The Man Who Created The Video Game In The Movie 'Her' Is Making A Game In Real Life
In the film "Her," Joaquin Phoenix's character plays an augmented-reality space game, which was created by artist and filmmaker David O'Reilly.
At the Horizon Game Conference last week, O'Reilly announced that he's taking his game-making skills outside of the movie realm and making a real, playable game that will be released on June 21.
The game is called "Mountain." In it, you play as a mountain. It's a mountain simulator. Sound weird? Yes. But is it any weirder than a game that lets you play as a goat?
"You play as a mountain, and you get to do all of the things that a mountain does," O'Reilly said when presenting the game. "Which I'm sure appeals to all of your darkest and most disgusting fantasies."
The game will start by asking you simple and open-ended questions, which you answer with drawings. And your answers lead to the creation of your mountain. The game processes the drawings and uses them to influence aspects of the mountain.
The drawings dictate the shape of the mountain, the type of vegetation that grows there, the amount of vegetation, the amount of snow you're going to get, and so on.
It's like an interactive screensaver. "It's designed to run kind of in the background, like it's part of your desktop," he said.
But O'Reilly promises around 50 hours of gameplay, as well as a definitive ending to the game.
Doesn't sound or really look as cool as the game in the movie "Her," but the two shouldn't be compared. This is a relaxing game; little NSFW aliens not included.
There are no controls, but it does auto save. Basically you just sit there and stare at your mountain.
There are some hidden features, however. You can move the camera around the mountain and zoom out all the way into space. You also have the ability to play music; the game detects when you're playing a song, and it allows you to accelerate time. Melodies even unlock different parts of the game.
There doesn't really seem to be a point, but that might be the point. It's kind of reminiscent of the "Grow" series, a Flash-based puzzle game that's just as simple and pointless, but still fun to look at. "Mountain" is gorgeous, though, so maybe O'Reilly will take the opportunity to make more games in the future.
The game will be available June 21 for Mac, PC, and iOS for around $1.
You can watch O'Reilly speak about the game in the video below (it starts at around the 51-minute mark):