In addition to analysis and discussion of existing games about love and romance, the Digital Romance Love’s research remit also includes investigating these topics through design and iteration.
Indeed, our design philosophy is all about experimentation and iteration (a bit like dating, one might say). If we have an idea, we build it as soon as possible, in hopes of discovering whether it is a design path worth pursuing, either immediately, or in future.
We’ve shared some of our game experiments so far here.
Codename Robotolove (a.k.a. Real Robot, Paper Heart)
This was created during a solo 48 hour game jam by Mitu Khandaker (coding, art, and design, with additional design consultation by Martin Hollis & Jane Pinckard) in June 2011, both in order to investigate the following:
- Mechnically creating feelings of searching, frustration, destructive relationships, and ultimately, fulfilment.
- Cut-out paper robots as an artistic decision.
- HTML5 as a platform (using the games library Akihibara in particular, thanks to this excellent tutorial by Darren Torpey & Darius Kazemi.)
Click here to play.
Mnemosyne’s Robots (Words Level)
This was created during a short game jam by Martin Hollis (design, words, & sound) and Mitu Khandaker (design and code) in August 2011, with additional design by Jane Pinckard. This was one part of a larger game narrative idea, about nanobots restoring the memories about a lost love, and, in doing so, learning about love themselves. Therefore, the design remit behind this experiment was to explore memory through the medium of a poetic, dream-like word puzzle game.
Click here to download.
Experiments in Progress
- ‘The Game of Oo’ (More details later.)
