WORLD4

WORLD4 is an experimental exploration game where players navigate an ambiguous and curious world, created to be explored but not fully understood. The world is fragmented, split and layered over four first-person views. Each view is a separate and unreliable, a partial lens for seeing the world. A pathway in one may be invisible in the other three. To play, players negotiate a series of visually abstract corridors and chambers revealing hidden geometric curiosities within. There are no goals or guides, WORLD4’s experience is purely an exploratory journey in unravelling an elusive and sometimes unsettling space. It has been described by playtesters as a puzzle that is explored but not solved.

WORLD4’s concept is inspired by my research into walking simulators like Proteus and Gone Home. It seeks to ask what draws us in to explore and make sense of ambiguous worlds?

In creating WORLD4 I wanted to heighten the sensation of encountering something that at a glance, cannot be understood, and the struggle in trying to make sense of and interpret it. To foster this experience, I aimed to create a world that can only be made sense of through movement. WORLD4’s design is visually and spatially subversive in its use of materials, colour and layout, to disrupt clear readings and force players to question their intuition and knowledge. In doing so I hope to have people reflect on how they think of explorable spaces, and why they are compelled to dig deeper, and construct their own understanding.

WORLD4 is played as a solo experience on a single mac or windows computer with a mouse and keyboard or controller. It can also be played as an optional collaborative shared experience between two or more people across multiple monitors, with one player steering and other players as roaming-observers (see requirements).