SpaceStragglers

SpaceStragglers is a science fiction game set in an abandoned ship where a robot learns to navigate the social complexities of the group it works in, exploring themes of community and belonging. It is grounded in the theory of cultural hybridity, queer game theory, and affect theory (Ang 2001; Ruberg 2020; Anable 2018). These understandings are used in conjunction with my experiences as a queer and neurodivergent Indonesian of Chinese descent to highlight a design opportunity in the intersection between affective storytelling and puzzle game mechanics.

 

The player inhabits the role of Green, a robot who learns how to live on the ship while coexisting with a variety of other characters onboard. One of Green's abilities is its magnetic limbs that allow it to interact with any magnetic object. Green's job is to sort through metals and find those worth recycling. However, due to limited and aging materials, Green came online with limited ability, which bars it from specific community activities among its group. The player is then required to balance their responsibilities and their battery consumption. This is designed to translate the complexity of diasporic experiences into procedural rhetoric (Bogost, 2007).

The player is also only allowed to communicate with other robots using a decryption puzzle that provides a range of responses. To do so, they have to choose a combination of symbols to provide an appropriate response. Depending on the player's answer, Green can provide a few responses with varying appropriateness that provides more insight into its community or result in miscommunication. As different groups of robots exist on the ship, they reflect the different cultural perspectives that underpin cross-cultural interactions (Ang, 2001).

In future iterations, this game will be expanded on to include a wider cast of characters. The language puzzle mechanic will also be expanded to include discovering clues and artifacts left behind by the previous inhabitants of the ship, allowing the player to explore the themes around cultural globalization and the history behind the ship’s existence and subsequent abandonment. While this game does not aim to posit an ideal utopia of co-existence and harmony, it tries to acknowledge the anxieties and tensions that inevitably arise from the intercultural dynamics present in any shared space.

 

References

Anable, Aubrey. 2018. Playing with Feelings: Video Games and Affect. University of Minnesota Press.

Ang, Ien. 2001. On Not Speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West. Routledge.

Bogost, Ian. 2007. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press.

‌Ruberg, Bonnie. 2020. The Queer Games Avant-Garde: How LGBTQ Game Makers Are Reimagining the Medium of Video Games. Duke University Press.