Lose/Lose - Uh, that's kinda cool, I guess.

Nerdtendo

So this guy got this genius idea to design a game where the player, literally, always loses whenever he plays. It's a simple top down shooter that generates enemies from files on your computer. You kill the enemy, it deletes the file. If you die, you not only lose the game, but the game deletes itself.

I know, total o_O moment, right?

So everyone is very aware what I'm saying before they decide to click the link, ignore everything about the game, and install and play it:

THIS GAME DELETES FILES ON YOUR COMPUTER

With that out of the way, here's a joystiq article on it, with a video showing the game play. The game is quite clear on what it does, so if you feel you must, download at your own risk.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/30/lose-lose-game-deletes-files-as-you-play/

Delzhand

I liked it better when trojans just pretended to be word docs and flash videos.

Aroduc

You know what they say, if you can't make a good game, make a bad one and then stick a pithy message on it.

TrippyJing

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

BlueDestiny

Or set it to use files from the recycle bin.

cooljammer00

I'd like to see this game on a locked down Vista machine.

Monger

TrippyJing wrote: »

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

I approve of this post.

I approve of this game less so.

Fellhand

So this is literally MTG online only more truthful?

Shorn Scrotum Man

The idea of enemies being procedurally generated from my files is pretty nifty, at least.

Monger

Shorn Scrotum Man wrote: »

The idea of enemies being procedurally generated from my files is pretty nifty, at least.

It doesn't appear that any properties of the files have any effect upon the procedural manner in which the enemies are generated.

So no. No it isn't.

durandal4532

Monger wrote: »

Shorn Scrotum Man wrote: »

The idea of enemies being procedurally generated from my files is pretty nifty, at least.

It doesn't appear that any properties of the files have any effect upon the procedural manner in which the enemies are generated.

So no. No it isn't.

It's pretty much just a really over-the-top random list. Kind of funny, I guess. New kind of really, really awful office prank.

Nerdtendo

This comment on the page really gets me:

best part is if you visit the website, there is a high scores list and near the top are names like Guest and bestbuy

Dartboy

If this isn't just a joke to see how many people can willfully delete files from their own computer, then it seems like all those other indie "artsy" games that uses some stupid gimmick to generate controversy and thus page hits.

brynstar

This sounds like some of those crazy ideas that Kojima always wants to do but can never get past Konami. Like that game where when you die, you have to buy a new copy of the game.

Raiden333

brynstar wrote: »

This sounds like some of those crazy ideas that Kojima always wants to do but can never get past Konami. Like that game where when you die, you have to buy a new copy of the game.

I had to look up what you meant by that. Holy shit. I knew the guy was crazy, but damn.

Edit: For those who haven't heard of it like me and don't want to google it:

I played a little bit of Stubbs the Zombie in the afternoon. The zombies shuffle through a world depicted in a retro-futurist aesthetic, kind of like Metropolis. It's awesome! I can't help myself when it comes to this type of imaginative world.

The game has an outstanding concept too. "Those who have been eaten by zombies soon zombify themselves!" I had wanted to make a zombie game like this! This is exactly the vision I had in mind!

My film buddy Director Yudai Yamaguchi had also recommended Stubbs the Zombie.

This is the ideal zombie game, hands down! This is the real thing! The game probably won't make it to Japan though, regrettably.

I have wanted to make an online game that utilizes this genuine zombie aesthetic. The core idea is that everyone zombifies who has been eaten by a zombie. I've talked about this more than once during interviews, and I've written about it in serialized articles.

Here's the basic idea.

First, a player logs on as a Zombie Hunter in a necropolis. He goes through the whole login process, including setting up an online payment account. The player will then hunt zombies. The game ends when all the zombies in the city have been destroyed.

However... if a zombie bites the player's character during the hunt, the character zombifies and wanders the city himself.

The player can't control his zombified character, but he can still manipulate the camera. The zombified character must live disgraced in the digital world.

And the online gaming fee will continue to tally while the zombie wanders the virtual streets.

If the player isn't happy with this, he can create a new Zombie Hunter. He can hunt down his former, now-zombified character. However, if zombies bite the new character then he zombifies too. The number of zombies associated with the player's payment account increases, and the fees continue to tally for the second character. This is real zombie simulation!

I want to make that game someday.

XiaNaphryz

BlueDestiny wrote: »

Or set it to use files from the recycle bin.

I don't think you can set anything in this game, it just choose random files.

Nappuccino

XiaNaphryz wrote: »

BlueDestiny wrote: »

Or set it to use files from the recycle bin.

I don't think you can set anything in this game, it just choose random files.

If that were possible i'd have a reason to download porn again.

Loki

Well, you could always just unsubscribe and make a whole new account in that sort of game. And I'm sure Kojimaphiles would still play it, and pay for multiple zombies wondering around, and claim to love it.

Sixfortyfive

I almost want to set up a virtual machine just to give this a whirl.

Nerdtendo wrote: »

This comment on the page really gets me:

best part is if you visit the website, there is a high scores list and near the top are names like Guest and bestbuy

Haha, holy shit.

Zombiemambo

Dartboy wrote: »

If this isn't just a joke to see how many people can willfully delete files from their own computer, then it seems like all those other indie "artsy" games that uses some stupid gimmick to generate controversy and thus page hits.

You can call it "artsy," or you can call it underground game developers experimenting with ideas that no major game company will ever touch. I don't see how being experimental turns this into pretentious garbage.

Ayulin

So this works under Vista/7, even with UAC?

(Haven't tried it, since I sort of like my files.)

DarkPrimus

That anyone is even trying this is hilarious.

The whole "you lose and the game deletes itself" concept has been around forever - I've seen several video game designers throw around the idea in interviews. But it "procedurally generating enemies from files on your computer" and deleting them if you shoot them? Bull. It just randomly picks a file on your hard drive and assigns it to an enemy, and if the enemy dies it deletes the file. It's an over-glorified trojan with a GUI created by a guy who read a book about social psychology.

harvest

I guess you could run it on a virtual machine, if you really wanted to check it out. But it sounds too retarded to be fun.

jothki

Anyone else played Inner Space? The concept is vaguely similar except without the trojanness. When you start a new game it analyses a drive, and builds a level structure based on its contents, with each folder being a level. You fly around inside folders, competing with other ships to pick up icons representing files within that folder.

Alistair Hutton

Meh, I prefer Doom-top.

It was a unix mod for (original) Doom that spawned enemies in the level that represented the system processes on your machine, you could kill wayward processes on your system by hunting them down and shooting them with a shotgun.

Of course, one of the processes running was the Doom game itself. Hilarity. Especially if the processes started fightring amongst themselves.

EDIT: Found it: http://www.cs.unm.edu/~dlchao/flake/doom/

UncleSporky

Haha, I have Deep Freeze on my machine. I love it so much. I could play this game all day.

Deep Freeze does some black magicks wherein every time you restart your computer it is exactly the same as the day you froze it - no files you save to the desktop remain there, no files you delete stay deleted, no viruses can get in. This is at work, at home I have a secondary drive that is not frozen so I wouldn't play it there.

DarkPrimus

Deep Freeze sounds like something a person who doesn't want his browser History viewed would have.

The_Scarab

UncleSporky wrote: »

Haha, I have Deep Freeze on my machine. I love it so much. I could play this game all day.

Deep Freeze does some black magicks wherein every time you restart your computer it is exactly the same as the day you froze it - no files you save to the desktop remain there, no files you delete stay deleted, no viruses can get in. This is at work, at home I have a secondary drive that is not frozen so I wouldn't play it there.

This game will delete files from system32.

NFyt

The_Scarab wrote: »

UncleSporky wrote: »

Haha, I have Deep Freeze on my machine. I love it so much. I could play this game all day.

Deep Freeze does some black magicks wherein every time you restart your computer it is exactly the same as the day you froze it - no files you save to the desktop remain there, no files you delete stay deleted, no viruses can get in. This is at work, at home I have a secondary drive that is not frozen so I wouldn't play it there.

This game will delete files from system32.

That just means your computer will run faster!

UncleSporky

The_Scarab wrote: »

UncleSporky wrote: »

Haha, I have Deep Freeze on my machine. I love it so much. I could play this game all day.

Deep Freeze does some black magicks wherein every time you restart your computer it is exactly the same as the day you froze it - no files you save to the desktop remain there, no files you delete stay deleted, no viruses can get in. This is at work, at home I have a secondary drive that is not frozen so I wouldn't play it there.

This game will delete files from system32.

If that was enough to break the system then I'd be reimaging half the lab computers every day.

Barring network files, it can delete whatever it wants.

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Deep Freeze sounds like something a person who doesn't want his browser History viewed would have.

I guess, but you could also just use Internet Explorer's new privacy mode. Mostly I like how I can do anything I want on the machine, install anything to try it out, and be back as I was after a reboot. It also makes the computer impervious to that six month slowdown, every day is like the first day you finished setting it up.

BlueBlue

jothki wrote: »

Anyone else played Inner Space? The concept is vaguely similar except without the trojanness. When you start a new game it analyses a drive, and builds a level structure based on its contents, with each folder being a level. You fly around inside folders, competing with other ships to pick up icons representing files within that folder.

Inner space is exactly what I thought of when I heard about this game. BUT NOW THE GAME...IS REAL

A duck!

Sounds like the perfect game for a pacifist run.

slash000

UncleSporky wrote: »

Haha, I have Deep Freeze on my machine. I love it so much. I could play this game all day.

Deep Freeze does some black magicks wherein every time you restart your computer it is exactly the same as the day you froze it - no files you save to the desktop remain there, no files you delete stay deleted, no viruses can get in. This is at work, at home I have a secondary drive that is not frozen so I wouldn't play it there.

Deep freeze? They had that back in high school. I got around it. It's been years but I think what I did was boot into safe mode and then install my programs (games, quake III, counterstrike) and then reboot the computer.

Quake 3 and Counterstrike were thereafter Deep Frozen into the system.

slash000

What happens if you create an account on your PC with no rights (no create, delete or modify rights) and then play the game? Will it still be able to delete stuff from within such an account?

The_Scarab

slash000 wrote: »

What happens if you create an account on your PC with no rights (no create, delete or modify rights) and then play the game? Will it still be able to delete stuff from within such an account?

Yes. It can even delete other users' files.

Endaro

Although touching aliens will cause the player to lose the game, and killing aliens awards points, the aliens will never actually fire at the player. This calls into question the player's mission, which is never explicitly stated, only hinted at through classic game mechanics. Is the player supposed to be an aggressor? Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land?

Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon an awarded for using it, that doing so is right?

By way of exploring what it means to kill in a video-game, Lose/Lose broaches bigger questions. As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives. At what point does our virtual data become as important to us as physical possessions? If we have reached that point already, what real objects do we value less than our data? What implications does trusting something so important to something we understand so poorly have?

*gag*

Monger

PFFFFTHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Garthor

I still think a game like Inner Space, but on THE INTERNET, would be awesome.

Or I guess just get a web browser with a gun.

harvest

Heh a shooter based on your browser history and cache would be silly and ... arousing?

Djiem

Endaro wrote: »

Although touching aliens will cause the player to lose the game, and killing aliens awards points, the aliens will never actually fire at the player. This calls into question the player's mission, which is never explicitly stated, only hinted at through classic game mechanics. Is the player supposed to be an aggressor? Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land?

Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon an awarded for using it, that doing so is right?

By way of exploring what it means to kill in a video-game, Lose/Lose broaches bigger questions. As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives. At what point does our virtual data become as important to us as physical possessions? If we have reached that point already, what real objects do we value less than our data? What implications does trusting something so important to something we understand so poorly have?

*gag*

HOW DEEP!
I AM MOVED BY SUCH A BOLD ARTISTIC VISION!

Heroth

Endaro wrote: »

Although touching aliens will cause the player to lose the game, and killing aliens awards points, the aliens will never actually fire at the player. This calls into question the player's mission, which is never explicitly stated, only hinted at through classic game mechanics. Is the player supposed to be an aggressor? Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land?

Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon an awarded for using it, that doing so is right?

By way of exploring what it means to kill in a video-game, Lose/Lose broaches bigger questions. As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives. At what point does our virtual data become as important to us as physical possessions? If we have reached that point already, what real objects do we value less than our data? What implications does trusting something so important to something we understand so poorly have?

*gag*

I value whoever made this game less than my data...

Does that make me a bad person?