Archipelago: A cyclical adventure game

Abstract

Archipelago is a single-player point-and-click narrative adventure game served to the player in bite-sized, three-minute-long daily levels. It is a "cyclical adventure game", like a year-long advent calendar: each real-world calendar day has its own unique level, the game does not begin or end on any specific level, and players can return to levels year after year to uncover more of their secrets. The world of Archipelago can be explored for many years. Archipelago attempts to form an under-explored (and perhaps new) type of long-term relationship between videogames and their players, a relationship that bridges two very different approaches to what gaming is: gaming as the appreciation of cultural artifacts (games as products to consume) and gaming as a habitual, ritualistic activity (gaming as a hobby, something to do). To pursue such a far-reaching goal, Archipelago takes its inspiration from two main sources. First is the 'Daily Challenge' and seasonal content model of contemporary free-to-play games, which Archipelago attempts to turn into the core gameplay and narrative loop, instead of their usual place as secondary mechanics. Second is Ursula K. Le Guin's 1986 'Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction'. Archipelago is an attempt to apply Le Guin's ideas to the medium of videogames. The version submitted here is my Master's thesis project at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, featuring a week-long cycle and 7 levels. I am now working to expand it into a full game, with a year-long cycle of 365 levels. The Archipelago thesis game tells the story of a traveler searching for a home in an island country, inspired by my experience leaving my birth country and immigrating to Denmark. This paper includes edited excerpts from the full thesis report, originally delivered in June 2020.