Recursion Plaza
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Recursion Plaza is a procedurally generated dead shopping mall experience. In this purgatory of capitalism's inextricable excesses and failings there is a dream of a kind of vanished commons--a place we once browsed together before Schumpeter's gale drove us into our homes and deeper into ourselves.
The cathedral carcass of a dead whale that fed your town for decades. You stroll the promenade huffing fumes and recalling oilier times.
An eternal Sunday afternoon in Fall. Outside it's cold, but here under the skylight it's warm and pretzel scented, and you can pretend you don't have school in the morning.
You can go deeper into the feeling or you can try to flee from it, but you will always be where you are.
The soundtrack for this experience was created by Dani Lee Pearce:
This project was produced for the exhibition Dire Jank at apexart, organized by Porpentine Charity Heartscape:
https://apexart.org/exhibitions/heartscape.php
Some technical support was provided by Jeremy Rotzstain and Seanna Musgrave.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
it's not really structured much like a mall, is it? just a bunch of square shaped rooms, when I think a mall, I think like a couple of hallways with stores on the sides. Felt more like a series of connected abandoned jewelry shops or something
honestly it's still like the best non-game though
Thank you for appreciating the vibes! Now I wonder if there's a "non-game" tag I can start using? Would be useful. <3
I would recomend changing the skybox to an actual sky and mark sliding doors and the arcade game on the map. I also recommend using the Wave Function Collapse. Itch user marian42 made a city generator using Wave Fuction Collapse which you can use.
https://marian42.itch.io/wfc
An amusing creation! A few things:
1) It's hard to navigate escalators.
2) It seems often escalators go to single rooms.
Thanks for playing and for your generous feedback! Yeah, the escalators are scaled a bit small. Not sure why they may lead to single rooms more often. I'll scope out the room connector types and see about adjusting the ratios for a future release.
I wonder if this would work well with the Wave Function Collapse engine, if you've seen that.
I'm a newb, but I'll look at that, thank you!