gravitation(6) Games gravitation(6)NAME
gravitation - a game about mania, melancholia, and the creative process.
SYNOPSIS
gravitation
DESCRIPTION
Gravitation is a video game written by Jason Rohrer about the creative process and the interaction between the creative process and life.
Gravitation is an art game. As a result, some people love it and some people hate it. Check out the links to places it has been discussed
on the website for some of the reactions.
The mechanics of the game are fairly simple. Your "score" is related to the amount of "projects" you complete. To complete a project, first
you need to discover and idea. In the game ideas are represented by blue stars and located in the maze above your initial position. To get
to the maze, you can either wait till you feel inspired to jump that far, or you can play with your daughter and be inspired more quickly.
Once you find an idea, it will fall to earth (so to speak), and you now need to "complete" the project by pushing the fallen star (now a
white cube) into the fireplace. The game mechanics allow for myriad situations and exploring them can be an interesting experience.
The most interesting part about this game is the emotions it evokes within the player of the game. The ultra-low-res pixel art helps here,
by not being too distracting and by leaving plenty room for viewer interpretation.
Gravitation is the follow-up to Passage, another art game by Jason Rohrer.
USAGE
Gravitation has no command-line options.
The left and right arrow keys move left and right.
The spacebar is used to jump. Hold for higher jumps.
The Esc key is used to quit the game.
The game resolution and use of fullscreen or a window can be set by editing the files in /etc/gravitation.
SEE ALSO
The website and discussion: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/
The game creators statement: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/statement.html
March 2008 gravitation(6)
Check Out this Related Man Page
cultivation(6) Games cultivation(6)NAME
cultivation - game about the interactions within a gardening community
SYNOPSIS
cultivation
DESCRIPTION
Cultivation is a video game written by Jason Rohrer about a community of gardeners growing food for themselves in a shared space.
Cultivation is quite different from most other games. It is a social simulation, and the primary form of conflict is over land and plant
resources---there is no shooting, but there are plenty of angry looks. It is also an evolution simulation. Within the world of Cultivation,
you can explore a virtually infinite spectrum of different plant and gardener varieties.
All of the graphics, sounds, melodies,and other content in Cultivation are 100% procedurally generated at playtime. In other words, there
are no hand-painted texture maps---instead, each object has a uniquely "grown" appearance. Every time you play, Cultivation generates fresh
visuals, music, and behaviors.
Cultivation is certainly an unusual game, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good. From experience, some people absolutely love it,
while others absolutely hate it. It's intended to be an "art game," after all, and mixed reactions go with that territory.
When two sides are fighting, they often ruin the commons for everyone. The game is a metaphor about that kind of situation. Too much fight-
ing destroys the island for everyone.
USAGE
Cultivation explores the social interactions within a gardening community. You lead one family of gardeners, starting with a single indi-
vidual, and wise choices can keep your genetic line from extinction. While breeding plants, eating, and mating, your actions impact your
neighbors, and the social balance sways between conflict and compromise.
Cultivation features dynamic graphics that are procedurally-generated using genetic representations and cross-breeding. In other words,
game objects are "grown" in real-time instead of being hand-painted or hard-coded. Each plant and gardener in the game is unique in terms
of both its appearance and behavior. The game includes an extensive in-game tutorial.
In Cultivation, the game system teeters on the verge of uncontrolled conflict, and the player can make choices within this system that
affect the balance. Perhaps it is impossible to win the game by acting only out of self-interest, but likewise, it may be impossible to win
acting only out of altruism (I say "perhaps" here because, even as the designer of the system, I have only explored a tiny fraction of the
game's possible permutations). Players can directly see the results of the choices that they make.
In the initial release of Cultivation, neighbors would respond to encroachment with both counter-encroachment (claiming some of your plants
as their own) and social scorn (refusing to mate with you). With only these mechanics in place, fighting just didn't feel serious
enough---a fight could continue indefinitely without any real consequences, since after two plots overlapped completely, no further revenge
was possible for either side. I had to think of a more serious act to crown the peak of an escalating fight. Poisoning, which is now a key
mechanic in Cultivation, fit perfectly. This mechanic allows an angry neighbor to poison a plant. Poison not only kills the target plant,
but it also renders the ground around the plant forever unusable.
SEE ALSO
You can find more information at http://cultivation.sourceforge.net/
June 2007 cultivation(6)