AWARD YEAR
2015
CATEGORY
Play & Learning
GOALS
Partnerships for the Goals
KEYWORDS
games, relaxation, nature
COUNTRY
Sweden
DESIGNED BY
Stormhatt Studios
WEBSITE
http://stormhattstudios.com/stormhatt-barmark.html
Barmark
A digital Zen garden: Achieve harmony by altering the landscape around you to your own preference.
Barmark is a game created for Android tablets and iPads, to be released in 2015.
There is no goal or end in Barmark, the goal is instead whatever the player chooses it to be. You can explore various environments and pull levers to alter them with hidden machines. This is the challenge of the game, making conscious choices in order to better find harmony in your creations.
The game finds its base in the traditional beliefs of shamanism and animism. Within these beliefs we found an idea of self-healing, where the ill person needs to find harmony within himself/herself, in order to cure whatever ails them. And the idea of harmony is something we found within the Zen gardens of east, where a person finds harmony in creating the garden.
The purpose of Barmark is to be what many games are not: peaceful and free. We want to explore new ways of gaming, without economy, violence or forced gameplay. In Barmark the spiritual journey is the destination.