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[NiallM]

Hi all,

So I made a kind of abstract game about the future:


You can get it here, for Windows, Linux and OSX.  The code's released under the GPL, images and sounds under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus license.

It's probably more of a sketch than a fully-fledged game.  I'm still not convinced the core game mechanic's as much fun as it should be, and I struggled to get the difficulty set right.  I basically made it to get stuff off my chest though - I've had to endure some really crappy temp jobs lately, and I used this to let off steam.

Any comments would be much appreciated

[PANPOMMA]

Aw man, I thought the title was: The Future Will Only Be Dystopian If Cannibalism Remains Undefeated  

Still, I will look into this game!  

[KissMaj7]

I think it's an interesting short game. The game mechanics are quite confusing but I guess it's a bit intentional. The game is maybe too abstract to provoke any deeper thoughts or maybe I was expecting something different on the grounds of the title

[NiallM]

Aw man, I thought the title was: The Future Will Only Be Dystopian If Cannibalism Remains Undefeated 

So that's what the game's missing :D

I think it's an interesting short game. The game mechanics are quite confusing but I guess it's a bit intentional. The game is maybe too abstract to provoke any deeper thoughts or maybe I was expecting something different on the grounds of the title

Yeah, the game mechanics are probably too far removed from what the game's about (except maybe the 'possibilities' images that appear as you defeat the capitalists).  It was meant to be a kind of model of an anti-capitalist revolution, where the ordinary workers are continually worn down by the actions of the capitalists/bosses/ruling elite, and the only way to overcome this debilitating state of affairs is to join together and take down the capitalists (i.e. you need to be connected to other revolutionaries before your attacks will have any impact).

I think there's a lot of scope for games that require collective action (with the player as just one agent among many) as opposed to the traditional lone hero against swarms of baddies story, but it probably needs a more sophisticated approach to really pull it off.

[tembac]

This game is interesting. I did a prototype with similar ideas and gameplay several months ago and then someone pointed me to http://www.molleindustria.org/kosmosis/kosmosis.html

It´s strange to me that we thought similar ideas and similar gameplays. has the society shaped us to think the same way about capitalism?

I found your game very interesting but I found it confusing at comunicating the ideas. It was hard for me to figure the rules without reading the .txt.

Once I read the rules the gameplay for me was reduced to press the space bar several times and avoid the capitalist halo. Then I lost myself in the crowd, we were all reds and I didn´t know who I was. I liked this because the fight become greater than the individual.

[NiallM]

This game is interesting. I did a prototype with similar ideas and gameplay several months ago and then someone pointed me to http://www.molleindustria.org/kosmosis/kosmosis.html

It´s strange to me that we thought similar ideas and similar gameplays. has the society shaped us to think the same way about capitalism?

I found your game very interesting but I found it confusing at comunicating the ideas. It was hard for me to figure the rules without reading the .txt.

Once I read the rules the gameplay for me was reduced to press the space bar several times and avoid the capitalist halo. Then I lost myself in the crowd, we were all reds and I didn´t know who I was. I liked this because the fight become greater than the individual.

Wow!  I hadn't come across that game before but it's bizarrely close to The Future...  Down to the colours even (well almost).  It's better as a game than mine though.

It is weird that we've had such similar ideas, but I don't know...  Capitalism's been around for a long time, and so has the idea of collective action as a way to counter it.  Maybe it's just a natural step to want to turn that into a game.  I mean it makes for a pretty good game narrative - you've got a goal (overthrow the ruling class) and a method to achieve it (join with others until you have a critical mass and can collectively overwhelm the capitalists).  I think it's a good idea that's just waiting for someone to really do it justice.

I know I want to come back to it and see if I can't create a more satisfying game based on collective action, anyway...