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Mountain Is A Game That Isn't Quite A Game

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Wait...what? Yeah that's the best headline I could come up with. Mountain is available for Linux for $1 and promises 50 hours of watching a mountain do...stuff.


I'm a little confused as to how this is in any-way a game. Would someone care to educate me on this one?

Features
- no controls
- automatic save
- audio on/off switch
- time moves forward
- things grow and things die
- nature expresses itself
- ~ 50 hours of gameplay
- once generated, you cannot be regenerated

So, it has no controls at all. You are literally sitting there for the "~ 50 hours" watching a mountain go around and get a bit snowy and grow a few trees. I am all for experiments, but come on this isn't a game surly? It's much more like a show of game art than anything else or a tech demo.

It's great in a way that on PC developers can do little experiments like this. Imagine if this turned into some sort of god game based around a Mountain, now that would be quite interesting. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Indie Game
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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5 comments

rustybroomhandle Jul 3, 2014
Heh, also worth noting is that this was made by the guy who created the fake game in the movie "Her", the game with the obnoxious little alien guy.
Segata Sanshiro Jul 3, 2014
Does anyone know a hack to make this into a screensaver? Would be kind of like having digital sea monkeys.
HadBabits Jul 3, 2014
As much as "that's not a game" often fills me with vitriol (often used as a lazy way to discredit a game one doesn't like), here I think that's actually a legitimate observation. For me, the fundamental difference between games and film is interaction and a sense of agency. If you control nothing than I'd say this is more of a simulation instead of a simulation game.
OZSeaford Jul 3, 2014
Quoting: Segata SanshiroDoes anyone know a hack to make this into a screensaver? Would be kind of like having digital sea monkeys.

That! Having this as a screensaver would be great, but it may be a little taxing on the resources of the computer. CPU use is c.10-20% at least for this.

So far, I have this running at work where I have two monitors on the monitor that I do not use. It is a nice thing to have on the side, not too distracting, but still animate.

I think of it as a "mineral & organic" tamagochi.

Calling it a game is farfetched I admit, but it is a nice experiment.
intok Jul 6, 2014
Quoting: Guest<strike>This falls into a niche in the market that has been neglected for years. I fills that critical gap before tamagochi and after the pet rock.

Pet Rock 2014... https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rock-simulator-2014

Digital picture frames are what old laptops are for.
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