Stars over
A computer game by Rod Humble
Download the game:
The game is windows.
Click here for the exe
http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/SOHMBSetup.exe
or click here for the zip
http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/SOHMBSetup.zip
Instructions:
No clicking is required just
explore the game by moving the mouse around. Please try and just play it without
instruction but If you get completely stuck go here
www.rodvik.com/rodgames/help.html
Background:
Stars over
Looking up at the stars and
playing with them in your mind is a pastime with a long lineage, I can make no
claim to originality with the theme of this game.
The game was borne out of
frustration. After the most pleasant reception of "The Marriage" I
spent over six months working on a separate longer game, which remains maddeningly
incomplete at the time of writing.
One evening driving home
from work I was going over the same design problems in my head that I had been
thinking about for months, when suddenly I looked up at the stars in the sky. In
that one moment as my mind took in the awe of the night sky while it
simultaneously flitted over the creative problems of the day, this game was
designed.
This is a game about two
things which is reflected in the two titles. The feeling of
looking up at the stars and makings patterns with your mind but also a symbolic
game about the creative process itself.
There are three segments to
the game. The first a free flowing place where things are curved and fluid, the
second a rigid place of straight lines in which permanent structures are
created. In between is that magical place where human ideas change, the bite of
the serpent into its own tail. That place remains inexpressible; I can only
point to it with signs.
After "The
Marriage" it is (I hope) unnecessary to give a detailed explanation of the
games rules meanings and its symbolism the above should set you on your way.
One of the few things critics both positive and negative agreed on with my
earlier work is that I wrote about it too much and didn't allow the player the
intellectual freedom of interpretation.
I plead guilty. If you are looking for a method of understanding
"Stars over
I should note this game
addresses more difficult themes than "The Marriage" and this will
necessarily make for a smaller audience. Art works concerning philosophical
problems are notoriously problematic, let alone ones as thorny as the
relationship between observation, symbolism, exactitude and the creative
process.
So here it is, a game of looking at stars made in the 21st century.
While the ancients had all the time in the world to lay patterns in the sky, we
moderns must grab moments while we can.
I hope you enjoy the game
Rod Humble
Half
Music by Critical Monkey http://www.criticalshit.com/ and the
ever talented Robi Kauker
Thank you's
It was a good year for the advancement
of games as an art form, the tireless Jon Blow and
Jason Rohrer in particular deserve much credit. I would like to thank both of
them for their honest criticism of this game during its development.
Making Stars over
I would like to thank
everyone who covered "The Marriage" and art games in general in
particular Stephen Totilo, Oliver Klatt
and Jim Rossignol who have heroically used their
positions to push games as an art form.
You would imagine that
making a game by yourself would mean credits are easier to write, but it gets
worse. There are dozens of great people out there supporting art/indie games right now I would be sure to miss someone out
so I have not tried, you know who you are. Raph Kosters website is a good starting point for links. http://www.raphkoster.com/ as is http://grandtextauto.org/ or Jasons very own http://www.northcountrynotes.org/jason-rohrer/arthouseGames/index.php
Stars over Half Moon Bay was first shown to the public at GDC 2008 as
part of two sessions exploring new kinds of game play I would thank everyone on
the EGW for their incredible work year after year.
http://experimental-gameplay.org/
I am making the game available as a follow up to those talks.
Download the game:
The game is windows.
Click here for the exe
http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/SOHMBSetup.exe
or click here for the zip
http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/SOHMBSetup.zip