Funded by Chaos Computer Club's initiative "Call for Stories" to celebrate the Club's 42-year history of changing the world.
Cubetopia is a narrative Free software video game and interactive art experience where the player is asked to build their own perfect future, one narrative decision at a time.
With each step come societal, environmental and political choices and impacts. There are no right or wrong answers, they each present their own challenges, which provides the game with replayability.
As the choices are made, the visual art and music become more complex and reflect the player’s choices. Epic audio samples referencing the CCC's history of changing the world are woven into the dreamlike narrative.
“Try to look at what the world was like a few hundred years ago,
and try to imagine what you want the world to look like in a
hundred years. What do you want it to look like? What do you
think is right for people in a hundred years? How do you hope
people that you will never meet will live?”
- No Neutral Ground in a Burning World, 30C
### Credits
Concept and writing: Eva Infeld
Development: Brett Preston, Eva Infeld
Art direction: Natalia Vish
Art: Natalia Vish and Brett Preston
Music and sound: Brett Preston
Game design: Eva Infeld
Game design consultant: Jacek Wesołowski
Special thanks: DAVIDE DI STASIO, ANHA, EDIN PAŠOVIĆ, MITCH PIPPARD, JOE, ALXD
ALL THE WONDERFUL HUMANS QUOTED IN THE GAME
(quote sources are listed on the references page)
THE GODOT COMMUNITY
Third party resources used:
Third Person Controller by waffleawt https://godotengine.org/asset-library/asset/2268
ISS model: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development (VTAD)https://science.nasa.gov/resource/international-space-station-3d-model/
Asteroids planet: chiaragiacomuzzohttps://sketchfab.com/3d-models/asteroids-planet-lowpoly-69a91b856ec24b3ea53662b563e9f9dc
The choices presented to players implicitly draw on utopian philosophies, both those with centuries of thought behind them and younger movements, and, explicitly, their presence in the CCC community.
The basic bones of the game are arranged on a three-dimensional decision cube, where the emphasis goes from central planning to commerce, small communities to global cooperation, and from nature to high-tech and space-faring. These are the primary metrics.
The challenge of the game is to guarantee freedom, equity and accountability in each type of society.
The underlying mechanic of the game prompts the player to choose between the different types of utopian societies, with a follow-up narrative exploring the unique challenges of each, and the player’s choices here adjusting the overall position on the cube.
Some of these decisions may influence secondary metrics - personal autonomy, state or sustainability. These are tracked in the background and influence the outcome.
“The hacker mindset is a post-apocalyptically appropriate
way of thinking. Wouldn’t you run to your hackerspace, if
things really went wrong? If the world went down in chaos,
I would really want it to happen somewhere at the end of
December, because you all would be the people I would
want to be around.”
- 10 Years After “We Lost the War”, 32C
A trailer for the game can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXytOYlsuRc
We built Cubetopia in Godot, with art assets made in Blender and GIMP. We are proud to use FOSS tools.
Brett Preston is a music producer, sound designer, composer, and an audio director in VR gaming.
He is working on creating open-source hearing aids.
He is also a generative 3D artist, who creates psychedelic visuals and experiences.
https://zaga.bandcamp.com/
https://brettpreston.github.io/portfolio
Dr Eva Infeld is a mathematician, cypherpunk, a grassroots organiser, and brainstormer.
She went from working in academia to building privacy software, and has been a part of the CCC community for over a
decade. She’s the research lead on the Katzenpost anonymity project.
https://evainfeld.github.io/
Natalia Vish is a multimedia storyteller and graphic designer.
She works with scientists, engineers, journalists, and anybody else who has a story to tell but needs help finding their voice.
https://help-the-helper.nl/
https://nataliavish.com