The Institute of Digital Games at the University of Malta is proud to launch ‘Doors’, a browser-based game about how objects are represented within games and virtual worlds. ‘Doors’ is SHORT and FREE, and it is our newest attempt at ‘playable philosophy’!
What is this game about?
Game objects can be said to have properties both of fictional entities (they do not really exist, but are meant to be imagined to exist) and of actual digital objects (they are objects generated and upheld by computers that one can persistently and intelligibly interact with). ‘Doors’ lets you playfully and critically examine existing theories about how objects are represented within games and virtual worlds more in general. It raises questions like: who really opened the door? The player or the character? Was there even a door in the first place, or was it simply a bunch of pixels? With a specific focus on the notions of virtuality and fictionality, each door in the game raises a different question regarding their representation.
‘Doors’ was designed and directed by Professor Stefano Gualeni, a professor at the Institute of Digital Games. He is also behind the critically acclaimed playable thought experiment Something Something Soup Something. ‘Doors’ was designed together with Dr. Nele Van de Mosselaer from the University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Prof. Gualeni’s works draw on his research into virtual worlds and he makes digital games to interactively and playfully explore philosophical ideas and frameworks. The development team was co-sponsored by Maltco Lotteries (Malta) and the FWO (Research Foundation - Flanders).
The Institute of Digital Games - University of Malta:
As one of the top-ranked postgraduate programmes in game design, the Institute of Digital Games competes with established research powerhouses like MIT as well as our frequent research partner NYU. Currently the Institute is also working on using AI and games for education in their LearnML Project, Architecture in their PrismArch Project, and Law Enforcement among many more areas of application such as literature and philosophy.
The online game can be accessed here.
The ‘Doors’ team
Stefano Gualeni - Game Design, Game Writing (Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta), Nele Van de Mosselaer - Game Design, Background Art, Door Descriptions (University of Antwerp), Diego Zamprogno - Programming (University of Verona), Rebecca Portelli - Character Art and Animation (Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta), Eva Škerlj Prosen - Background Art (Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta), Costantino Oliva - Music and Sound Effects (Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta)
Special thanks to Johnathan Harrington, Jennifer B. Barrett, Stefano Caselli, Jasper Schellekens, Owen Sacco, Nathan Wildman, David Melhart.