Let us think of meta games that are self-reflective.

What does the player’s free will mean in the algorithm of a video game?

We set up lights, cameras, and objects, and design 3D levels in Unity3D to think about gameplay that are out of conventional style.

When searching for alternative games, there are a lot of games on Sisyphus. Sisyphus is a character in Greek mythology who was sentenced for endless punishment which involved having to roll up a boulder to the top of a mountain. Once Sisyphus rolls up the boulder to the top, the boulder soon rolls right back to the bottom of the mountain again. This means Sisyphus received the eternal punishment of having to repeatedly and meaninglessly roll the boulder so that the ball does not fall right back down. The reason why those who think about game media create a lot of games on Sisyphus is due to their concern on the game’s existing system of goals and rewards. By creating game media and gameplay that allows players to look back on themselves, they try to create games that are more mature.

How can we view reality anew through rules? Casual Games for Protesters try to re-perceive the reality by creating various mini-game rules that can be played while protesting.

Pippin Barr and Marina Abramovic also explore how the rules that make up the game can be expressed when they are faced with the reality rather than the fictional world. By creating the game, <The Artist is Present> which aligns the time of the player’s and that of the game world, they try to address the gap between the game world and the real world.

Jason Rohrer is a game designer who explores different ways to play games. In his game <One Hour One Life>, he experiments with rules that have never been tried in previously existing games. Players are given one hour of play time, and tasks are something that can never be completed in one hour. After an hour passes and one life is over, the player who enters the next continues what the previous player has done. Just as the civilization has progressed, the player must do everything he/she can do for the future generations and the future generation continues the same. Rohrer also tried to capture the rules of reality through the rules of the game.

As such, there are alternative attempts to make us think about the game media by exploring the real world we live in. From bringing pieces of the reality into the game world to trying to view the reality as a game, thinking about the game itself further expands the game world.

Game exhibitions today are also held inside the game world. Games are contested and exhibited in a virtual space within the digital world, like the Zium Museum. Pippin Barr’s <vr 3> also exhibits the water texture used in the game in the game space. With these attempts, the boundaries between reality and virtual reality are blurring. This can be seen as a positive sign that the game is expanding its boundaries beyond the existing customs and systems.

From the concerns for the game media, we created game ideas that went beyond the conventions using Unity 3D.