Olympos
One of the ancient Greek myths tells of the titan Kronos, who swallowed his own children to ensure they would not rise up again him one day. One child, Zeus, escaped that fate as his mother offered Kronos a stone wrapped in cloth instead. Kronos swallowed the stone whole, thinking it was his latest son. This stone, sealing Kronos’ fate, would later be known as the Omphalos Stone. Later, Zeus would wage a war against the titans, defeating Kronos and releasing his eaten brothers and sisters. This act also released the Omphalos.
In the world of Olympos, Kronos cursed the world using the Omphalos, turning everything into stone. Only you can resist the curse that is slowly clogging your body. You’ll have to face the Twelve Titans once again. Don’t turn to stone, stay fit!
Olympos is a proof of concept demo we prototyped for Philips Research. It can be played entirely with motion controls (The downloadable version above only works with the mouse). The assignment was to combine game elements with a strength exercising fitness programme. Our main dilemma was that ‘Fun’ and ‘Effectiviness’ were a lot at odds with each other. The best way to perform exercises is, well, to perform them in a steady, boring way. Thus, the game had to reward the middle way.
We chose a Greek theme, as they were really concerned too with the human physique. We then translated the exercises to a more exiting action that still covered the same movement. In the demo, squats became horseback riding, a triceps press became throwing jars and bench presses became being burried between the enormous jaws of a cyclops, desperately preventing them from closing.
Your training schedule is represented as ancient Greece, turned to stone. Faithfully perform your exercises every week, and more and more of the land will return to life again. Neglect your duties however, and the world will slowly turn back to stone.
For this project, I programmed the entire game in Flash Actionscript, except for the communication with the motion sensor hardware, for which we enlisted outside assistance. Next to that I also had my share in the game design and narrative design process. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to write any texts for the actual demo.
People visiting the HKU project exhibition thinking they could sit back and play some games, no sweat needed… their hopes were dashed! Above is a scan of a little highlight in Control Magazine, including a picture of the game in action! (The motion sensor is attached within the sweatband)