Finally, the best shmup of all time has been created.

[Elixir]

http://tigsource.com/articles/2009/09/23/lose-lose

"Lose/Lose is a video-game with real life consequences. Each alien in the game is created based on a random file on the player's computer."

When you die, a file is randomly deleted. If you lose, the game deletes itself.

All right then, up for reinstalling XP?

[Thunder Force]

If the player kills the alien, the file it is based on is deleted...

That’s almost malware territory. I have a feeling someone is going to download this without reading what it is and shit bricks...

Seriously the warning screen needs to be fucking huge.

Indeed.

[BIL]

Now we just need a shooter that debits your bank account per credit in real-time.

[The Coop]

Oh my God. That game is just evil... deliciously evil.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I really wanna try it out... butt know chanze i aint fic.

[CStarFlare]

who wants to compete with me for the world record

[originalz]

Haha, this is amazing! Anyone actually play it yet?

[Warp_Rattler]

The comments are truly bizarre to behold. At first glance, it's sensible people saying "this is the goddamn stupidest 'game' idea ever" with a little more restraint. It's only about a third of the way down the page that the whole lot of them begin furiously masturbating about the title's artistic merit or what they seem to agree is the the brilliant question of "should you kill those aliens or not?"

I can think of so many ways you could address the necessity of automatically killing aliens in an stg that don't involve making a pretentious dick out of yourself. Most of them would involve just a good bit of story instead of heavy handed pranks.

To say nothing of if the game even works as advertised, something nobody seems to have checked oddly enough.

[Elixir]

who wants to compete with me for the world record

I just managed to get up to level twenty thr

[Gespenst]

http://tigsource.com/articles/2009/09/23/lose-lose

"Lose/Lose is a video-game with real life consequences. Each alien in the game is created based on a random file on the player's computer."

When you die, a file is randomly deleted. If you lose, the game deletes itself.

All right then, up for reinstalling XP?

Oh noes. I'll pass.

I just managed to get up to level twenty thr

With some random files got wasted? D;

[TrevHead (TVR)]

The comments are truly bizarre to behold. At first glance, it's sensible people saying "this is the goddamn stupidest 'game' idea ever" with a little more restraint. It's only about a third of the way down the page that the whole lot of them begin furiously masturbating about the title's artistic merit or what they seem to agree is the the brilliant question of "should you kill those aliens or not?"

I can think of so many ways you could address the necessity of automatically killing aliens in an stg that don't involve making a pretentious dick out of yourself. Most of them would involve just a good bit of story instead of heavy handed pranks.

To say nothing of if the game even works as advertised, something nobody seems to have checked oddly enough.

Anybody can see that we are just having a laugh and a joke as no-one in their right mind would play it unless they were planning on formatting their HD anyway

[ZOM]

Well, I actually have 2 pentium III PCs lying around... One of em runs on W2k - what are the system requirements?

[Warp_Rattler]

Anybody can see that we are just having a laugh and a joke as no-one in their right mind would play it unless they were planning on formatting their HD anyway

I dunno, you read enough tigsource and it's easy to imagine they might be dead serious about crafting a game you're not meant to play and then waxing intellectual about the whole affair.

[kengou]

I'm actually just about to reinstall XP because my current windows install is pooched. I think I will seriously try this out.

[Necronopticous]

It would be cool if the game itself was actually interesting at all.

[Thunder Force]

Recalling an old windows game "Operation Inner Space" (I think that's what it was, unless I'm confusing it with another), which created combat and racing arenas for you to fly your 2D spaceships through based on your computer's directory names and filenames (but I'm fairly sure it didn't actually erase your files...)

EDIT: Just saw someone else on that site made the same connection:

This reminds me of a game called Inner Space, which was generated around actual files on your hard drive. Of course, it didn’t delete those files…

Also someone years ago tried designing a serious (?) variant of the "shoot your data" concept, proposing a firstperson shooter mod to manage heavy server loads.

[Warp_Rattler]

Oh man, I totally forgot about that.

I tried psDoom years ago on one of my brief forays into Linux (back when RedHat was still releasing distros and Winmodem support was a stumbling block for most people because broadband was not nearly a household name), and it was pretty sweet. I'm not sure when the ability for the processes to kill the player or each other was added--I don't recall either of those being possible, yet the latest code revision is from 2000, which predates my tinkering by a year or two, so maybe I just didn't notice it.

The program wasn't harmful to your computer as it only targeted running processes. It was pretty fun to isolate and kill various parts of the system and watch ever-increasing problems pop up until the system became inoperable and you had to reboot it manually. I had great fun using the old full-ammo cheat and unleashing the BFG into the crowd of processes. The screen would just sort of freeze for a moment, and then the computer restarted itself.

I wonder if that would even work on modern distros now...

[Ruldra]

Recalling an old windows game "Operation Inner Space" (I think that's what it was, unless I'm confusing it with another), which created combat and racing arenas for you to fly your 2D spaceships through based on your computer's directory names and filenames (but I'm fairly sure it didn't actually erase your files...)

Yeah I beat that game, it's pretty cool. You choose a directory in your PC and a stage is created where you have to pick up the icons in that folder, which are used as money in-game.

Not only the game has several different weapons and ships, there are other stuff that makes it awesome. There are a number of factions in it, and you could become friends or enemies with them. Piss off a faction enough and they send ships to kill you, or become friends with one and you can call them for help. There's also a police force patrolling some stages, and if you commit a crime they send a ship to arrest you (they tow your ship to the exit and you're sent to court). Resist arrest and a destroyer ship would show up to neutralize you. If you're close to dying, you can call an ambulance and it'll rescue you. You can upgrade your ship too. And other stuff.

The goal was to pick up every single icon in your PC, which could take several months. After that, you could access the Demon's Gate and fight the final boss. But if you manage to find the secret weapons you could fight him right away.

The funny thing is, the game has a trial period of 1 month. During this time you play the full game, but after that, you can't load or save your progress anymore and you need to pay for it. But if you know what you're doing, going for the secret weapons and killing the final boss could take less than a week.

[DJ Incompetent]

If poker sites started mandating files as chips, it could make for some interesting games.

Any chips won were just random files obtained from other computers.
It'd be cool until you play the guy who stocks gigs of kiddy porn...yeeesh.

[Udderdude]

The fact that this pile of garbage has gotten so much attention is really just more proof that gaming media has gone south .. and is just looking for gimmicky crap to post.

The programmer's site is a fucking laugh riot, too. The guy makes himself out to be a "Digital new wave artist" or some such bullshit. Let's see his amazing work ..

http://www.stfj.net/art/2009/bedroom%20landscapes/ - YOU CAN'T MAKE ME MAKE MY BED, MOM! IT'S ART! SCREW YOU!

Edit: I also remember that process shooter variant of Doom, which makes this all the more laughable. Prior art, I say!

[Mortificator]

bedroom landscapes is part of an ongoing project of mine to capture what I inadvertantly create.

I can't wait 'till he tapes a camera above his toilet bowel to show the world the amazing art he creates out of everyday foods!

[Enhasa]

I saw some guy's site where he actually did that. No (yes?) shit.


It's hard to believe but the art/indie gaming crowd really dig this sort of stuff. I forget the name, but there was some game years back where it inflicted real physical pain and electric shocks or whatever when you messed up. It toured at all these exhibits.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I forget the name, but there was some game years back where it inflicted real physical pain and electric shocks or whatever when you messed up. It toured at all these exhibits.

A similar game would none other than the live-action show Ira-Ira Bou (aka Irritating Stick in the USA). The Neo-Geo MVS powered "The Irritating Stick" dedicated cab would blow some compressed air in your face if you touched any part of the electrified obstacle course. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[The Coop]

I forget the name, but there was some game years back where it inflicted real physical pain and electric shocks or whatever when you messed up. It toured at all these exhibits.

A similar game would none other than the live-action show Ira-Ira Bou (aka Irritating Stick in the USA). The Neo-Geo MVS powered "The Irritating Stick" dedicated cab would blow some compressed air in your face if you touched any part of the electrified obstacle course. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Air? That's it?

We need World Domination from "Never Say Never Again".

[Enhasa]

Midway's Arctic Thunder blew air in your face all the time, but it actually felt really nice to have a fan blowing air conditioning like that in a hot arcade in the summer. ^_~ Now if only Hydro Thunder had splashed water all over you, that would be pretty funny.

[Udderdude]

I forget the name, but there was some game years back where it inflicted real physical pain and electric shocks or whatever when you messed up. It toured at all these exhibits.

It might have been this : http://www.painstation.de/

Which to be honest is an interesting idea. But only because it's a 1 on 1 game. If it was a vs CPU game, it would be kinda dull.The next step is to make a Street Fighter clone where each blow inflicted by your opponent shocks you in the place your character got hit >_>

[Herr Schatten]

We need World Domination from "Never Say Never Again".

I totally agree. I love the movie. I always try to figure out what the classic cabs in Largo's arcade are. I think I remember Centipede and Galaga.

[Taylor]

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?

[Elixir]

Oh so the developer is pulling a Johnathan Blow and trying to turn his game into intellectual art.

Tempted to delete this thread now.

[Udderdude]

Oh so the developer is pulling a Johnathan Blow and trying to turn his game into intellectual art.

At least Braid looked pretty. And, you know, didn't delete files from your HD :X