Are you truly unique? You’re going to have to be if you want to win the latest game from Crayon Physics designer Petri Purho.
The object in 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness is simple: You have to be the only person in the world playing it. Nothing actually happens; there are no scores or levels or game mechanics of any kind. You simply run the game, and it searches the internet for any other copies that are running. If any are found, both copies shut down and both players lose. If you make it four minutes and 33 seconds without anyone else on the internet starting the game – that is, if you’re truly and completely unique in the world – you win.
Purho created the game at the 2009 Nordic Game Jam, which ran from January 30 until February 1. The theme for this year’s event was, “As long as we have each other, we’ll never run out of problems.” Games designed for the Game Jam had to offer five minutes of gameplay and be language independent, and also had to be put together on very short notice: 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness was “developed” in a couple of hours on the last day of the convention.
“It’s an exploration to what actually defines a game,” Purho wrote on his Kloonigames blog. “You can win or fail in the game, but there is no user input or interactivity of any kind. I was tempted to leave the graphics out completely, but I figured that the white progress bar is abstract enough.”
Purho’s previous creations include Crayon Physics, a more conventional yet still very unusual game that won the grand prize at the 2008 Independent Games Festival. That early “prototype” has since been refined and released as Crayon Physics Deluxe, which was not only called “the first must-play game of 2009” by our very own Jordan Deam but also received some profane love from the guys at Penny Arcade.
Are you a unique and special snowflake? Can you keep it up for four minutes and 33 seconds? Download it here and find out.
