{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/8da107e22a90c1751a4ea59f692d1b781-550x304.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2014\/05\/f1cbc2e17bb1cc7166d0769c04cc0c4b.png"}],"author_link":"author\/pitoum\/","author_name":"Pitoum","cat":"LD #29","categories":["LD #29"],"comments":[],"epoch":1400034300,"event":"LD29","likes":6,"metadata":{"p_key":"81496","p_author":"Pitoum","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"290613","p_title":"A game about words: RMBR","p_cat":"LD #29","p_event":"LD29","p_time":"1400034300","p_likes":"6","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1398384000","event_key":"22","event_name":"LD29"},"source_url":"2014\/05\/14\/a-game-about-words-rmbr\/","text":"

RMBR<\/a> is probably my most important game since I started to bake some pixeled stuff 2 years ago.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"RMBR_01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you have trouble to understand the concept of the game you can watch this Vine<\/a>.\u00a0Or try to imagine a Twine game where you \u201cdrag\u201d the words and not just \u201cclick\u201d on them. That\u2019s a bit synthetic but it\u2019s the closest description I can write with my poor English skills.<\/p>\n

There are two main ideas behind RMBR<\/strong>. The first one was, I wanted to make a game about Alzheimer. I actually have a grand-mother who suffers from it, and I wanted to try to explain feeling\u00a0you can have when you speak with her, but also what I imagine (from what I see and what she tells me) being her mind. How words are losing\u00a0their meanings, how memories are becoming blurry and fade away, and how some of them, the oldest ones, are in contrary back vividly.<\/p>\n

To be honest\u00a0I totally failed to do it correctly, mainly because I needed a lot more time to write and include some contents. Time I didn\u2019t have during the jam. But more on that later.<\/p>\n

The second idea came from my recent interest in french surrealists. I\u2019m presently reading a lot of novels\/poems by Breton, Leiris, Desnos or Queneau (about whom I already develop with a game called\u00a0Milmiliar<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013\u00a0only in french right now sorry about that \u2013 which was inspired by\u00a0Hundred Thousand Billion Poems<\/a>). And Leiris specially worked a lot on the words and their meanings, how each one of us have their\u00a0own \u00a0personal dictionary. If we think that the meaning of a word is shared by everyone, that\u2019s an illusion. Because we all have our own experiences of the word, our own memories, our own understanding of it. So he decided to write his own dictionary (Glossaire j\u2019y serre mes gloses in french, I didn\u2019t find any translation of it sorry about that).<\/p>\n

And because he was a surrealist and a poet, Leiris decided to write only definitions with puns.<\/p>\n

For example in RMBR<\/strong> you can find this definition of \u201cgame\u201d: a gem<\/em>. This is something very personal for me. It represents the way I feel about games\u00a0\u2013\u00a0well some games at least \u2013 and at the same time is an anagram of \u201cgame\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is what RMBR<\/strong> is about. You start with a very simple little story, told in few words. And then you can explore it like you would\u00a0do with a landscape or a building in an adventure game, by exploring the words and what they mean in context. Until you finally find a definition like the one above.<\/p>\n

The exploration is mainly about two points of view: mine and my grandmother\u2019s. Exploring her mind or mine produces different results. In the boy\u2019s mind things gets accurate and are a lot in the moment. In her mind things are confusing, words fade away. Well that was the intention at first.<\/p>\n

I had a lot in mind while doing RMBR<\/strong>. But because it was my first mobile game\u00a0so\u00a0I spent a lot of time struggling with basics mobile dev problems, and didn\u2019t\u00a0get enough time to include all the content I wanted or all the features I imagined. But the main concept is here and the feedbacks I got surely convince me that I had something.<\/p>\n

I like this idea of navigating\u00a0in a text like you would do\u00a0in an adventure game. As a fan of Simogo\u2019s Device 6\u00a0<\/strong>I sure want to explore news ways to build a bridge between literature and video games. And mobile phone or tablet are probably the best media to do so.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why RMBR is my most important game. I think I finally got something that\u2019s really merging these two objects. And now I want to push it further.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m currently working on a full version of the game which will not be only about exploring a text but also will integrate puzzles and enigmas. The structure of it is a bit uncertain at the moment while I\u2019m mainly trying to improve the \u201cengine\u201d and testing some mechanisms. But I\u2019m also rewriting all the content, in french this time. Because I can\u2019t do something good in a language I can\u2019t really master. Two people are going to help me.<\/p>\n

David<\/strong> (Badabing): He did some SFX and music for the jam version (at the last moment, thanks to him) and will be in charge of the sound design.\nViolette<\/strong>: She will work on the English translation of the game. We\u2019ll work together, because a lot of the texts will not be directly translated but in fact entirely rewritten.<\/p>\n

So I hope this little post-mortem gave you some interest in the game. If so, you can:<\/p>\n

\u2013 try the jam version\u00a0http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-29\/?action=preview&uid=7969\u00a0<\/a>\n\u2013 stay tuned via my twitter @Pitoum<\/a>\n\u2013 take a look at my unfinished website http:\/\/www.pitoum.net<\/a>\n\u2013 leave a comment if you have any question \":)\"<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading\/playing!<\/p>\n

Tags: interactive fiction<\/a>, interactive novel<\/a>, mobile<\/a>, poetry<\/a>, simogo<\/a>, Twine<\/a>, words<\/a><\/p>","time":"May 14th, 2014 2:25 am","title":"A game about words: RMBR","title_was_empty":false}