Overview

The beta version of the serious  VR game Liquid Marx is released. The game is designed to be played  with the HTC Vive and SteamVR. 

Game idea

The idea of the game is based on a discussion with a collegue, that it should be possible to to root a game mechanics into the quantitative econonomic theory of Karl Marx. This is done in that game. The objective of the player is to maximize one of the economic quantities over a certain amount of production cycles. This idea of maximizing is embeded into a laboratory mechanics as can be seen in the following short  video: 

Additionally to those two layers of gameplay additional exhibits can be examined. Those are mostly photogrammetric reconstructions of objects one can find in Trier.  For instance like that chair where Marx used to sit in:

A general overview of the game flow can be found in this video that is a bit longer and covers more subjects:

Virtual museum

This design has been inspired by idea of running a virtual museum. Having a VR application instead of a real museum has a lot of drawbacks like not being in the real place or pure necesitty to wear a HMD. On the other hand VR applications offer the possibility to include a lot more interactive and playful aspects than a real museum can provide.  

Download

The  beta version can be downloaded from the ITCH.IO page. This version of the game and future releases will be free. Any opinions and discussions on the forum page are  appreciated.