“A Slower Speed of Light” by Gerd Kortemeyer Product Owner, Philip Tan Staff Liaison, Ryan Cheu Programmer, Ebae Kim Artist, Designer, Zach Sherin Programmer, QA Lead, Sonny Sidhu Producer, Designer, Abe Stein Audio Design, Music
It’s a game about the speed of light and how the world would look if we traveled at the speed of light.
Simulation-based play and Experience-based play
The Mechanics are moving using the WASD keys, running through orbs to change the way the player perceives their environment (theoretically slowing down the speed of light and making the player move at relativistic speeds), and the player’s ability to move the camera as they move. The Aesthetics are broken down as such:
Sensation: The HUD changes when an orb is collected, the environment’s colors change with respect to orbs collected and movement speed
Fantasy: We are given a brief narrative about a mystical world motivating us to collect the orbs and understand the context of the village
Narrative: Quick narrative at the beginning of the game that has no bearing on the experience
Challenge: Moving your character with different relativistic speeds and adjusting your view how you would like to
Fellowship: N/A
Discovery: Discover how the environment changes as you collect more orbs
Expression: N/A
Submission: Can pass the time by collecting the orbs and moving around to see how the environment changes
The Dynamics of the game are dependent on orb collection. As you collect more orbs, you can experience slower speeds of light (or faster relative speeds of the character)
I would say the game prioritizes sensation and discovery as its main aesthetics and tacks on the rest of the aesthetics it uses. If the objective and novelty of the game is to simulate what different environments would look like if the speed of light was changed and how you would move at different relativistic speeds, I don’t think the simple “collect object” mechanic is necessary. There are so many different ways that the team could have implemented the player’s ability to change the speed of light and their own speed. Picking up items around an uninteresting environment is not fun. The gamification was poorly implemented. Instead, I would have allowed the player to change their relativistic speed / the speed of light directly through a button / control scheme to solve different problems that may require different speeds of light to solve. Not only would the player get a better sense of what speed of light they are currently using, they would also be able to understand what physical properties are influenced by these changes. Furthermore, making the player’s movement more challenging as the player progresses through the game makes the collection of the orbs laborious. This is one of those games I would rather watch someone else play because the novelty is not in the gameplay. This game lacks many of the qualities that make games a unique medium for education – primarily the quality of being fun. Moreover, the 3 sentences of world-building, barren environment, and generic NPCs littered throughout the environment haphazardly do nothing to improve the experience. Although the attempt at “separation” sounds good in theory, it seems like an aspect of the game that needed to be fleshed out more or implemented differently. Overall, there are many things that can be learned from the physics they’ve implemented in the environment as showcased by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XmJrQdsqyQ
But, a lack of explanation and intentional exploration of these effects limit the effective educational capacity of the game.
