The Circles of Play: How to Elevate the Experience of a Game Beyond the Screen

Abstract

In this project, entitled Don’t Play This, the overarching goal that was attempted to be achieved was to create a game that does not want you to participate in its activities. This interactive web-game attempts to bring a new perspective towards the purpose and goals of playing games in general, where many of the events that occur within the game are specifically designed to be unpleasant or unsettling to the player. Games, especially video games, have always been designated within particular rules of creation. When one person or a team go out of their way to create a game, there are unspoken, unwritten rules that one assumes they must follow in order for players to enjoy and experience the medium in the proper way. This piece intends to solidify the idea that these rules were meant to be broken, and that games can be about more than just what is entirely in front of your eyes at that current moment, going against this fabricated authority that was initially created by the fore-fathers of the genre. The game itself runs on a timer, where as long as the player performs any actions whatsoever on their keyboard or device, the game will continue on, exposing the player to numerous negative stimuli. These can range from irritating noises to disturbing imagery, all in an attempt to get the player to not make any more inputs. When we play games, not only do we find ourselves with a definable goal, but we also form this layer of separation between the game and ourselves, and this piece aims to break both of those barriers. The game was made using the Unity engine, and was styled after early arcade games prevalent in the 70s and 80s, primarily ones that utilized vectorized graphics and angular shapes for their style, as well as minimal use of color.