pondlife: discone (a videogame)

there are no goals in this videogame.

discone is an exploration of videogames beyond gameness: beyond designed rules and designer-defined objectives. we, as designers, create a physics, a space, some characters. as players, you create the play.

move your expressive character-bodies around an online world

to explore and pull at the videogame's seams, left there intentionally or unintentionally. we believe that a novel, intuitively explorable, and experientially understood movement system, situated in a space, & connected online has infinite potential, and we are excited to explore this possibility space with you.

open exploration and discovery

the ability to pick a point on the horizon but without any combat or external conflict. the casual socialization and community of online web games in the context of a challenge-oriented, self-directed 3d platformer. the exciting stress of embodying and manipulating an alien avatar along not just a path, but an infinity of player-selected paths. are those mountains even climbable? (they definitely are)

embracing simplicity and childlike wonder

to seek the territory outside the boundaries of traditional art & its received aesthetic norms. we are inspired by paint and are exploring pixel-based art (all screen art is pixel art) as an impressionism, as something beyond chunky, low-resolution pixels. our approach to 3d-rendering accepts & embraces the glitchiness, the inherent flatness of polygons & deformed meshes, the seams & rough edges.