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Hammurabi is a remake of the 1968 management game of the same name. This game is exploring the theoretical notion of “character as subjective interface” as developed in this paper.
As Hammurabi, king of Babylon, you rule from your throne room. Your ministers are your eyes and hands in the realm: assign them to an office, give them a budget and let them get their hands dirty. They will tell you how things are going and give you advice. There is a risk, however, in this off-hand management… Perhaps the welfare of Babylon is not the first item on your ministers’ agendas. Take care of Babylon, but take care of yourself as well!
This game experiments with procedural text generation to implement a completely character-driven interface. All information is channeled through the subjective and biased perspective of the advisors, and all actions are carried out by their proxy. This shifts the focus from the all-powerful direct management to the messy realm of politics as players need to grapple with imperfect information and competing interests.
The text generation in Hammurabi makes use of James Ryan’s Expressionist system.
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Development team:
Jonathan Lessard
Marc-Antoine Jetté-Léger
Alexandra Bachmayer
Etienne Brunelle-Leclerc
Christopher Venner-Tan
Odile Prouveur
Tim Gottschalk