Recurse makes for a new gaming experience with your iPad. Instead of touching the screen, you play by moving your body, flailing your limbs, and throwing your inhibitions to the wind. You may lose yourself in the game as you play, but the candid photo revealed at the end shows you’re willing to look like a fool in order to score big!
Here is the Recurse description for the original installation version at No Quarter (written by Charles Pratt, edited by Frank Lantz):
Recurse foregrounds the tension between vanity and play. A digital game about movement in physical space, the game’s distorted mirror encourages players to forget themselves as they twist and stretch their bodies in order to get a high score. Waggling one foot inside a green patch on this side of the screen while stretching out a hand to reach for another patch of green on the other side, all while keeping your hips still inside a red patch, is something that can only be accomplished by someone who has full consciousness of their body and no self-consciousness about their appearance.
Recurse is an enthusiastic celebration of a feature of play that digital games have often forgotten: extraordinary behavior in public spaces. This feature is highlighted by the gallery of images the game creates as players reach high scores and a record of their bizarre contortions is captured for posterity.
NEWS
06/07/10: Kotaku features Recurse on their home page: Human Beings At Play.
06/06/10: Recurse debuts and NYU Game Center’s No Quarter exhibit.
06/07/10: Recurse mentioned in an article about the No Quarter Exhibit: ’No Quarter’: Can Video Games Grow Up?
Here are people playing the camera-based game Recurse at New York University’s No Quarter gaming exhibition last night. The game is simple. Stand in front of a camera, see a projection of yourself on a TV, use your body to agitate blotches of green and avoid agitating blotches of red.