I developed Kurt – A Real Life Simulator as part of my Master’s thesis in Game Design. Its design is geared towards exhibition spaces. Kurt – the protagonist – leads a life that oscillates between work and sleep. Kurt earns money with their day job and must be fed pills to keep them alive and healthy.
The game mechanics are repetitive, encouraging visitors to the exhibition space to work together to keep Kurt alive for as long as possible. If they fail to do so, Kurt dies and the game refuses to be played for some time.
Kurt is an example of a dominant game, a genre I am exploring in my thesis. This type of game does not try to please the user, but rather tries to please itself. In this way the game makes itself more rare and therefore more attractive to a certain niche type of player.
Obviously, such games are not mainstream. But even mainstream games like Pokemon or Zelda, and especially the games of the idle/incremental genre use mechanics like those used in Kurt.
