“OVERGAME” by Pietro Ferrantelli, Pierrick Boyet, Robin Chafoin, Joachim Leclercq, Sacha Riviere & Alexis Prost.
“[A breaking-the-fourth-wall, story rich] and funny [metagame] with a plot twist.”
“OVERGAME” is not completely finished by now, but it is already a hilarious, polished proof of concept. You emerge in a virtual world, where you meet the four creators of this place. The floating entities in front of you seem to be developers and want your feedback to create the best game ever. So they will ask you for your playing style as well as for your favorite game: Do you love “Animal Crossing”, “Dark Souls” or “Grand Theft Auto”? The four gods will build a miniature version of it in no time.
The core concept of each title will then appear. For example, in the “Animal Crossing” stage, your custome will change in something super cute, small critters will wander around and the town citizen bot will give you simple tasks to fulfill in your own time. So you have to grab an apple for them from the tree and afterwards go fishing. Suddenly something changes. The quest will get absurd, because first you only have to gather one fish from the river, but when you accomplish that task, the number rises to thousand. Do you really want to spend so much time for such a quest, doing the same thing over again and again? Maybe there is another solution you could try.
Each miniature game of “OVERGAME” represents such a meta moment and forces the player to break the rules and thereby the frame. That leads not only to funny “Eureka!” moments, but also to the anger of the four developers. When the player broke each of their creations, they decide to play a little game of their own.
So far, “OVERGAME” is an amazing and fun experience that focuses excellently on the borders of game design and the field of tension between the intentions of game developers and the explorative mindset of players. What does that mean for the creators? Do they perceive it as a formidable chaos, a teaching moment or as the destruction of their creative product? That is what it is all about. [PLAY]
