Function Creep // The Overkill Hackathon 2020
Guss&Puss Productions
Responsibilities:
-Art Direction
-Technical Solutions
Introducing The Overkill Hackathon 2020
30 Hours. Four topics. One interactive experience: The Overkill Hackathon 2020 explores everything around the topic ‘The end of the world as you know it’. This years jam offered participating teams four sociocritical topics to choose from, read their datasets and create an interactive experience that scrutinizes these topics.
Function Creep
Function creep is our attempt to adress one of the worlds current controversial topics: Societal Stability Protocols. Inspired through the historical unrests in Hongkong in 2020 and the total surveillance state of Xinjiang in China, this 3D-experience aims directly at total surveillance and the resulting events triggered through those policies.
In this game, the player explores a dystopian world that is constantly watched by surveillance systems. Throughout their journey to end this terrible construct, players learns more about the background of this world and their inhabitants.
Function Creep stands for a purpose for which it was not originally intended for. In this game, we question the purpose of security cameras, and how they can be (and often are) abused by authorities.
Artwork
To give the expeience a local flavour of the festival, we set out by examining the city of Enschede, The Netherlands – by looking for surveillance cameras, taking reference pictures and generally drinking in the cities overall picture.
Resulting from this research we created worlds featuring iconic architecture from Enschede, as well as giving them the athmosphere they deserve.
Technical Solutions
To keep this ambitious project within a realisable frame, we decided to build around only a single game-mechanic: avoiding security cameras.
Each level grants the player the opportunity to solve it via multiple paths, adding further strategic depth to the experience. This way, the game enables players to embrace their own style of solving each level.
Furthermore, the entire experience is playable using the mouse only, making the game accessible and easier to anybody.
Closing Words
We thank The Overkill Festival for hosting this hackathon. Events of this type always give creators a great opportunity to show their passion and use their skills to create something great over a small timespan.
Thank you to my partner in crime, Annebel, from Team Guss&Puss Productions for the amazing collaboration creating this experience.
The Overkill Festival’s Website
Sincelerly, Guss&Puss Productions
viguargamedesign.com 