Collective Memory Creative Showcase

Collective Memory Creative Showcase: The Reality of Nostalgia

December 2020

Intention

In an elective class I was tasked with writing an essay and creating a companion piece about a topic of my choosing related to collective memory.

I chose to make my project about Gaming Nostalgia.

My essay was about people aged 20-45 who collect and maintain old consoles, computers and other gaming related technology as a hobby.

I concluded in the essay that these people collect such items to capture a moment from their childhood.

The purpose of the accompanying piece was to demonstrate the reality of nostalgia. It's never quite as you remember. A repetitive game with no end, on a TV that periodically produces scanlines which the player must smack the side of the TV to eliminate.

The Game

To create the game I first recreated Pac-Man using A* pathfinding.

Then I designed a game around this game.

I placed the game within an old CRT TV and every few seconds scanlines will appear on the screen and if left they will eventually build up to completely cover the screen.

The goal of the player therefore is to play Pac-Man while also contending with the continuous scanlines by smacking the side of the TV.