After

Oldenburg, Aaron

After

dc.contributor.author	Oldenburg, Aaron
dc.date.accessioned	2017-04-10T21:29:23Z
dc.date.available	2017-04-10T21:29:23Z
dc.date.issued	2010
dc.description	This is one of a series of short experimental videogames I created that explore the use of game mechanics to simulate various aspects of religious faith. The game begins with the player’s partner dying and, later, the player encounters obstacles that can be overcome only by incorporating the imagined presence of the departed into their life. After uses the game language of obstacles and goals to communicate with the player, creating meaning through choice and encounter. They were inspired by a quote I once heard, stating that the reason why when someone dies, we have trouble thinking of them as dead, is because when they are alive most of our conversations with them take place inside our heads. This imaginary presence then lives on after death. The experience of this continued presence will sometimes surprise a person, especially as it resembles a belief in the supernatural. It is this cycle of surprise and acceptance that is the core gameplay of After. Solving puzzles requires the player to use multiple in-game camera views that appear under different contexts. The player forms an understanding of what these other view windows represent and interprets how to use them to their advantage. They see that through these points of view are solutions to the obstacles. In the beginning, the player is holding and interacting with their dying partner as their partner’s health status meter lowers and they eventually die. In the second scene, the player is alone, wandering around an empty house. Outside, they are surrounded by a high wall with no visible way to escape. When they look up at the sky, however, a window appears in the lower-right-hand corner of the screen, which shows the point of view of a camera looking down at the player. Upon leaving through the hole in the wall, the walls disappear, and a goal appears in the distance in the form of a colorful mass of light. When the player tries to move toward the goal, however, they find that they are prevented by invisible walls. The player will likely turn around and return to the house in which they originated and encounter the memory of their lover again lying in bed. They pick them up and, through another small window, begin seeing things through the eyes of their partner whom they are carrying. The project was created using Unity3D and MakeHuman.	en_US
dc.description.abstract	This is a videogame about finding and then placing a loved one in the afterlife. The goal is to simulate an agnostic encounter with one's own belief system when dealing with death. The game begins with the death of a partner, and after, the player encounters obstacles in their life that can be overcome only by incorporating the imagined presence of their departed lover into their life. The controls are a mouse and keyboard combination traditionally found in first-person action games.	en_US
dc.description.uri	https://aaronoldenburg.itch.io/after	en_US
dc.genre	video games	en_US
dc.identifier	doi:10.13016/M2MK03
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/11603/3874
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAt	University of Baltimore
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/	*
dc.subject	spirituality, videogame, experimental	en_US
dc.title	After	en_US
dc.type	Software	en_US