axion
04-08-2010, 08:32 AM
Cool looking indie game. Essentially, one player plays it as an adventure-type game, the other controls the behind the scenes, basically able to do anything they can think of (in 30 seconds at least).
Check out the website here. (http://sleepisdeath.net/)
Pretty cool idea IMO, creates potentially limitless possibilities. Some of the write-ups are pretty interesting.
It started when I came to on the floor of a public restroom, naked and dazed. I'd had my share of late nights, lost weekends and unrepeatable adventures throughout this year's Game Developers Conference (you're doing it wrong if you don't), but this was a new one. There was an unidentifiable ringing coming from the next room — a telephone? an alarm? was it just my ears? — and I clambered upright and tested my surroundings. Ran the sink taps, flushed the toilet, scrambled to get my head straight.
I stumbled out of the bathroom into a locker room — how did I get here? — and checked a locker in blind hopes that my clothes might be inside. That's when the girl showed up. Covering my shame, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind: "Have you seen my clothes?"
She shrieked in response and called for her friends. I ran back into the safety of the bathroom only to find that I'd been in the women's room the whole time, and there were more girls here now. I tried to hide in a stall as a small mob gathered — everyone angry, taunting — wondering how I might escape.
One girl took pity and yelled for me to follow her. We made a fast exit. She pulled me toward an adjacent restroom, and told me to come close so she could tell me a secret. Feeling like this could easily be a trap, but too stunned and confused to object, I inched closer. "Banana bread," she whispered. I stared blankly back — was this some sort of joke? I thought I heard the soft echo of a man's laughter in the distance. "You need to wake up," she said.
I look up and realize I wasn't wrong about the laughter. Across the table is Jason Rohrer — creator of Passage, 2007's five-minute memento mori metaphor that caused most to think more deeply about videogames' potential for deeper artistic meaning. He's smiling because he knows he's got me right where he wants me.
With only two laptops and a single ethernet cable between us, we're knee deep in his latest and most ambitious game, Sleep is Death (Geisterfahrer), and I know now what I have to do. To this point, I've been playing as you would any other point and click adventure game: trying to "use" objects, "open" doors, searching for mouse-over menus for things in the world, only to find that they don't exist. I've been thinking too linearly, reacting too straightforwardly to the things in front of me. It's now that I realize I have as much control over him as he does over me.
Each game screen in Sleep is Death allows you 30 seconds to make a move before being transmitted back. Point an arrow at an object and indicate what you'd like to do with it. Open a bubble and make your character speak a short phrase. It's only now that I realize that Rohrer, as the game's storytelling host, only has that same 30 seconds to either custom create a new scene — or, hopefully, have one already prepared — to show how my actions played out. I think I can use this to my advantage.
Check out the website here. (http://sleepisdeath.net/)
Pretty cool idea IMO, creates potentially limitless possibilities. Some of the write-ups are pretty interesting.
It started when I came to on the floor of a public restroom, naked and dazed. I'd had my share of late nights, lost weekends and unrepeatable adventures throughout this year's Game Developers Conference (you're doing it wrong if you don't), but this was a new one. There was an unidentifiable ringing coming from the next room — a telephone? an alarm? was it just my ears? — and I clambered upright and tested my surroundings. Ran the sink taps, flushed the toilet, scrambled to get my head straight.
I stumbled out of the bathroom into a locker room — how did I get here? — and checked a locker in blind hopes that my clothes might be inside. That's when the girl showed up. Covering my shame, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind: "Have you seen my clothes?"
She shrieked in response and called for her friends. I ran back into the safety of the bathroom only to find that I'd been in the women's room the whole time, and there were more girls here now. I tried to hide in a stall as a small mob gathered — everyone angry, taunting — wondering how I might escape.
One girl took pity and yelled for me to follow her. We made a fast exit. She pulled me toward an adjacent restroom, and told me to come close so she could tell me a secret. Feeling like this could easily be a trap, but too stunned and confused to object, I inched closer. "Banana bread," she whispered. I stared blankly back — was this some sort of joke? I thought I heard the soft echo of a man's laughter in the distance. "You need to wake up," she said.
I look up and realize I wasn't wrong about the laughter. Across the table is Jason Rohrer — creator of Passage, 2007's five-minute memento mori metaphor that caused most to think more deeply about videogames' potential for deeper artistic meaning. He's smiling because he knows he's got me right where he wants me.
With only two laptops and a single ethernet cable between us, we're knee deep in his latest and most ambitious game, Sleep is Death (Geisterfahrer), and I know now what I have to do. To this point, I've been playing as you would any other point and click adventure game: trying to "use" objects, "open" doors, searching for mouse-over menus for things in the world, only to find that they don't exist. I've been thinking too linearly, reacting too straightforwardly to the things in front of me. It's now that I realize I have as much control over him as he does over me.
Each game screen in Sleep is Death allows you 30 seconds to make a move before being transmitted back. Point an arrow at an object and indicate what you'd like to do with it. Open a bubble and make your character speak a short phrase. It's only now that I realize that Rohrer, as the game's storytelling host, only has that same 30 seconds to either custom create a new scene — or, hopefully, have one already prepared — to show how my actions played out. I think I can use this to my advantage.