Student Projects 2019 - Aquasition

http://winchester.games/2019/aquasition.html In this last semester at Uni I have been working alone on a game project I have called Aquasition. The game was inspired by my interest in Eastern philosophy, and particularly meditation. The idea of the game is to encourage a less selfish perspective on material possessions and prestige. This idea came from the common belief among eastern thinkers that limiting our attachment to material things and the ego is a path towards greater happiness and a more peaceful state of being. I came across a metaphor from Thich Nhat Hanh that describes us as thinking we are all individual and insignificant waves, when instead we should think of ourselves as the ocean itself, all one and the same – not separate. I thought this could make for a great visual metaphor and I wanted to explore this in my game so I set the game underwater and designed mechanics that would encourage detachment from material things in the game. This runs counter to most games in that they usually encourage players to accumulate items, wealth and power, so I thought it would be interesting to explore what happens when I play with the player’s expectations of how a game usually works.