The Decay of Meaning

A game I made in 2011, based on a database of value-laden words. It has two avatars of me chasing each other round a planet. Each one's speed depends on the value of the word it meets when it jumps. As the value of each word is dynamic and variable, this becomes a complex process. In a statistical analysis of literature, anything can be expressed via anything.

Play

In your browser, one player against the computer. To jump, press the 1 key or the space bar, or tap the screen.

The planet: a fisheye ring of city buildings round a dark centre, on a blue sky with clouds

In 2011

I showed it in 2011 at Words: a user's manual, an exhibition curated by Himali Singh Soin at Exhibit 320 in Lado Sarai, New Delhi. It ran on a small screen set in a wooden box on the wall, beside an oval window that asked, why don't we sync our delusions, and then play the game?, and it was played with one large red button.

The installation in the gallery: a screen in a wooden box on a white wall, a small box on a tripod, and a lit wooden cube with a red button — The installation, December 2011

The red button, set in the lit top of a wooden cube — The button

An oval window in a white panel showing a line of text on a dark screen — The oval window

This is the 2011 game

The page runs the 2011 code, ported line by line from Lua, which it was written in, to JavaScript. It reads the same word file and keeps the original rules, timings and quirks. I have kept it as it was and not improved it.

The runners, the planet, the sky and the words are the 2011 ones.
The lettering, the sounds and the marks that show how many lives are left are new, because the originals were not mine to share. The original music was not mine either, so there is none. The start screen shows the title where the original showed the logo of LÖVE, the engine it ran on.
The 2011 source is here: main.lua, conf.lua and the word file, words.txt.