Maps Maps Maps
14/03/2019
Updated Idea
An interactive installation that displays a fictional island in which users are tasked with balancing the inhabitants within it so that their cultural and social systems are self sustaining despite the varying problems that arises.
The main influence for this idea of basing it off of a self sustaining civilization stuck on an island derived from Jared Diamond’s mention of Easter Island (Diamond, J. M., & Van Dijk, M. 2008). The story goes that the inhabitants of Easter Island prioritized the big statues as a symbol of fertility and reduction of hunger thus eventually chopped the last tree on the island which devastated their agriculture and boat building capability. Despite current scientific understandings seem to debunk this perceived history of the natives (Dvorsky, 2018), it still is an intriguing idea that I thought would be fun to pursue.
How Culture and social systems are formed and sustained
This is a key component that I hope to address / communicate through my proposed installation.
How maps influence play and choices
The above video is something I happened to stumble across during civilization inspirations and I thought was a useful tool to consider. Map making and how it affects play style and motivation. As CGP Grey put it “The game of civilization has nothing to do with the players, and everything to do with the map” (Americapox: The Missing Plague, 2015). Play design could be in a way controlled or dictated in a way of how players move, use resources etc. An efficient map design is essential to communicating my proposed idea and I believe I will need to do a lot of playtesting to make it work well.
How ‘nothing’ became a game
Despite the actual content of the video being not very long, most of the video was ironally a gameplay of how the map “Nothing nothing” surprisingly became a game of its own. With no resources to interact with and with no clear direction for the players in the game of Age of Empires 2 to take they made a game out of nothing. Whoever left the game last wins, ironic but fascinating how every map despite how seemingly inefficient or emptiness can still serve as an intentional method of play.
References:
- Diamond, J. M., & Van Dijk, M. (2008). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. Anthropos: International Review of Anthropology and Linguistics, 103(2), 587.
- Dvorsky, G. (2018). New Evidence Contradicts Theory That Easter Island Society Collapsed. [online] gizmodo. Available at: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/08/new-evidence-contradicts-theory-that-easter-island-society-collapsed/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019].
- Americapox: The Missing Plague. (2015). [video] CGP Grey.
