Shape of the World | Stu Maxwell | twitter | website | kickstarter
Some games are insta-buy from the very moment you see the first frame of their trailers. Shape of the World is one of those games. The game doesn’t really have a clear purpose. As described by its developer, is a “world that grows around you”. Compared to similar games such as PROTEUS and Journey, Shape of the World has a stronger focus on interactivity. Everything reacts to you, as if your only presence brings life to the world. The trailer showed a huge variety of biomes and events, which will hopefully keep players entertained in their wander.
Panoramical | Fernando Ramallo & David Kanaga | website
Yes, Panoramical is one of those pretentious artsy games which is unexpectedly good. Despite the similarities with Shape of the World, Panoramical takes a completely different approach. Sound and visual are deeply entangled, and the scenarios range from lowpoly forests to total abstract creations. The controls of the games are also different: rather then being a first person explorer, Panoramical allows to literally create and control the world you are in. When presented at Alt.Ctrl.GDC, players were able to use a MIDI console to alter all the variable which makes the environment.
Soundself | Robin Arnott | twitter | website
You know that you’re doing something right when you have the need to create a new word to define your game. That’s exactly what happened to Robin Arnott, who came up with video dreaming. Soundself is not a video game, is more like dreaming, within a game. The agency in this game dream is achieved with sound. Soundself reacts to your voice and sounds to create a continuous stream of funky patterns. Over time, it creates a feedback loop which empowers the players by alienating him from the outer world. When I tried it at Game City, the world around me disappeared. Is very hard for a game to achieve this. For this reason, it has always attracted the attention of the press. Soundself has been in development for few years, but is challenging to see any visible progress without being able to try it.
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