Don't Play This

The idea of a game that does not want you to participate in its activities, that is the goal that is attempted to be achieved with Don’t Play This. This interactive web-game attempts to bring a new perspective towards the purpose and goals of playing games in general, where many of the events that occur within the game are specifically designe d to be unpleasant or unsettling to the player.

The game itself runs on a timer, where as long as the player performs any actions whatsoever on their keyboard or device, the game will continue on, exposing the player to numerous negative stimuli. These can range from irritating noises to disturbing imagery, all in an attempt to get the player to not make any more inputs. When we play games, not only do we find ourselves with a definable goal, but we also form this layer of separation between the game and ourselves, and this piece aims to break both of those barriers.

The game was made using the Unity engine, and was styled after early arcade games prevalent in the 70s and 80s, primarily ones that utilized vectorized graphics and angular shapes for their style, as well as minimal use of color. Voice acting was provided by Graham Chorusey, additional art was provided by Austin Coppola, music was provided Royalty Free by James Hammond, additional music provided by Spacy.