Menacing Earthworks is a short environmental puzzle game with light elements of horror and action.
~~ You arrive in a strange desert wasteland. The sun blinds your eyes and burns your skin. Ominous fields of massive spikes pierce through the sand. Something tells you this land is cursed, but you explore anyway. ~~
This project is heavily inspired by "nuclear semiotics," e.g. studies on how we can warn future civilizations of the hazards of interacting with nuclear waste. One such concept within nuclear semiotics are the Menacing Earthworks - fields of giant concrete spikes built above nuclear waste sites whose goal is to scare away trespassers before they can get too close. Of course, as history has shown, humans are simply too curious.
This game was initially a demo to test the 3D capabilities of Pico-8, with the Earthworks' spikes used as simple geometry to test object placement and movement. After recently revisiting horror titles such as Silent Hill and Yume Nikki, we decided to try our hand at a complete, albeit short, experience.
For more info, check out the itch page:
https://goldteamgames.itch.io/meancing-earthworks
Youtube trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kT4uON6bGg
Youtube soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhDOeCgoh0U
We hope you enjoy.
Great game! Even knowing nothing about nuclear semiotics it was still an interesting and unsettling experience.
A very interesting cart which I enjoyed playing. A shame it was so short, but it did convey an interesting atmosphere via the graphics and sound.
Having just a few puzzles and a
does mean this is quite short, but it's def a cool tech demo!
Definitely feels built around getting the most of limited resources, like "ok what can we make if we can almost exclusively draw monochrome triangles" haha
(Mechanics comment)
This is so impressive and intriguing. Very well done. I think it was a great length to show off the technical and artistic concept. Makes me want to try something 3D!
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