game concept: addiction to information
Learning vs Creating. A delicate balance.
Supergame Bakedown 2008
As 2008 started, I decided to participate in a month-long game creation competition. While it was not a high-profile competition with promises of prizes and fame, I saw it as an opportunity to commit myself to make a game.
Making a game.
It came to me as I wondered how to develop one of those ideas I can’t quite express with precision.
In particular, one which has obsessed me a great deal these past two years is our relationship with the acquisition of new information (knowledge) and especially its conflict with the act of creation.
A demo did not appear to be the best medium for it. Interactivity would help to convey the emotions I was familiar with. Or so I hoped!
The idea of the game very shortly put is to tell the story of the relationship between mankind and information.
It’s about translating the pleasure of learning new facts, new beliefs. These could be truthful or not, important or trivial. The matter is not about truth but about the emotion of learning.
Another idea I wanted to convey is the addiction we sometimes develop towards this acquisition of knowledge, especially as civilization evolves and let us grasp an ever expanding world of information.
And finally, central to the concept was the idea that creation serves as a counterpart to the acquisition of knowledge. The painful, yet necessary behaviour of translating knowledge into new forms.