Created by Demruth, who also goes by the name Alexander Bruce, Hazard: The Journey Of Life is a video game with a philosophical bent. Looking like a first-person shooter game without anyone to shoot, you start out your quest in this starkly minimal virtual world with nothing and no idea of how to navigate the world you’re in. Only by exploring, not space, but knowledge, do you progress, expanding your mind as you solve the logical and lateral puzzles that you chance upon throughout your journey.What’s interesting is that while Hazard is, quite obviously, a video game, it disregards the conventions of the medium, freeing itself from trivialities like story line, characters, and reflex/skill-based puzzles. This creates a decidedly different kind of game playing experience which allows you to immerse yourself virtually in the game, working out your own goals and what you want to achieve. The designer gives it a rather abstruse definition of a “philosophical first person single player exploration puzzle art game”, but what it amounts to is an abstract journey into a non-Euclidean world.As for whether it presents something fresh in regards to gameplay and whether it’ll expand minds or confound them, we’ll have to wait for its full release (there’s only been a demo so far). For now, you can follow Alexander on his blog to keep up to date with the latest indie award he’s scooped up, or what town or country he’s spreading the word to next.[via Creative Applications]
Advertisement