Divine Space releases high concept essay as press release

Let’s open this news post up with the admission that I really have no idea what Divine Space is about. The Kickstarter page suggests it’ll be a “3D action role-playing game and adventure” based in hard science fiction; but what that actually means in terms of game features I can understand seems rather less clear.

The pitch video (posted at the bottom of this page) seems more concerned about bad dubbing and hilarious FMV effects – both of which I’m in favour of, but they didn’t really enlighten me.

Anyway, in an effort to drum up the remaining $75,000 USD or so the team needs to finish the game, the Divine Space developers have put out an unusually high concept press release. Posting press releases in full isn’t something I like to do under normal circumstances, but as you will soon see these circumstances are anything but normal.

Here we go:

“Divine Space is a game that attempts to change the world of games and the game industry, an industry that sold its soul to business and money. It is a holy crusade of developers for the GAME but this is not the only thing that makes Divine Space special.

Today, our world, the real world, not some fantastic realm, is in danger. This danger comes from those who are not interested in humanity evolution and improvement. Those who keep power and authority and who don’t want people to become smart and well developed. Those who want to keep control and don’t want to risk losing their positions in confrontation with the smarter, better educated, high morale next generations.

Look around: education is being destroyed or weakened worldwide. In many countries schools are becoming too expensive for children to learn, or they teach only basic classes. To study in colleges or universities, most of students have to take loans, or they are unable to learn there. Teachers are being paid ridiculous money, except for a very few organizations… Those are the tiny pieces of the one big puzzle. Ignorance is not an insult; it is the fog that becomes more and more dense.

We are the game developers. We are those who create many different realms, and this is our power. We can take your time from you for your own money… and feed you with nothingness. We can be Langoliers who pledged to the profits and devour your time, filling your lonely existence with illusory fun and usefulness, or we can be Prometheus who fills your games with knowledge from the real world. We can make our games useful, educative, and benefiting. Yes, you will still waste a lot of time, but not for nothing anymore. Someday, maybe on the chemistry exams, you will remember that phosphorous is labeled as P and Radium as Ra. Maybe someday you will remember that gravity is 9.81 m/s2, or that one astronomical unit is equal to distance from Earth to Sun. Maybe, after playing some game, you will learn that Napoleon is not a cake, but that he was a political leader and his full name was Napoleon Bonaparte.

We are not speaking only about the miraculous game that we call Divine Space, no. We are speaking about the trend in game development that we can change. We can be one of those who brings educative games to the next level of quality and make them widely popular. We can be an example of how benefiting games can be to the whole humanity. To our children, we can show a lot more than the killing of others, stealing cars, or become violent mindless beings. We can show how politics works, how people think and react, how they interact, what consequences result from different solutions of the same situation, what is economy, trading and diplomacy. We can develop games that make players think.  This is the goal of our development. We can create worlds with deep narrative, not only filled with a shiny rattles.

Will we succeed? We don’t know. We will do our best to do that, and different scientific communities are willing to participate in our mission. We already have preliminary agreements with engineers who been building spacecrafts and space stations, few scientists from NASA and some astronauts – and this is only a beginning.

But we need you. We need everyone who cares for our future, for the world in which we will live soon. This is a moment to see, if our mission and idea is strong enough to survive. We need your support. If you have received this message, this means that you can do it. But do you want to?

Currently, our game is on Kickstarter. This is our chance, and we don’t have another. If we will not reach our goal, Divine Space will be closed with a tiny chance for relaunch, but this chance is nearly impossible. How can you help us? Review our game. If you did it already, review again. Review it not as just yet another game, but as something bigger. As something that is meaningful and desperate at the same time. Something that can pass unnoticed… or become a unique part of the industry, a flagman for the future changes, and you can be a part of it. Those who are the stars today began their way many years ago, but ask yourself: would you want to be part of that history? We have a chance today. Join us in our crusade for a better world, better industry, better games.

We have just 16 days left to reach our goal. Now, after reading this message, there is no option to step aside. Right now, you are making choice on which side you are.

You can find our game here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dodogames/divine-space-sci-fi-space-arpg

And our site here:  https://www.divinespace.org

Dodo Games, 2012

By Anti A. Danilevski, producer”

So, err, yes. I hope everything is clear now.

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