The current version takes about two hours to play, although I am working to streamline this down to 90 minutes. The length of the game depends heavily on the players. For Different Games, I would like to run a playtest of this game that, with the consent of players, I would record (audio-only). This game is part of my dissertation work, and I would love to have the opportunity to share it with the Different Games community and gather feedback from them. I am willing to run multiple sessions of the game, and to display the materials when the game is not being played.”
Jess Marcotte
“Flip the Script! explores real-life societal issues through the use of roleplay, puppetry, technology and theatre. It is a physical-digital hybrid game involving bespoke handmade puppets, BBC micro:bits, and neopixel LEDs, inspired by Brechtian and Boalian theatre and sociodrama. It also requires a moderator (usually me) to help players through the game.In it, players use puppets to first identify a systemic issue and then play through anecdotal aspects of it in scenes. The game ends with players formulating a statement together about the way that they would like the world to be in relation to this issue. For example, in a first playtest where players talked about immigration, migrants, and the problematic idea that some migrants are somehow “”good”” because they assimilate in certain ways, or come from certain backgrounds, they came up with the statement:
“”Use what privilege you have to act in concrete, actionable solidarity.””This game is still in active development, but there is a finished “”build.”” The current version takes about two hours to play, although I am working to streamline this down to 90 minutes. The length of the game depends heavily on the players. For Different Games, I would like to run a playtest of this game that, with the consent of players, I would record (audio-only). This game is part of my dissertation work, and I would love to have the opportunity to share it with the Different Games community and gather feedback from them. I am willing to run multiple sessions of the game, and to display the materials when the game is not being played.”
Gotta Go
Leo Bunyea, Kate Olguin, & Natalie Bloniarz
Gotta Go is a resource management game inspired by the North Carolina anti-transgender bathroom bill. With an abundance of humor, as well as disturbing dialog from actual incidents, the game features a cast of transgender and gender non-conforming characters journeying across the city of Raleigh and trying to find restrooms that they feel comfortable using. The goal of the game is to share a subset of the transgender experience in the hope of making players empathetic towards the struggles of the transgender community.
Leo Bunyea, Kate Olguin, & Natalie Bloniarz
Gotta Go is a resource management game inspired by the North Carolina anti-transgender bathroom bill. With an abundance of humor, as well as disturbing dialog from actual incidents, the game features a cast of transgender and gender non-conforming characters journeying across the city of Raleigh and trying to find restrooms that they feel comfortable using. The goal of the game is to share a subset of the transgender experience in the hope of making players empathetic towards the struggles of the transgender community.
Juanito el Nahualito
Hesiquio Mendez Alejo, Jacob Weidner, Osvaldo ‘Ozzy’ Membrilla,James Garbagnati, Chris Huynh, Jude Loren, Jonathan Morales, Alex Winters, Juan(Nau) Castillo Mejia, Alejandro Morales Maldonado, Cris Doi, Reshma Zachariah, Andi Guyette, Collette Quach, Gian Paredes, Celia Espinosa, Mario Felix, Jared Zook, Pablo Robles, Mariana Arizagui, Kyle Oppenheim, Spencer Hight, Ian Rapoport
Juanito El Nahualito is a short exploration and puzzle based narrative experience focused on the coming of age of a modern Latin American teen with a special power to influence wildlife. He discovers throughout the adventure that his abilities are inherited from his cultural ancestors, the Nahaules. The game uses 2D cutscenes and voiceover interspersed with 3D gameplay to provide historical information about this culture and its legends. It has an accompanying physical storybook that acts as a prequel to the game
Hesiquio Mendez Alejo, Jacob Weidner, Osvaldo ‘Ozzy’ Membrilla,James Garbagnati, Chris Huynh, Jude Loren, Jonathan Morales, Alex Winters, Juan(Nau) Castillo Mejia, Alejandro Morales Maldonado, Cris Doi, Reshma Zachariah, Andi Guyette, Collette Quach, Gian Paredes, Celia Espinosa, Mario Felix, Jared Zook, Pablo Robles, Mariana Arizagui, Kyle Oppenheim, Spencer Hight, Ian Rapoport
Juanito El Nahualito is a short exploration and puzzle based narrative experience focused on the coming of age of a modern Latin American teen with a special power to influence wildlife. He discovers throughout the adventure that his abilities are inherited from his cultural ancestors, the Nahaules. The game uses 2D cutscenes and voiceover interspersed with 3D gameplay to provide historical information about this culture and its legends. It has an accompanying physical storybook that acts as a prequel to the game
HEXaDecimate
Seth Alter
HEXaDecimate is a co-op tabletop card game where we all play as millennial witches and defend ourselves against alt-right occult magic (no one plays as the alt-right). The alt-right (“”FrogBoard””), wins when we (the witches) are all dead. We win when FrogBoard runs out of cards.Every turn, FrogBoard draws two cards automatically, attempting to kill us. Then, we defend ourselves. We each place 1 ingredient into the cauldron to cast a spell. Alone, ingredients aren’t useful, but their effects combo in complex chains. We can never attack or harm FrogBoard in any way; it’s too powerful! But if we support each other, we can defend ourselves and survive.
Seth Alter
HEXaDecimate is a co-op tabletop card game where we all play as millennial witches and defend ourselves against alt-right occult magic (no one plays as the alt-right). The alt-right (“”FrogBoard””), wins when we (the witches) are all dead. We win when FrogBoard runs out of cards.Every turn, FrogBoard draws two cards automatically, attempting to kill us. Then, we defend ourselves. We each place 1 ingredient into the cauldron to cast a spell. Alone, ingredients aren’t useful, but their effects combo in complex chains. We can never attack or harm FrogBoard in any way; it’s too powerful! But if we support each other, we can defend ourselves and survive.
Memory Blocks
Ghoulnoise
Some memories fade. Some memories break. Some memories outlive us.Memory Blocks is an interactive fiction anthology featuring the voices of over fifteen writers. These stories reflect on data embedded in old memory cards: the games, and the people we play them with.In this anthology, you play as a friendly ghost who haunts the storage room of a small, local game store in the early 2000’s. You use your supernatural abilities to glean stories, impressions, and information from used memory cards as only a ghost could. As time passes in game, and as you read more stories, you begin to remember small details about your own life… before you became a ghost.The gameplay consists of two parts: The first is the frame story about You, the protagonist, which takes place over the course of two nights, where you will slowly rebuild your own memories of who you were during your life.But the bulk of the gameplay happens inside the memory cards you find in the storage room. Each card contains one or more “”memory blocks”” written by the same author. Each card or block allows you to experience a short work of interactive fiction which explores the subject of video games and memory.
Ghoulnoise
Some memories fade. Some memories break. Some memories outlive us.Memory Blocks is an interactive fiction anthology featuring the voices of over fifteen writers. These stories reflect on data embedded in old memory cards: the games, and the people we play them with.In this anthology, you play as a friendly ghost who haunts the storage room of a small, local game store in the early 2000’s. You use your supernatural abilities to glean stories, impressions, and information from used memory cards as only a ghost could. As time passes in game, and as you read more stories, you begin to remember small details about your own life… before you became a ghost.The gameplay consists of two parts: The first is the frame story about You, the protagonist, which takes place over the course of two nights, where you will slowly rebuild your own memories of who you were during your life.But the bulk of the gameplay happens inside the memory cards you find in the storage room. Each card contains one or more “”memory blocks”” written by the same author. Each card or block allows you to experience a short work of interactive fiction which explores the subject of video games and memory.
Mind Field
Le Yang, Rony Kahana, Na-Yoen Kim, Jiawei Li, MD Tauseef, & Christopher Weidya
The player plays as a university student who goes about their day. During the game they will encounters three everyday scenarios however each one represent a possible racist incidents. They can choose how to respond and affect the outcome of the situation for better or for worse. Our goal was to give players tools to both deal with racist comments and also to better understand the impact of those incidents. Therefore a “flashback” animation is shown after each branching choice. In it, the victims of the racist incident tell their backstory and explain how and why the insensitive behavior has affected them through their lives. We used live action footage to make the player feel more immersed in the experience. After each incident, players can further explore the space to learn more about different types of racism and their causes.
Le Yang, Rony Kahana, Na-Yoen Kim, Jiawei Li, MD Tauseef, & Christopher Weidya
The player plays as a university student who goes about their day. During the game they will encounters three everyday scenarios however each one represent a possible racist incidents. They can choose how to respond and affect the outcome of the situation for better or for worse. Our goal was to give players tools to both deal with racist comments and also to better understand the impact of those incidents. Therefore a “flashback” animation is shown after each branching choice. In it, the victims of the racist incident tell their backstory and explain how and why the insensitive behavior has affected them through their lives. We used live action footage to make the player feel more immersed in the experience. After each incident, players can further explore the space to learn more about different types of racism and their causes.
MOLOCH (Zero)
Seemingly Pointless
MOLOCH (Zero) is a narrative game that puts the player through a shift manager job interview. The player must control the flow and speed of workers as they progress down hallways. MOLOCH (Zero) has the player question and balance their own personal in-game ambitions against the health and safety of their workers. Fast is efficient, yet it risks the lives of the workers. How badly do you want this job?In our current software saturated culture, it’s easy to forget that all systems are created with a bias. Huge companies like Uber gamify their applications to make contractors work longer for little reward, yet the juiciness of these systems are so strong they retain their contractor workforce. MOLOCH (Zero) is a metafictional game: you are the applicant. When the game begins, you are faced with software designed to make you compliant.We wanted to make a game that didn’t directly address societal issues of software and system bias, but a game that could safely show players the danger of uncritically following orders.
Seemingly Pointless
MOLOCH (Zero) is a narrative game that puts the player through a shift manager job interview. The player must control the flow and speed of workers as they progress down hallways. MOLOCH (Zero) has the player question and balance their own personal in-game ambitions against the health and safety of their workers. Fast is efficient, yet it risks the lives of the workers. How badly do you want this job?In our current software saturated culture, it’s easy to forget that all systems are created with a bias. Huge companies like Uber gamify their applications to make contractors work longer for little reward, yet the juiciness of these systems are so strong they retain their contractor workforce. MOLOCH (Zero) is a metafictional game: you are the applicant. When the game begins, you are faced with software designed to make you compliant.We wanted to make a game that didn’t directly address societal issues of software and system bias, but a game that could safely show players the danger of uncritically following orders.
Newest Art Game: Hot*Girls*Only
Hannah Epstein & Kevin Brophy
Newest Art Game: 🔥Hot🔥Girls🔥Only is an Art and a Game that was formed as a response to criticism of art games from a writer of a preeminent publication on contemporary digital art that is in the beta phase of development. This criticism functioned to solidified boundaries between designer and artist, cementing hierarchies and reifying exclusionary space for gaming and fine art. With a heavy dose of satire, the gameplay is filled with exaggerated formal and cultural superlatives of the gaming world and the art world, as well as the social configuration proscribed onto the player upon entry. What does it mean to make a game for a specified body? How is that different than most mainstream/commercial games? This game is exclusionary to make a point. To Lampoon the status quo. Disembodied, the player does not have form, but through interactions within the game, they are incessantly proscribed an identity and subjected to stereotypical, or biased, critique.The design is overly simplistic, utilizing rudimentary Unity skills, a conceptual choice to exaggerate and call into question the distinction of mastery, or craft, between the game designer and the artist. Who gets to develop a game? The ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’. These simple, austere formal elements are complicated by the bright linguistics of emojis and the campy audio that acts like a “valley girl” tour guide of the hybridized art-game space (both are the same, anyway). A simple first person, enclosed world, the spawn space is an idyllic sunny day. Once you enter the first portal, where you are told you are a “hot girl” you are transported to the trigger zone, which is a hall of cubes with text describing different forms of triggers, some earnest and some darkly humorous–not a mean-spirited mocking of the content of various triggers, but rather an example of the pervasiveness of the trigger. How inescapable they can be. How problematized our world of language is. Once in the main game space, the design aesthetic follows art world tropes to an absurdist degree, the space, a white cube itself, is overrun with white cube-based art and galleries. There are six interactive “galleries” named and modeled after staid art movements and/or tropes. Galleries within a gallery; games within a game–it is intentionally insular, mocking the ideology that supports hierarchy and elitism. Each gallery includes 3-4 artworks/mini games. Here, the player attempts to hear, view, interact with, and access the information of the galleries despite our *new* kind of Space Invaders: invasive white cubes wearing suits ‘attacking’ or blocking the player with a barrage of pick-up lines.
Hannah Epstein & Kevin Brophy
Newest Art Game: 🔥Hot🔥Girls🔥Only is an Art and a Game that was formed as a response to criticism of art games from a writer of a preeminent publication on contemporary digital art that is in the beta phase of development. This criticism functioned to solidified boundaries between designer and artist, cementing hierarchies and reifying exclusionary space for gaming and fine art. With a heavy dose of satire, the gameplay is filled with exaggerated formal and cultural superlatives of the gaming world and the art world, as well as the social configuration proscribed onto the player upon entry. What does it mean to make a game for a specified body? How is that different than most mainstream/commercial games? This game is exclusionary to make a point. To Lampoon the status quo. Disembodied, the player does not have form, but through interactions within the game, they are incessantly proscribed an identity and subjected to stereotypical, or biased, critique.The design is overly simplistic, utilizing rudimentary Unity skills, a conceptual choice to exaggerate and call into question the distinction of mastery, or craft, between the game designer and the artist. Who gets to develop a game? The ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’. These simple, austere formal elements are complicated by the bright linguistics of emojis and the campy audio that acts like a “valley girl” tour guide of the hybridized art-game space (both are the same, anyway). A simple first person, enclosed world, the spawn space is an idyllic sunny day. Once you enter the first portal, where you are told you are a “hot girl” you are transported to the trigger zone, which is a hall of cubes with text describing different forms of triggers, some earnest and some darkly humorous–not a mean-spirited mocking of the content of various triggers, but rather an example of the pervasiveness of the trigger. How inescapable they can be. How problematized our world of language is. Once in the main game space, the design aesthetic follows art world tropes to an absurdist degree, the space, a white cube itself, is overrun with white cube-based art and galleries. There are six interactive “galleries” named and modeled after staid art movements and/or tropes. Galleries within a gallery; games within a game–it is intentionally insular, mocking the ideology that supports hierarchy and elitism. Each gallery includes 3-4 artworks/mini games. Here, the player attempts to hear, view, interact with, and access the information of the galleries despite our *new* kind of Space Invaders: invasive white cubes wearing suits ‘attacking’ or blocking the player with a barrage of pick-up lines.
Nod If You Can Hear Me
Emma Kidwell
You haven’t seen your Grandmother in months. Go and visit her.
This game was developed using Twine and explores memory loss, anxiety over aging, guilt, and watching a loved one succumb to dementia.
Emma Kidwell
You haven’t seen your Grandmother in months. Go and visit her.
This game was developed using Twine and explores memory loss, anxiety over aging, guilt, and watching a loved one succumb to dementia.
Octopad
Patrick LeMieux
Octopad is an alternative interface for the Nintendo Entertainment System that divides eight buttons between eight players to transform classic single-player games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Tetris (or Yo! Noid, Gremlins 2, and Hatris) into multi-player puzzles where participants must divvy up tasks, share information, and work together to progress. It’s Tetris as a team sport, complete with callouts, commentary, and crowds!Inspired by the treasure trove of photoshopped one-switch interfaces that Richard van Tol, Barrie Ellis, and Sander Huiberts posted at the Game Accessibility Forums over ten years ago, Octopad reimagines a historic platform in the paradigm of one-switch games—a genre of single-button games designed for and by people with limited manual dexterity. Rather than thinking about accessibility as a single-player issue, this controller engages the social, political, and environmental aspects of disability to reimagine how we play.
Patrick LeMieux
Octopad is an alternative interface for the Nintendo Entertainment System that divides eight buttons between eight players to transform classic single-player games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Tetris (or Yo! Noid, Gremlins 2, and Hatris) into multi-player puzzles where participants must divvy up tasks, share information, and work together to progress. It’s Tetris as a team sport, complete with callouts, commentary, and crowds!Inspired by the treasure trove of photoshopped one-switch interfaces that Richard van Tol, Barrie Ellis, and Sander Huiberts posted at the Game Accessibility Forums over ten years ago, Octopad reimagines a historic platform in the paradigm of one-switch games—a genre of single-button games designed for and by people with limited manual dexterity. Rather than thinking about accessibility as a single-player issue, this controller engages the social, political, and environmental aspects of disability to reimagine how we play.
Objectif
A.M. Darke
Objectif is a card-based party game for all ages, designed to promote discussion about everyday bias in a way that’s fun and accessible. It features beautiful, hand-drawn characters which are ethnically and culturally inclusive.Each round one player acts as the judge, while other players compete to place the most attractive card. In Objectif, the judge must explain their reason for choosing one card over the others, giving players an opportunity to influence, argue, and persuade their way to victory.Objectif was created in response to the article “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” published online at Psychology Today. The game was originally meant to portray the diverse beauty of black women, but has grown to include greater ethnic, cultural and gender diversity.
A.M. Darke
Objectif is a card-based party game for all ages, designed to promote discussion about everyday bias in a way that’s fun and accessible. It features beautiful, hand-drawn characters which are ethnically and culturally inclusive.Each round one player acts as the judge, while other players compete to place the most attractive card. In Objectif, the judge must explain their reason for choosing one card over the others, giving players an opportunity to influence, argue, and persuade their way to victory.Objectif was created in response to the article “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” published online at Psychology Today. The game was originally meant to portray the diverse beauty of black women, but has grown to include greater ethnic, cultural and gender diversity.
Pairidaeza
Mostafa Haque
A romance between two noblemen set in Medieval Iraq.
Mostafa Haque
A romance between two noblemen set in Medieval Iraq.
PermaDeath: A Video Game Opera
Curvin Huber, Cerise Lim Jacobs, & Dan Visconti
PermaDeath, is the first video game opera in the world using Unreal Engine to power CGI action, real time facial motion capture of live singers and theatrical/sound effects. It is the result of an innovative collaboration between Becker College and White Snake Projects, an entrepreneurial producer of original opera.PermaDeath is the story of a young woman, a video game tournament champion of a fictional game created for the opera, who has just been diagnosed with a motor neuron disease, like ALS. Her avatar, Apollo, is concerned about how she is going to be able to afford the intensive medical care required as her disease progresses. Apollo enters himself and his team (Team Phoebus) in the Tournament of Death where they will compete against their arch-nemesis, Team Nyx. In this Tournament, no avatar who is killed ever respawns – it dies permanently. In this high-stakes game, the purse is $3m, more than enough to pay for Sonny’s care.Unreal Engine is at the heart of the production’s technical solution. It will be used to display the CGI environments in real-time on the stage via integration into a Notch D3 stage performance system. The CGI avatars’ body animations will be controlled via pre-built movements designated in the Unreal Engine Sequencer. The avatars’ facial animations will be driven in real-time via Faceware LiveServer and blended with the body animations from the Sequencer. Live sound effect and electronics will be pushed through Unreal Engine to sync up with the CGI animations.Finally, the opera has a live band of eight acoustic instrument (4 strings, 2 winds, guitar and piano), supplemented by electronics which will be “played” live by our sound designer from a controller in the pit. Foley effects will be pushed through Unreal Engine to sync up with the projected CGI animations and the composer’s music.
Curvin Huber, Cerise Lim Jacobs, & Dan Visconti
PermaDeath, is the first video game opera in the world using Unreal Engine to power CGI action, real time facial motion capture of live singers and theatrical/sound effects. It is the result of an innovative collaboration between Becker College and White Snake Projects, an entrepreneurial producer of original opera.PermaDeath is the story of a young woman, a video game tournament champion of a fictional game created for the opera, who has just been diagnosed with a motor neuron disease, like ALS. Her avatar, Apollo, is concerned about how she is going to be able to afford the intensive medical care required as her disease progresses. Apollo enters himself and his team (Team Phoebus) in the Tournament of Death where they will compete against their arch-nemesis, Team Nyx. In this Tournament, no avatar who is killed ever respawns – it dies permanently. In this high-stakes game, the purse is $3m, more than enough to pay for Sonny’s care.Unreal Engine is at the heart of the production’s technical solution. It will be used to display the CGI environments in real-time on the stage via integration into a Notch D3 stage performance system. The CGI avatars’ body animations will be controlled via pre-built movements designated in the Unreal Engine Sequencer. The avatars’ facial animations will be driven in real-time via Faceware LiveServer and blended with the body animations from the Sequencer. Live sound effect and electronics will be pushed through Unreal Engine to sync up with the CGI animations.Finally, the opera has a live band of eight acoustic instrument (4 strings, 2 winds, guitar and piano), supplemented by electronics which will be “played” live by our sound designer from a controller in the pit. Foley effects will be pushed through Unreal Engine to sync up with the projected CGI animations and the composer’s music.
Perspective Shift
Leo Bunyea
Perspective Shift is a cooperative, strategy, board game in which players build structures that echo abstract images with the perspectives of others in mind. These images can be found in a quickly growing pool of goal cards. Players must work together to clear goal cards before the pool becomes too large.
Leo Bunyea
Perspective Shift is a cooperative, strategy, board game in which players build structures that echo abstract images with the perspectives of others in mind. These images can be found in a quickly growing pool of goal cards. Players must work together to clear goal cards before the pool becomes too large.
Queering Spacetime
Joyce Lin
Queering Spacetime is a girl-girl dating simulation card game for 2-4 players set in a 1950’s pastel desert town and centered on whimsy, sentiment, and a bit of the absurd.
Players roleplay as the Lover and Beloved or as the friends. The Beloved chooses one character card for the whole game which details the Beloved’s personality and love languages (Are they introverted or extroverted? Lean or buff? Do they enjoy touch, time, knitting, or decoding alien languages?) This information is hidden from the Lover at the start. Meanwhile, the Lover draws an Action card which contains short narrative and multiple choice answers/fill-in-the-blanks. (E.g.: Angels have been sighted at near the town border. A) call her immediately to go see. B) text her, “that u at the edge of town?, etc.) The Beloved judges the Lover’s choices according how much they think it suits Beloved’s personality. They award points on a scale to the Lover, and can reveal facts about the Beloved. After 9 Actions have been performed and judged, the total points determine the two’s future fates. Goals escalate; A perfect 400-point game writes their names in the stars, and across lifetimes, they find each other every time.
Through poetic and whimsical worldbuilding, writing, and pastel aesthetics, I wanted to induce greater awareness of the pliability/subvert-ability of space, time, and how they relate to queer relationships. The title is rooted in recognizing that romance where women love women is largely invisible, less thoroughly represented by media compared to heterosexual romance. Especially for queer women of color, our constructs of romance are left up to us. With this game, I wanted to show how our romances are not just different but special – undefined by heteronormative standards of society.
By emphasizing liminal settings, I wanted to convey not just the queerness of liminality but also the liminality of being queer. There is an inherent loneliness and lack of coherence to liminal spaces, a feeling of being a step away or hidden from reality: think a playground at night in full moonlight or 3am at a gas station. By juxtaposing these feelings with the intimacy and absurdity of the choices – For your first kiss, do you kiss her on the lips, cheek, or eyebrows (you miss!)? I wanted to create feelings of belonging and groundedness, even in a space that seems antithetical to creating such. Laughter and awe connect people, and induce a sense of wonder and intimacy that I want my game to create.
I want to make media for people of marginalized identities to feel positively represented in. When I playtested with my desired audience, they laughed at and enjoyed the queer culture imbued in the game.
Through representation, shared culture, and the juxtaposition of liminality and intimacy to induce wonder and laughter, I hope my game creates a sense of solidarity and belonging. By sharing this game with others, I have had to come out of the closet, and it’s wonderfully surprising to find friends waiting outside.
Joyce Lin
Queering Spacetime is a girl-girl dating simulation card game for 2-4 players set in a 1950’s pastel desert town and centered on whimsy, sentiment, and a bit of the absurd.
Players roleplay as the Lover and Beloved or as the friends. The Beloved chooses one character card for the whole game which details the Beloved’s personality and love languages (Are they introverted or extroverted? Lean or buff? Do they enjoy touch, time, knitting, or decoding alien languages?) This information is hidden from the Lover at the start. Meanwhile, the Lover draws an Action card which contains short narrative and multiple choice answers/fill-in-the-blanks. (E.g.: Angels have been sighted at near the town border. A) call her immediately to go see. B) text her, “that u at the edge of town?, etc.) The Beloved judges the Lover’s choices according how much they think it suits Beloved’s personality. They award points on a scale to the Lover, and can reveal facts about the Beloved. After 9 Actions have been performed and judged, the total points determine the two’s future fates. Goals escalate; A perfect 400-point game writes their names in the stars, and across lifetimes, they find each other every time.
Through poetic and whimsical worldbuilding, writing, and pastel aesthetics, I wanted to induce greater awareness of the pliability/subvert-ability of space, time, and how they relate to queer relationships. The title is rooted in recognizing that romance where women love women is largely invisible, less thoroughly represented by media compared to heterosexual romance. Especially for queer women of color, our constructs of romance are left up to us. With this game, I wanted to show how our romances are not just different but special – undefined by heteronormative standards of society.
By emphasizing liminal settings, I wanted to convey not just the queerness of liminality but also the liminality of being queer. There is an inherent loneliness and lack of coherence to liminal spaces, a feeling of being a step away or hidden from reality: think a playground at night in full moonlight or 3am at a gas station. By juxtaposing these feelings with the intimacy and absurdity of the choices – For your first kiss, do you kiss her on the lips, cheek, or eyebrows (you miss!)? I wanted to create feelings of belonging and groundedness, even in a space that seems antithetical to creating such. Laughter and awe connect people, and induce a sense of wonder and intimacy that I want my game to create.
I want to make media for people of marginalized identities to feel positively represented in. When I playtested with my desired audience, they laughed at and enjoyed the queer culture imbued in the game.
Through representation, shared culture, and the juxtaposition of liminality and intimacy to induce wonder and laughter, I hope my game creates a sense of solidarity and belonging. By sharing this game with others, I have had to come out of the closet, and it’s wonderfully surprising to find friends waiting outside.
Roots
Enric Llagostera & Rebecca Goodine
Roots is an on-going collaboration between Rebecca Goodine and Enric Llagostera, started in January 2018. It is a research-creation game design project that actively involves intergenerational players in an experience that cultivates each other’s capabilities for care within a larger community. Gameplay is both haptic and visual in nature, with players working together to grow an onscreen digital garden through an alternative controller resembling an underground roots system. In the current Roots “well” design, players put their hands inside a soft padded well through holes in its sides. The game’s digital garden inside the top of the well can be grown and watered by connecting roots within the well’s interior to a circuit based ground cushion. Each root has a different feel, texture and weight, with softness and tactility acting as invitations into new and unfamiliar learning spaces. When moving below the surface of Roots, care as discovery process becomes emerges through play; where hands reaching blindly for soft control roots instead are likely to stumble into the hand of another player.
Enric Llagostera & Rebecca Goodine
Roots is an on-going collaboration between Rebecca Goodine and Enric Llagostera, started in January 2018. It is a research-creation game design project that actively involves intergenerational players in an experience that cultivates each other’s capabilities for care within a larger community. Gameplay is both haptic and visual in nature, with players working together to grow an onscreen digital garden through an alternative controller resembling an underground roots system. In the current Roots “well” design, players put their hands inside a soft padded well through holes in its sides. The game’s digital garden inside the top of the well can be grown and watered by connecting roots within the well’s interior to a circuit based ground cushion. Each root has a different feel, texture and weight, with softness and tactility acting as invitations into new and unfamiliar learning spaces. When moving below the surface of Roots, care as discovery process becomes emerges through play; where hands reaching blindly for soft control roots instead are likely to stumble into the hand of another player.
RUNE EVERYTHING
shrunken studios
RUNE EVERYTHING is a digital simulation of an unfinished experiment conducted by students and scholars of the occult in the early 1990s.Using recreations of the sigil deck unearthed by archaeolexicologist Dr. Howe C.T. Beigh, four willing players navigate eight rounds of card-driven invocation while ahistorically narrating the fate of a civilization locked in a collapse cycle.For the first time, experience the phase disruption of the Beigh Aperture without the risk of ruining everything.
shrunken studios
RUNE EVERYTHING is a digital simulation of an unfinished experiment conducted by students and scholars of the occult in the early 1990s.Using recreations of the sigil deck unearthed by archaeolexicologist Dr. Howe C.T. Beigh, four willing players navigate eight rounds of card-driven invocation while ahistorically narrating the fate of a civilization locked in a collapse cycle.For the first time, experience the phase disruption of the Beigh Aperture without the risk of ruining everything.
Seven Minutes in Heaven
Droqen, Audrey & Allison
Seven Minutes in Heaven is a puzzle platformer that is played projected onto hand drawn maps. With the pressure of an increasingly sped of version of Beck’s Loser as accompaniment, players have seven minutes to reach their skeleton girlfriend. They must figure out which map they are on and line it up perfectly with the projector to be able to weave around obstacles and take leaps of faith onto invisible platforms.
Droqen, Audrey & Allison
Seven Minutes in Heaven is a puzzle platformer that is played projected onto hand drawn maps. With the pressure of an increasingly sped of version of Beck’s Loser as accompaniment, players have seven minutes to reach their skeleton girlfriend. They must figure out which map they are on and line it up perfectly with the projector to be able to weave around obstacles and take leaps of faith onto invisible platforms.
SimUncle
Kota & Étienne
A family dinner with your slightly racist uncle.
Kota & Étienne
A family dinner with your slightly racist uncle.
Spice of Life
Mary A. Georgescu
Spice of Life is an arcade style video game where you play a robot chef, Unit 25, who is slowly learning how to become a human in a society that does not want to acknowledge their dependance and oppression of their AI social class.
Mary A. Georgescu
Spice of Life is an arcade style video game where you play a robot chef, Unit 25, who is slowly learning how to become a human in a society that does not want to acknowledge their dependance and oppression of their AI social class.
Starcrossed
Contigo Games
Can you stay in sync with your partner to destroy the enemies that want to keep you at bay? Join our cast of 5 space-faring heroes as they travel from planet to planet, working together to strengthen their bond and defeat a looming evil that threatens the galaxy!StarCrossed is a local co-op game heavily inspired by classic “Magical Girl” media. Our mission is to provide an experience that focuses on the importance of collaboration and teamwork, showcased by the two-player cooperative gameplay.This cooperative take on the classic shoot ’em up genre is played by utilizing the positioning of the characters to take out enemies with a projectile that bounces back and forth between the players. Timing and teamwork are key!
Contigo Games
Can you stay in sync with your partner to destroy the enemies that want to keep you at bay? Join our cast of 5 space-faring heroes as they travel from planet to planet, working together to strengthen their bond and defeat a looming evil that threatens the galaxy!StarCrossed is a local co-op game heavily inspired by classic “Magical Girl” media. Our mission is to provide an experience that focuses on the importance of collaboration and teamwork, showcased by the two-player cooperative gameplay.This cooperative take on the classic shoot ’em up genre is played by utilizing the positioning of the characters to take out enemies with a projectile that bounces back and forth between the players. Timing and teamwork are key!
Stay/Leave
Jennifer deWinter, Angelia Giannone, Danielle Wozniak, Melissa Neff, Allison C. Morrill, Sari Skolnik, Evan Rohan Graham, Jilian Nguyen, & Will Zielinski
Stay/Leave is a grant-funded empathy game (in process) that addresses domestic violence (DV) situations. Stay/Leave is a CYOA, serious empathy game where users choose to play as one of four characters, each of whom portray a dimension of DV, through branching narratives.
Each character in Stay/Leave illuminates some of the many facets of DV, including involved persons and resources (abusers, family, friends, colleagues, shelters, caseworkers, police officers, etc.) to shed light on the pervasive and broadly misunderstood nature of DV in Western society, ultimately posing and providing some answers to the question: Why don’t women just leave abusive relationships? Stay/Leave is intended to be a resource for those who work with DV victims, such as firefighters, police officers, social workers, women and children shelters, and other responders, in addition to a practical resource for women who have experienced DV and their loved ones and supporters who need an understanding of a DV victim’s rationale and choices.
Jennifer deWinter, Angelia Giannone, Danielle Wozniak, Melissa Neff, Allison C. Morrill, Sari Skolnik, Evan Rohan Graham, Jilian Nguyen, & Will Zielinski
Stay/Leave is a grant-funded empathy game (in process) that addresses domestic violence (DV) situations. Stay/Leave is a CYOA, serious empathy game where users choose to play as one of four characters, each of whom portray a dimension of DV, through branching narratives.
Each character in Stay/Leave illuminates some of the many facets of DV, including involved persons and resources (abusers, family, friends, colleagues, shelters, caseworkers, police officers, etc.) to shed light on the pervasive and broadly misunderstood nature of DV in Western society, ultimately posing and providing some answers to the question: Why don’t women just leave abusive relationships? Stay/Leave is intended to be a resource for those who work with DV victims, such as firefighters, police officers, social workers, women and children shelters, and other responders, in addition to a practical resource for women who have experienced DV and their loved ones and supporters who need an understanding of a DV victim’s rationale and choices.
SweetXHeart
Catt Small
SweetXheart is a slice-of-life game about microagressions, race, and gender. In SweetXheart, you play as Kara, a 19-year-old girl who attends an art college and interns at a tech company. The game centers around the highs and lows of life, including small interactions such as swiping a phone in the morning to wake up. Players spend a week in Kara’s shoes, experiencing the daily life of a nerdy Black girl growing up in New York City. The goal of the game is to share the experience of being a Black woman, dealing with the issues of race and gender while also finding a way to achieve success in school and work. The game is in the progress of being prepared for release.
Catt Small
SweetXheart is a slice-of-life game about microagressions, race, and gender. In SweetXheart, you play as Kara, a 19-year-old girl who attends an art college and interns at a tech company. The game centers around the highs and lows of life, including small interactions such as swiping a phone in the morning to wake up. Players spend a week in Kara’s shoes, experiencing the daily life of a nerdy Black girl growing up in New York City. The goal of the game is to share the experience of being a Black woman, dealing with the issues of race and gender while also finding a way to achieve success in school and work. The game is in the progress of being prepared for release.
Thin Line
Rony Kahana, River Liu, Erika Lee, Trisha Surve, & Kuk Kim
Thin Line is a mobile VR experience that shows the perspective of a woman who is dealing with an unplanned preganancy. Being interactive, allows viewers to unravel the story at their own pace, learn about main character’s family, relationships, hopes and dreams, and see the world through her eyes. By the time it is revealed that the character has had an unplanned pregnancy the viewers already had a chance to form an emotional bond with her. They then learn about her emotional state as she decides to have an abortion and witness different interactions with healthcare providers showing how their implicit biases might affect the level of care they provide. This topic is relevant to a large part of the population and based on the American Journal of Public Health, nearly one in four women in the United States (23.7%) will have an abortion by age 45. Healthcare providers implicit biases towards women who choose abortion can make the process even more difficult. The goal isn’t to change minds regarding this polarizing issue but to encourage respect towards others and equal healthcare for all. That is why the viewers don’t have agency over the character’s decision. It has already happened, it is part of her past and part of her personal journey.
Rony Kahana, River Liu, Erika Lee, Trisha Surve, & Kuk Kim
Thin Line is a mobile VR experience that shows the perspective of a woman who is dealing with an unplanned preganancy. Being interactive, allows viewers to unravel the story at their own pace, learn about main character’s family, relationships, hopes and dreams, and see the world through her eyes. By the time it is revealed that the character has had an unplanned pregnancy the viewers already had a chance to form an emotional bond with her. They then learn about her emotional state as she decides to have an abortion and witness different interactions with healthcare providers showing how their implicit biases might affect the level of care they provide. This topic is relevant to a large part of the population and based on the American Journal of Public Health, nearly one in four women in the United States (23.7%) will have an abortion by age 45. Healthcare providers implicit biases towards women who choose abortion can make the process even more difficult. The goal isn’t to change minds regarding this polarizing issue but to encourage respect towards others and equal healthcare for all. That is why the viewers don’t have agency over the character’s decision. It has already happened, it is part of her past and part of her personal journey.
We Should Talk
Heat Beat Studio, Carol Mertz, Jordan Jones-Brewster, Francesca Carletto-Leon, Kat Aguiar, Nobo Bhowmik, & Jack Schlesinger
Things are tense. Your partner’s been trying to get you to talk about the problems affecting your relationship, but you’re not sure if you’re ready. You head to your common haunt, a local bar where your best friend works, to relax and think things through. You discuss ongoing problems about life and romance with your partner over text, while also chatting with friends and strangers at the bar about what’s on your mind. The interactions you have and the perspectives you take affect how genuinely you can connect with your partner, and whether your relationship can survive the night.We Should Talk is a narrative game in which players manipulate modular text boxes to input a variety of possible options. This mechanic explores the nuance of language and how the things we say affects our relationships with others.
Heat Beat Studio, Carol Mertz, Jordan Jones-Brewster, Francesca Carletto-Leon, Kat Aguiar, Nobo Bhowmik, & Jack Schlesinger
Things are tense. Your partner’s been trying to get you to talk about the problems affecting your relationship, but you’re not sure if you’re ready. You head to your common haunt, a local bar where your best friend works, to relax and think things through. You discuss ongoing problems about life and romance with your partner over text, while also chatting with friends and strangers at the bar about what’s on your mind. The interactions you have and the perspectives you take affect how genuinely you can connect with your partner, and whether your relationship can survive the night.We Should Talk is a narrative game in which players manipulate modular text boxes to input a variety of possible options. This mechanic explores the nuance of language and how the things we say affects our relationships with others.
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
Dim Bulb Games and Serenity Forge
Travel the Depression-Era United States, laboring to pay off a debt by learning the true stories of 16 signature characters across a wide range of American experience from migrant workers to a traveling preacher to a Navajo woman forcibly relocated on the Long Walk.As you explore, you’ll encounter strange and unsettling things: slices of a country built on dust clouds and murky dreams, where the folk tales are bleeding through. You’ll carry those tales with you, swapping them round campfires to make the cast of characters open up to you and share their own stories.The stories you share will return to you along your journey, changed in the telling as they’ve made their way around the country. As you meet the characters time and again on your travels, they will grow to trust you and, hopefully, share their true selves with you. Only by learning all their real stories can you pay off your debt.
Dim Bulb Games and Serenity Forge
Travel the Depression-Era United States, laboring to pay off a debt by learning the true stories of 16 signature characters across a wide range of American experience from migrant workers to a traveling preacher to a Navajo woman forcibly relocated on the Long Walk.As you explore, you’ll encounter strange and unsettling things: slices of a country built on dust clouds and murky dreams, where the folk tales are bleeding through. You’ll carry those tales with you, swapping them round campfires to make the cast of characters open up to you and share their own stories.The stories you share will return to you along your journey, changed in the telling as they’ve made their way around the country. As you meet the characters time and again on your travels, they will grow to trust you and, hopefully, share their true selves with you. Only by learning all their real stories can you pay off your debt.
Yi and the Thousand Moons
David Su
Yi and the Thousand Moons is a short video game musical written and developed by David Su. Through the course of several original interactive songs, featuring a full cast and live band, the game weaves a story of the archer Yi’s journey to save her village.
David Su
Yi and the Thousand Moons is a short video game musical written and developed by David Su. Through the course of several original interactive songs, featuring a full cast and live band, the game weaves a story of the archer Yi’s journey to save her village.
You Used to Be Someone
Mx. Dietrich Squinkifer (Squinky)
You have no idea how long it’s been since you last set foot outside your cramped little apartment. You don’t really talk to anyone. You can’t focus on work. You barely have any appetite to speak of, literally and figuratively. Even casually reading Twitter makes you anxious.Somehow, you thought moving to a new city would help you meet people you actually like. That you’d find fun activities to do and better opportunities all around. You used to be pretty good at faking your way around being a social butterfly. People actually seemed to like you, and the stuff you made and performed. But now? You can’t even remember being that person.Maybe you should go outside. Maybe it will help.
Mx. Dietrich Squinkifer (Squinky)
You have no idea how long it’s been since you last set foot outside your cramped little apartment. You don’t really talk to anyone. You can’t focus on work. You barely have any appetite to speak of, literally and figuratively. Even casually reading Twitter makes you anxious.Somehow, you thought moving to a new city would help you meet people you actually like. That you’d find fun activities to do and better opportunities all around. You used to be pretty good at faking your way around being a social butterfly. People actually seemed to like you, and the stuff you made and performed. But now? You can’t even remember being that person.Maybe you should go outside. Maybe it will help.
CONTENT WARNING:This is a game based on my experience having a major depressive episode. Please do whatever you need to do to be able to engage safely with this subject matter.
10 Ways to Play Chess
Michael Arcadi
10 Ways to Play Chess is a rule book that covers 10 different and unique ways to play chess. It was made for a month long game centered around the theme of chess. While I had originally intended to create a digital version of chess that I could take and bend the rules of, I was particularly busy that month and did not have time to do. Having already entered the jam and not wanting to have nothing to show I went forwards with my original plan of coming up with new ways to play chess, but applied them to a physical chess board. Every version of chess in 10 Ways to Play Chess uses a single set of chess pieces, and while some of the chess variants work better with a folding chess board, they are all playable on a standard chess board. 10 Ways to Play Chess seeks to re-imagine chess and get people to have fun playing chess again, taking it a step back from the daunting monolith of a game it has become with its grand masters and impossibly intelligent AI. The rule book for 10 Ways to Play Chess can be found at https://arcadim.itch.io/10-ways-to-play-chess
Michael Arcadi
10 Ways to Play Chess is a rule book that covers 10 different and unique ways to play chess. It was made for a month long game centered around the theme of chess. While I had originally intended to create a digital version of chess that I could take and bend the rules of, I was particularly busy that month and did not have time to do. Having already entered the jam and not wanting to have nothing to show I went forwards with my original plan of coming up with new ways to play chess, but applied them to a physical chess board. Every version of chess in 10 Ways to Play Chess uses a single set of chess pieces, and while some of the chess variants work better with a folding chess board, they are all playable on a standard chess board. 10 Ways to Play Chess seeks to re-imagine chess and get people to have fun playing chess again, taking it a step back from the daunting monolith of a game it has become with its grand masters and impossibly intelligent AI. The rule book for 10 Ways to Play Chess can be found at https://arcadim.itch.io/10-ways-to-play-chess
So Bad… It’s Good!
Chaired by James Earl Cox III
(13 Untitled Sonic Worlds Games)
everythingstaken and the frutas
the demo/video is part 1/13 of a series of sonic world levels and mods made by everythingstaken with the help of “the frutas” the first world is basically an auto run level. this and the rest of the games will be finished in less than two weeks and it was started on monday, but I haven’t had much of a chance to work on it because of the fourth of july, but trust me, it will be very athletic. this will be like a bigger version of my game 100
everythingstaken and the frutas
the demo/video is part 1/13 of a series of sonic world levels and mods made by everythingstaken with the help of “the frutas” the first world is basically an auto run level. this and the rest of the games will be finished in less than two weeks and it was started on monday, but I haven’t had much of a chance to work on it because of the fourth of july, but trust me, it will be very athletic. this will be like a bigger version of my game 100
Balance Principle
Prince Jones
Balance Principle is a minimalistic yet engaging, physics-based arcade game; a skilled player can complete a level in as little as three seconds! Play as a rotatable green square as you balance on top of a stack of red structures, then try to knock them away and reach the blue platform below… with PHYSICS. Maybe some help with time manipulation, but mainly PHYSICS!
Prince Jones
Balance Principle is a minimalistic yet engaging, physics-based arcade game; a skilled player can complete a level in as little as three seconds! Play as a rotatable green square as you balance on top of a stack of red structures, then try to knock them away and reach the blue platform below… with PHYSICS. Maybe some help with time manipulation, but mainly PHYSICS!
Circle0
Corey Bertelsen, Dennis Carr, Jenna Galka, Milan Koerner-Safrata, Longxiao Li, & Shiyun “Vanilla” Liu
Circle0 is a multiple-perspective adventure game where the player progresses through a series of layered islands, completing mundane tasks, earning money and collecting various items to store in their head until the game inevitably crashes.
Corey Bertelsen, Dennis Carr, Jenna Galka, Milan Koerner-Safrata, Longxiao Li, & Shiyun “Vanilla” Liu
Circle0 is a multiple-perspective adventure game where the player progresses through a series of layered islands, completing mundane tasks, earning money and collecting various items to store in their head until the game inevitably crashes.
eCheese Zone
James Earl Cox III & Joe Cox
Cowabunga cheese freaks, and welcome to the eCheese Zone! Featuring your favorite cheese pal @CliffyCheese. The eCheese Zone is a crowd punishment party game. Make new friends as you collectively struggle to follow basic directions. But remember, you only have 5 hours to win before the game ends. Are you a big enough cheese fan to beat… the eCheese Zone? As Cliffy Cheese says: “stay cheesy!”
James Earl Cox III & Joe Cox
Cowabunga cheese freaks, and welcome to the eCheese Zone! Featuring your favorite cheese pal @CliffyCheese. The eCheese Zone is a crowd punishment party game. Make new friends as you collectively struggle to follow basic directions. But remember, you only have 5 hours to win before the game ends. Are you a big enough cheese fan to beat… the eCheese Zone? As Cliffy Cheese says: “stay cheesy!”
F2OGGY (Only one survives!)
Nathalie Lawhead
F2OGGY (Only one survives!) is a Brute-Force Local Multiplayer Frog-Combat Simulator™ made for a growing audience of competitive frogfans.
Each player is divided into a faction (a Frog-Faction™), and must defeat their opponent using High-Velocity Amphibian Impact Lunges™. There are a total of three (3) respective rounds for each unconquered territory. The player that has won the most rounds, as well as territory, will be Natural Selection’s Final Choice™.
Nathalie Lawhead
F2OGGY (Only one survives!) is a Brute-Force Local Multiplayer Frog-Combat Simulator™ made for a growing audience of competitive frogfans.
Each player is divided into a faction (a Frog-Faction™), and must defeat their opponent using High-Velocity Amphibian Impact Lunges™. There are a total of three (3) respective rounds for each unconquered territory. The player that has won the most rounds, as well as territory, will be Natural Selection’s Final Choice™.
Inscribe
Karen Royer, Jennifer deWinter, Gillian Smith, Keenan Grey, & Mitchell Stevens
Inscribe is an area control game in which the goal is to complete a pysanky egg, using the egg as the game board. The game leverages experiences and techniques inherent in the pysanky egg tradition as an experiment in pushing the boundaries of game design.
Players use the mechanics of building traditional pysanky eggs while playing Inscribe. To succeed players must plan and carefully consider the surface area of the egg. Further, they must not drop the egg. Breaking the egg ends the game.
When playing Inscribe, players overcome the desire for perfectionism, as mistakes are permanent and players have to adapt. As a team game, Inscribe provides a medium for the emergent social aspects of pysanky. For example, teammates share plans for patterns that they will inscribe on the egg. Players negotiate tension between fear of damaging the egg or making mistakes, and the meditative pace required of the game. Traditional folk characters and agricultural tools are pictured on game cards used to introduce a mechanic of chance and strategy into the game.
In using an egg as the game board we are asserting that tabletop gaming platforms can exist in mediums outside of paper and cardboard. Through Inscribe, our goal is to inspire players and designers to recognize the overlap between games and craft.
By advancing new experiences, Inscribe provides a middle ground between those who identify as gamers and those who identify as crafters. In exploring the commonalities between the domains we encourage discussion for the purpose of growth. Inscribe diminishes extant barriers.
Karen Royer, Jennifer deWinter, Gillian Smith, Keenan Grey, & Mitchell Stevens
Inscribe is an area control game in which the goal is to complete a pysanky egg, using the egg as the game board. The game leverages experiences and techniques inherent in the pysanky egg tradition as an experiment in pushing the boundaries of game design.
Players use the mechanics of building traditional pysanky eggs while playing Inscribe. To succeed players must plan and carefully consider the surface area of the egg. Further, they must not drop the egg. Breaking the egg ends the game.
When playing Inscribe, players overcome the desire for perfectionism, as mistakes are permanent and players have to adapt. As a team game, Inscribe provides a medium for the emergent social aspects of pysanky. For example, teammates share plans for patterns that they will inscribe on the egg. Players negotiate tension between fear of damaging the egg or making mistakes, and the meditative pace required of the game. Traditional folk characters and agricultural tools are pictured on game cards used to introduce a mechanic of chance and strategy into the game.
In using an egg as the game board we are asserting that tabletop gaming platforms can exist in mediums outside of paper and cardboard. Through Inscribe, our goal is to inspire players and designers to recognize the overlap between games and craft.
By advancing new experiences, Inscribe provides a middle ground between those who identify as gamers and those who identify as crafters. In exploring the commonalities between the domains we encourage discussion for the purpose of growth. Inscribe diminishes extant barriers.
NSFWare
Pierre Corbinais
NSFWare is a colourful rotoscoped porn game played as a warioware. It’s focused on sex-positivity, inclusivity and fun. It’s also quite hard (pun intended)
Pierre Corbinais
NSFWare is a colourful rotoscoped porn game played as a warioware. It’s focused on sex-positivity, inclusivity and fun. It’s also quite hard (pun intended)
Pie in the Sky
Matthew Keff
Pie in the Sky smooshes together sandbox, painting, and coin-clicker gameplay into an abstracted 3D environment. In its own weird way, the game considers the emotional relationships between people, things and each other within the context of digital culture. In a fast-paced framework, Pie in the Sky invites players to explore how these mechanisms operate by way of nonsense and creativity. The game questions the design tropes used throughout the popular digital culture. It is curious how they are used to trigger strong emotional responses, for better or worse.
Sugary iconography and audio-visual fanfare fill the screen. Anthropomorphic characters fly and float about, they smile, laugh and cry; hearts, stars, fruit, clouds, coins, beach balls and more. Sound effects triggered at random create chance-melody. Fountains and sparklers fire as various behaviors collide into one another. The player interacts via intuitive controls such as a touch screen, touching anywhere on the screen creates items. Scoring happens by clicking on an object to collect it. The project is multi-platform and can be installed using a computer and mouse, touch-screen, or VR.
The imagery can be interpreted in many different ways depending on the Spector’s disposition. In Pie in the Sky, items and effects are mixed up and abstracted in chaotic rhythm into a beat reminiscent of a carnival, traffic jam or social media feed. Through various methods, much of the popular digital culture uses gamified reward patterns to inspire user engagement. Pie in the Sky is both critical and celebratory of this behavior as it allows players to break apart and mix things up in their own manner.
Matthew Keff
Pie in the Sky smooshes together sandbox, painting, and coin-clicker gameplay into an abstracted 3D environment. In its own weird way, the game considers the emotional relationships between people, things and each other within the context of digital culture. In a fast-paced framework, Pie in the Sky invites players to explore how these mechanisms operate by way of nonsense and creativity. The game questions the design tropes used throughout the popular digital culture. It is curious how they are used to trigger strong emotional responses, for better or worse.
Sugary iconography and audio-visual fanfare fill the screen. Anthropomorphic characters fly and float about, they smile, laugh and cry; hearts, stars, fruit, clouds, coins, beach balls and more. Sound effects triggered at random create chance-melody. Fountains and sparklers fire as various behaviors collide into one another. The player interacts via intuitive controls such as a touch screen, touching anywhere on the screen creates items. Scoring happens by clicking on an object to collect it. The project is multi-platform and can be installed using a computer and mouse, touch-screen, or VR.
The imagery can be interpreted in many different ways depending on the Spector’s disposition. In Pie in the Sky, items and effects are mixed up and abstracted in chaotic rhythm into a beat reminiscent of a carnival, traffic jam or social media feed. Through various methods, much of the popular digital culture uses gamified reward patterns to inspire user engagement. Pie in the Sky is both critical and celebratory of this behavior as it allows players to break apart and mix things up in their own manner.
This Game is Poo
Lindsay Grace
This game is poo. The characters are poo. The mechanics are poo. You feel like Poo when you touch it. You put your hand on the poo to shoot poo at poo that poos right back at you. It’s every game and no game at once. The whole idea is poo. But maybe you can turn that frown upside down. Shoot the poo to turn the poo into something happy like stars and unicorns because those things are less like poo. Smash the poo and really do your best. You will have a happy feeling when you have finished.
What happens when you’re just so frustrated as a designer that you just go all in and make the most mundane, shit filled sandwich? Forcing myself to make and publish a game in 5 hours, I founds the Mr poo trend on Google play and made a game about it. The game is functional, but not polished (well because it’s poo). I got my hands dirty and then put it on the Internet.
This game is poo, because we make poo all the time and it would be nice if we made something different. But no, just more poo. Isn’t it time games were honest with us?
Lindsay Grace
This game is poo. The characters are poo. The mechanics are poo. You feel like Poo when you touch it. You put your hand on the poo to shoot poo at poo that poos right back at you. It’s every game and no game at once. The whole idea is poo. But maybe you can turn that frown upside down. Shoot the poo to turn the poo into something happy like stars and unicorns because those things are less like poo. Smash the poo and really do your best. You will have a happy feeling when you have finished.
What happens when you’re just so frustrated as a designer that you just go all in and make the most mundane, shit filled sandwich? Forcing myself to make and publish a game in 5 hours, I founds the Mr poo trend on Google play and made a game about it. The game is functional, but not polished (well because it’s poo). I got my hands dirty and then put it on the Internet.
This game is poo, because we make poo all the time and it would be nice if we made something different. But no, just more poo. Isn’t it time games were honest with us?
The Undie Game
Copenhagen Game Collective: Sabine Harrer, Patrick Jarnfelt, & Simon Nielsen
The Undie Game is a short, wearable controller game for 2 players. It explores feelings around sexuality, technology, and the uncertain boundaries we navigate when sharing pleasure. The Undie Game is currently in an early development stage.The game is played wearing a pair of panties with an integrated mouse controller. Connected to the computer, the players collaborate to help a salivating tongue on screen lick off splashes of yummy goo. The game is played as a public spectacle, where the players both claim agency over a harmless, silly interactive experience, while also being exposed to the curious looks of others.The design vision
The mouse has long been used as a soulless piece of hardware. As a part of our computerised work lives, it scrolls through endless piles of data, opens spreadsheets, and clicks through lots of porn. This sad existence is surprising, given the mouse’s alluring shape, its many exciting buttons and the way it neatly fits into our pants!The Undie Game celebrates the mouse as a fa””silly””tator of human connection, turning its “normal” purpose upside down. Positioned directly on the players’ bodies, the mouse buttons and scroll wheel present themselves as new, yet easily graspable control scheme for two hands: Each player uses one hand to activate the mouse by holding down left + right mouse button. The remaining hand is used to scroll the mouse wheel and thereby control the character on screen. This is right in the ally of Different Game’s design track “So bad it’s good”.The Undie Game is a collaborative experience. Each player controls a different part of a digital tongue which can’t wait to lick yummy splashes of goo off the screen. One player controls the tongue’s licking movements, the other player controls where the tongue is moving. The goal is to lick off all the yummy splashes before time runs out. However, the tongue has preferences and dislikes which change across play session. The players have to listen and negotiate which splashes to avoid and which ones to go for.Thematically, the tongue represents our collective desires and cravings when sharing intimacy. Who are we when we desire (one another)? Are we the ones in control, or do our cravings control us? The tongue is an ambiguous symbol, leaving room for players’ diverse identities, stories, and experiences.
Copenhagen Game Collective: Sabine Harrer, Patrick Jarnfelt, & Simon Nielsen
The Undie Game is a short, wearable controller game for 2 players. It explores feelings around sexuality, technology, and the uncertain boundaries we navigate when sharing pleasure. The Undie Game is currently in an early development stage.The game is played wearing a pair of panties with an integrated mouse controller. Connected to the computer, the players collaborate to help a salivating tongue on screen lick off splashes of yummy goo. The game is played as a public spectacle, where the players both claim agency over a harmless, silly interactive experience, while also being exposed to the curious looks of others.The design vision
The mouse has long been used as a soulless piece of hardware. As a part of our computerised work lives, it scrolls through endless piles of data, opens spreadsheets, and clicks through lots of porn. This sad existence is surprising, given the mouse’s alluring shape, its many exciting buttons and the way it neatly fits into our pants!The Undie Game celebrates the mouse as a fa””silly””tator of human connection, turning its “normal” purpose upside down. Positioned directly on the players’ bodies, the mouse buttons and scroll wheel present themselves as new, yet easily graspable control scheme for two hands: Each player uses one hand to activate the mouse by holding down left + right mouse button. The remaining hand is used to scroll the mouse wheel and thereby control the character on screen. This is right in the ally of Different Game’s design track “So bad it’s good”.The Undie Game is a collaborative experience. Each player controls a different part of a digital tongue which can’t wait to lick yummy splashes of goo off the screen. One player controls the tongue’s licking movements, the other player controls where the tongue is moving. The goal is to lick off all the yummy splashes before time runs out. However, the tongue has preferences and dislikes which change across play session. The players have to listen and negotiate which splashes to avoid and which ones to go for.Thematically, the tongue represents our collective desires and cravings when sharing intimacy. Who are we when we desire (one another)? Are we the ones in control, or do our cravings control us? The tongue is an ambiguous symbol, leaving room for players’ diverse identities, stories, and experiences.
The Undie Game is designed as a whole-body experience which starts with players choosing their preferred undie controller. Different sizes and lingerie styles are available, and we are working on a custom-built strap-on for more accessibility. The mouse integration sleeves are designed so that hardware can be removed safely and match all panties. For exhibition settings, we recommend providing several mouse/panty pairings on a coat hanger next to the game for players to choose from.
Welcome to New Lux Pizza
Sagan Yee
Welcome to New Lux Plaza is a work-in-progress video game set in an endless, virtual shopping mall patrolled by amorous security bots, rabid e-shoppers and holographic spam. The player’s goal is to obtain “LuxBux™”, the cryptocurrency of the future, while staying alive as long as possible. Early vaporwave aesthetics combine with the interactive language of an on-rails space shooter (in the tradition of Nintendo classic Star Fox 64) to create an ever-shifting landscape of fragmented images and collective hallucinations, through which the player flies eternally towards Late Capitalist oblivion.The term “vaporwave” was coined around 2010 as an obscure experimental music micro-genre, which gradually evolved into a memetic art movement both playfully ironic and deadly serious in its subversive prodding of Internet culture and nostalgia-driven consumerism. Elements of early vaporwave included: Slowing down pop songs and corporate Muzak into eerie un-recognizability; juxtaposing Greek sculptures with retro computer graphics and East Asian logograms; artists whose real identities are obscured by anonymous chat room pseudonyms and anime avatars; deliberately crude or ugly typography and graphic design; and symbols of escapist materialism (palm trees, sports cars, shopping malls, vending machines).With these aesthetics as inspiration, New Lux Plaza pilfers imagery, audio, and text from various online sources to replicate the experience of too many late-night hours spent falling down Internet rabbit holes. It subverts traditional “game-y” tropes by virtue of being so visually chaotic that it becomes difficult to tell what hurts, what heals, and what to shoot at; yet the obvious mechanical references to classic Nintendo games, known for their smooth playability and high production values, are just apparent enough to make you think you could legitimately win via practice and superior hand-eye coordination. Is it poor design or deliberate irony? You be the judge!!
Sagan Yee
Welcome to New Lux Plaza is a work-in-progress video game set in an endless, virtual shopping mall patrolled by amorous security bots, rabid e-shoppers and holographic spam. The player’s goal is to obtain “LuxBux™”, the cryptocurrency of the future, while staying alive as long as possible. Early vaporwave aesthetics combine with the interactive language of an on-rails space shooter (in the tradition of Nintendo classic Star Fox 64) to create an ever-shifting landscape of fragmented images and collective hallucinations, through which the player flies eternally towards Late Capitalist oblivion.The term “vaporwave” was coined around 2010 as an obscure experimental music micro-genre, which gradually evolved into a memetic art movement both playfully ironic and deadly serious in its subversive prodding of Internet culture and nostalgia-driven consumerism. Elements of early vaporwave included: Slowing down pop songs and corporate Muzak into eerie un-recognizability; juxtaposing Greek sculptures with retro computer graphics and East Asian logograms; artists whose real identities are obscured by anonymous chat room pseudonyms and anime avatars; deliberately crude or ugly typography and graphic design; and symbols of escapist materialism (palm trees, sports cars, shopping malls, vending machines).With these aesthetics as inspiration, New Lux Plaza pilfers imagery, audio, and text from various online sources to replicate the experience of too many late-night hours spent falling down Internet rabbit holes. It subverts traditional “game-y” tropes by virtue of being so visually chaotic that it becomes difficult to tell what hurts, what heals, and what to shoot at; yet the obvious mechanical references to classic Nintendo games, known for their smooth playability and high production values, are just apparent enough to make you think you could legitimately win via practice and superior hand-eye coordination. Is it poor design or deliberate irony? You be the judge!!
You Busy?
Trynn
You Busy? is a game about the various channels that people and information must flow through in order to complete work. Whether it be finding the correct person for assistance, receiving an approval on a task, attending a meeting, or tending to a fiasco… there are millions of things that one must keep on their radar during any given day.
The purpose of the game is not to criticize this structure but instead to shed light on the beauty behind this system and illustrate just how much is required of us to feel “productive” and how working together is the path to success.
Trynn
You Busy? is a game about the various channels that people and information must flow through in order to complete work. Whether it be finding the correct person for assistance, receiving an approval on a task, attending a meeting, or tending to a fiasco… there are millions of things that one must keep on their radar during any given day.
The purpose of the game is not to criticize this structure but instead to shed light on the beauty behind this system and illustrate just how much is required of us to feel “productive” and how working together is the path to success.
⌛ ₱☈↕ϟ☻₦ ⌛
Xavier Ekkel
⌛ ₱☈↕ϟ☻₦ ⌛ (‘Prison’) is an experimental 3D experience about time.There are three prison cells. The door on the left lets you set a time up to one minute in seconds, whilst the other two prison cells are occupied, and represent an hour and a day in seconds, respectively.Every action in the game is tied to the theme of time, whether it’s impatiently knocking on a door hoping for an early release, scratching on the walls to mark each short time milestone, or using the toilet to ‘flush away’ longer time periods.However, the intention of this game is not to be fun. This game involves a lot of waiting, and eventually players may find themselves simply pacing back and forth, or listening to the sound of time ticking by.At a base level, this game provides a minimalist ‘prison experience’, from the perspective of both a prisoner, and of someone waiting for a prisoner’s release.More broadly, this game intends to let players develop a special appreciation (or loathing) for each second that passes.
Xavier Ekkel
⌛ ₱☈↕ϟ☻₦ ⌛ (‘Prison’) is an experimental 3D experience about time.There are three prison cells. The door on the left lets you set a time up to one minute in seconds, whilst the other two prison cells are occupied, and represent an hour and a day in seconds, respectively.Every action in the game is tied to the theme of time, whether it’s impatiently knocking on a door hoping for an early release, scratching on the walls to mark each short time milestone, or using the toilet to ‘flush away’ longer time periods.However, the intention of this game is not to be fun. This game involves a lot of waiting, and eventually players may find themselves simply pacing back and forth, or listening to the sound of time ticking by.At a base level, this game provides a minimalist ‘prison experience’, from the perspective of both a prisoner, and of someone waiting for a prisoner’s release.More broadly, this game intends to let players develop a special appreciation (or loathing) for each second that passes.
