A Matter Of Perspective: Museum Of Simulation Technology
They look like ants
Today's winners for the Goodness That's A Good Idea Award are a team of students from Carnegie Mellon University, Pillow Castle. They've built a tech demo - The Museum Of Simulation Technology - for a game concept in which forced perspective becomes a game mechanic. YES. A planet cries out, "Surely this could be Portal 3?!", forgetting all the other times they'd shouted that over the last few years, forgetting the Valve doesn't messy its hands making silly old games any more. Still, this is rather brilliant, and well worth a look.
The Kids In The Hall should be remembered for many, many great sketches. "My Pen!", anything featuring the Chicken Lady, Sex Girl Patrol, Whole Lotta Milka, Sir Simon Milligan, Salty Ham, and on and on. But no, they're only ever remembered for "I'm crushing your head", misquoted, misattributed, and inevitably delivered with the hand aligned entirely wrongly. ("NO! That's 'I'm squeezing your face' you IDIOT.") But now, with this new tech, we finally can live out that sketch in gaming form. I'm not saying that's what Pillow Castle have in mind. I'm saying it's what Pillow Castle has to do, if they don't want trouble.
There's a whole lot of potential in there. Certainly it shares things in common with Steve Swink's upcoming Scale, but this is still its own distinct thing, and it's darned impressive. Can't wait to see where this goes.