Video game developers have gotten smarter when it comes to telling a story through the game. I’m not talking about just dialogue box after dialogue box with various Non-Playable Character. Skyrim, for instance, has a lot of literature scattered throughout the world that your character can pick up and read. Sometimes it is just for laughs, but others it gives you an interesting perspective on the world. That isn’t the only way to do it either. It can work the other way around as well where the world itself can tell you a story. This happens in the 3D puzzle adventure title, Guardian of the Gears, developed by the students at DigiPen Institute of Technology.
You play as a little red robot that is dropped off into a desolate world with no explanation as to why or any advise as to what your objective is. You simply start by following the path forward. As you progress, you see that many other robots have been drains of all life and power, reduced to dust should you so much as graze them. There are gears everywhere in this world. Some broken and rusted, while others still function perfectly. Every so often, you will find a small, purple cube. Picking these up gives you the section to a story as to what had happened to this world.
You have to interact with your environment and be able to keep solving puzzle after puzzle to be able to progress further. Sometimes, you have to spin a gear to have it move a section of the world. Others, you will need to carry a power cube from receptacle to receptacle to be able to move forward. The world itself is beautiful and the music is very relaxing. You have to find out what happened to this world and find out what you can do to help it.
Download the student game on its DigiPen page.
Played it? We’d love to know what you thought about it.
