Arcanius

September 1st, 2004 - March 1st, 2005

Categories: Applications, Multimedia

Still from Arcanius
Still from Arcanius

About

Not long ago, in a galaxy not far away…

The Centauri of the Lightwalker’s Guild, the traditional explorers of the Nebulous Empire, have long had a challenging rite of passage for prospective members. The candidate is abandoned in a previously unexplored planetary system. The candidate is equipped with a beacon but no power source. To activate the beacon and thereby complete the challenge, the candidate must construct an energy circuit between at least three planets and at least one moon. The candidate is forbidden from including stars or inhabited planets in the circuit.

The game’s purpose is to give the experience of seamless travel throughout the solar system, incorporating elements of scale, speed, pressure, sound, and gravity. The goal is to create a specified number of links between planets and moons. Each planet has a finite amount of energy that is depleted by each missed attempt; if the energy is used up, the planet explodes and the game ends as a severe failure. There is a time limit of two minutes per planet, after which the beacon is automatically activated and the game ends as a minor failure. The user’s reward for each successful link is the opportunity to explore a new planet and continue playing a bit longer. The game inevitably ends when the user either runs out of time or completes the required number of links, with an ending sequence of withdrawing from the solar system and viewing the links that were made.

Arcanius is a one-player game.

Resources

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