The game setting idea came to us after reading Dan Simmons book “Hyperion”. The fifth chapter describes us the system hacking. And we thought of making our arkanoid to be a visual part of hacking process. We liked the idea and continued making the story according to the cyberpunk style of sci-fi novel.
The story tells us the confrontation of two forms of artificial intelligence. The antagonist is a centralized system with multilevel protection. We, as a player, present a copy of adaptive virus, trying to hack system. The virus is too weak alone and can’t oppose anything to the system. But all the players present an apportioned consciousness with one goal – a symbiosis with the system, that opposed to this.
It flows us to the philosophical plot of the story – a problem of losing the meaning of personality for collective mind. In the game process the system argues in favor of the person as organic whole, but the virus substantiates the benefits of the collective consciousness, such as equality, non-violence in such society and its functioning for the common good.
The gameplay is about destroying elements, that symbolizing security protocol. Every chapter with several levels has their own color. Passing the whole chapter, hacking the core and gathering helpful data to modificate the virus, we are exploring the brand new skill and getting a one-time perk that can be activated in a moment on every level from the menu pause. During repeating levels with the explored skill with a certain probability comes a corresponding perk, and the probability corresponds to the difficulty of the level. For each skill keeps only one perk and you should go back and gather it again if you failed to use it properly. The point is to pass some levels you need certain perks or their combinations.
Art by Edouard Noisette