Picking Obelisk back up, considering it for maybe a capstone (senior) project for school.
I think to fully realize this as a final project, I’ll need to complete the game loop in a satisfying (or at least meaningful way) and most importantly (irt my developing art practice) situate the game. To me this means giving the game some context and deciding how people will be exposed to it. It could mean creating an installation and physical space for the game, or an online presentation. Because of the pandemic, a physical installation would be a lot more complicated. Luckily the first steps of both a physical and online presentation can be similar- if I follow my instinct and imagine a physical computer or installation, I’ll need to 3d model it. So I have some time to decide if that 3d model will live on line or be actually constructed- or begin with one and follow with the other some day.
My initial idea for a physical installation for the game was to house it in a fake atm machine, and maybe even include a receipt printer that would interact with the game somehow. The more I thought about it the more this feels disconnected with the actual game, it’s an afterthought that the game is shoehorned into- if I had started with the atm idea I might have made a game that worked better with the sorts of buttons and display you would see on an atm.
Instead I think it would be better to put the game on a constructed mockup of a computer that would fit with it’s 1-bit mac-like graphics. Working this way I can imagine all sorts of things- a place where that computer would be, “feelies” for the game (a box, maps or novelty gimmicks that would have been included with game discs, a manual)… This is a lot more exciting to me, and it opens itself up to a lot of pre-existing knowledge I have about games of the time, and ideas about alternate histories of games.
