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...and the theme is "Start With Nothing"

cableshaft 7y ago
Kind of seems like most games have this theme, really. A lot of games are about starting with nothing and then building up to something crazy. Everything from Civilization to Final Fantasy to Katamari Damacy to Tetris does this. But hey, a constraint is a constraint. I'm sure some really clever games will appear from this.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  Civilization, you start with a settler and some warriors. Final Fantasy starts with a character or two. Tetris has a game board. I mean, there's lots of places to play around with starting from an even more primordial slate.
  - thethirdone 7y ago
    > ... Tetris has a game board. > I mean, there's lots of places to play around with starting from an even more primordial slate. I am struggling to see how you can start with a more primordial state than Tetris. If there is no game world, you cannot possibly progress into there being something you can interact with other than perhaps the game world unfolding after some amount of predetermined time.
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      I could imagine a universal paperclips style game where the initial interface was literally just a solid color. That resolved over time as you moved your mouse or typed, slowly gaining fidelity and using the randomness of your movements to dynamically fill in some color scheme. (So it would eventually resolve to a game space, but one that was uniquely colored by your actions.) Conway's game of life often starts with nothing. You could pretty easily start with literally just a white screen. I could imagine some stuff that's probably closer to generative art starting from nothing. You could have a sea of noise that you sort of collect into a shape, which eventually becomes your avatar. I think about a game like Warning Forever played pretty well with the concept of starting with (almost) nothing.
  - cableshaft 7y ago
    I mean if you want to get that extreme about it, sure. When I read it I initially interpreted it kind of like "rags to riches" where a person "starts with nothing". Obviously there's still a person, they're still alive, they had some history and have probably made some money and experiences up to that point, but we still say that they "start from nothing" if they eventually become successful, and you can google "start from nothing" and come up with tons of articles of financial advice about saving and whatnot. I wouldn't be surprised if several designers interpret the theme like I did. There will probably be very few that actually have the game begin as a blank screen, as that severely limits what types of games you can make, I imagine. But thanks for pointing out that it can go more extreme than how I imagined it.
flanbiscuit 7y ago
Immediately I am thinking of a game about the big bang and the creation of the universe. That's kind of a play on "start with nothing" right? Wish I had time to work on it this weekend but I'm already working on a small game project this weekend
glaslong 7y ago
Downwell, except you fall up and have to pull your bootstraps along with you.

Kind of seems like most games have this theme, really. A lot of games are about starting with nothing and then building up to something crazy. Everything from Civilization to Final Fantasy to Katamari Damacy to Tetris does this. But hey, a constraint is a constraint. I'm sure some really clever games will appear from this.

Pfhreak 7y ago
Civilization, you start with a settler and some warriors. Final Fantasy starts with a character or two. Tetris has a game board. I mean, there's lots of places to play around with starting from an even more primordial slate.
- thethirdone 7y ago
  > ... Tetris has a game board. > I mean, there's lots of places to play around with starting from an even more primordial slate. I am struggling to see how you can start with a more primordial state than Tetris. If there is no game world, you cannot possibly progress into there being something you can interact with other than perhaps the game world unfolding after some amount of predetermined time.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    I could imagine a universal paperclips style game where the initial interface was literally just a solid color. That resolved over time as you moved your mouse or typed, slowly gaining fidelity and using the randomness of your movements to dynamically fill in some color scheme. (So it would eventually resolve to a game space, but one that was uniquely colored by your actions.) Conway's game of life often starts with nothing. You could pretty easily start with literally just a white screen. I could imagine some stuff that's probably closer to generative art starting from nothing. You could have a sea of noise that you sort of collect into a shape, which eventually becomes your avatar. I think about a game like Warning Forever played pretty well with the concept of starting with (almost) nothing.
- cableshaft 7y ago
  I mean if you want to get that extreme about it, sure. When I read it I initially interpreted it kind of like "rags to riches" where a person "starts with nothing". Obviously there's still a person, they're still alive, they had some history and have probably made some money and experiences up to that point, but we still say that they "start from nothing" if they eventually become successful, and you can google "start from nothing" and come up with tons of articles of financial advice about saving and whatnot. I wouldn't be surprised if several designers interpret the theme like I did. There will probably be very few that actually have the game begin as a blank screen, as that severely limits what types of games you can make, I imagine. But thanks for pointing out that it can go more extreme than how I imagined it.

flanbiscuit 7y ago

Immediately I am thinking of a game about the big bang and the creation of the universe. That's kind of a play on "start with nothing" right? Wish I had time to work on it this weekend but I'm already working on a small game project this weekend

glaslong 7y ago

Downwell, except you fall up and have to pull your bootstraps along with you.