Alone


Alone was a project I created for a wall sized screen composed of 3 HD projectors (5760×1080 pixels). The viewer/player was limited to staying within 6 feet from the screen, putting them between the projector and the display. Using a wireless controller the viewer is asked to move alongside the tiny character they control. The program featured simple controls for up/down/left/right movement, and the character (16×16 pixels) is capable of very slow movement only. There is no inherent goal in the game, instead viewers are asked to their own goal. These goals usually involved getting from one side of the screen to the other, hoping for some form of a reward from the computer.

I created this installation as an exercise to observe player interactions and expectations within a videogame, I chose to remove any potential obstacles, abstracting the game as much as possible, however still providing a hint at the interactivity of the installation (hence the character resemblance to a cartoon worm). I titled it "alone" as a bit of a spoiler, as the character is entirely alone in its virtual world, there is not even a wall to confine it (the world is borderless).

From feedback I received during the installation's existence I learnt that most people familiar with video games wanted the game to have a goal, they wanted me to give them a reward for playing it, or they would not believe me when I said that there was no purpose to the game. This was exactly the response I was hoping for, allowing me to point out that their preconceived notions of video games is limiting their potential.

You can download the game below in multiple formats:
processing .pde file
macintosh .app
windows pc (32bit) .exe
windows pc (64bit) .exe