Green with envy

Hypothesis - An abstract game depicting the concept of Envy.

Process and Reflection

I recently played this game called the Magic Circle. In this game, you are playing inside a videogame as a tester and you can modify the game from the inside to fix all the problems that the game has. You could do this by moving around attributes between NPC’s. I thought it would be a great idea to do the same with people so that you can interact with other people. To explore the idea of Envy I wanted to create a system where you could take things from other people and add them to your own inventory and use them later. However, the more you took from other people it would make them unhappy. However, I couldn’t find a suitable way of making these stories believable and relevant along with having a meaningful story for the player to experience.

On to a more dumbed down version of the same idea. I decided that instead of making it a narrative game I will just make it more abstract. Representing the other people in the world with blocks and the player controlled character with a slightly smaller block, I made a simple game. It had a fighting mechanic that allowed you to destroy the other people with one button press. I felt it needed more feedback on what was happening. Using the green color that is generally associated with envy, I made it so that as you destroyed more people, you would turn more green. The “win condition” for the game was to not do anything since the start of the game, thereby signifying that you are content with what you have. Eventually your character becomes golden colored, the color of joy. .

Conclusion

The idea that I was going for was that being your own person is more rewarding than taking away from others what is theirs. I think I presented it poorly by having a narrative over the game. Since I was going for an idea that was abstract, having the narrative sort of destroyed its purpose. I also think my game didn’t sufficiently bring across the idea of envy that I was going for. All in all I think a not very successful experiment with my game on envy. Had there been more meaningful interaction between the player and me I think the idea would have come across better.

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Controls: A and D to move. Space to interact.