Severed Heads produced two computer games – or rather, 3D worlds in which an album of music is formed by the actions of the player.
“Hauntology House” – later just called “HH” was produced for the Adelaide Festival in 2013. It was hosted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on the Arts page in that year. There were two versions – a single level with an underground bunker full of tape recorders, record players and other noise making tools. A full version added several other levels each with their own orchestra of noise, and a longer story line involving a dangerous female foe with a good or bad ending.
I later wrote a back story for the game you can read here.
“Snowglobe” was completed in 2016 and featured an island with relics of a past time in which a dangerous substance nicknamed ‘milk’ had been pumped from beneath the surface. The player could find and drink the ‘milk’ and see visions – especially a bridge that escaped the island – but each time would become increasingly blinded. When fully blind, they would be chased and killed by a ‘witch’. The trick was to drink some milk, find an antidote, and drink just enough more to find the bridge. It would be apparent to a conscientious player that the ‘milk’ was being pumped up from the underground bunker from the first game. Sadly there were few conscientious players as ‘games as albums’ is still not a thing. This was the first computer game sold on BandCamp.
In 2018 I attempted to restore “HH” and connect it to “Snowglobe”. This first meant redesigning sections of it to fit the back story. The Unity game engine had changed so much since 2012 that the levels maps had become badly fragmented – there was too much damage to get very far.
In 2022 onward I accepted the damage would need tedious repair and just merged the levels of the two games for better or worse. At the end of 2023 after considerable work the hybrid is playable with some sections not fully functional and not fully integrated into the plot – but it’s about 80% there.
I have also started on Luna.
