by Shalev Moran
by Shalev Moran
Denmark
Narrative Adventure
PC, Android Phone
Inspired by my own experience of immigration, Archipelago tells the story of a traveler searching for a home in an island country.
It is a “cyclical adventure game”, served in bite-sized daily levels. Each real-world day has its own unique island, and players return to islands week after week to uncover more secrets.
Archipelago’s structure is informed by “Daily Challenge” casual game design, pre-modern narrative traditions such as religious lectionaries, and Ursula Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. Apart from immigration and travel, Archipelago also deals with themes of ecology, cultural memory, and cycles of violence.
My hope is to create a new kind of relationship with players: a bridge between casual-hobbyist gaming and classic story-driven games, an adventure game that you don’t consume and cannot finish, but rather that becomes a small part of your daily life.