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Mountain is an upcoming iOS 'mountain simulator' with 50 hours of gameplay

Rocky climb

Mountain is an upcoming iOS 'mountain simulator' with 50 hours of gameplay
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iOS
| Mountain

Last night, David OReilly revealed his PC and iOS game Mountain at Venus Patrol's Horizon event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

You may not know OReilly by name. But if you watched Spike Jonze's film Her, you'll have seen the fictional games he created in that movie.

Mountain is probably even weirder than that movie, mind. And it's certainly more esoteric than the games OReilly invented for Her. It's described as a "mountain simulator", a "relax 'em up", and "art horror".

The game starts by asking you questions that OReilly claims are more "psychologically invasive" than any questions posed through social media. You're asked questions in Mountain about love, hate, and even your mother.

To answer the questions, you draw a picture to express your feelings. This picture is then transformed into a unique procedurally generated mountain that hovers as a singular mass, by itself, in the ether.

Mighty

You're able to rotate the view to get a good look at your mountain as it evolves over time. There's a day / night cycle here. Plus, dynamic weather systems and seasons affect what lives and dies on your mountain.

MountainAs a god, you're tasked with simply observing your mountain and letting nature express itself. Nothing else. It's the kind of game you can leave running and check up on hours later to see what has changed.

Apparently, the simulation lasts about 50 hours and does have an ending.

OReilly said he picked a mountain as the centre of the simulator on account of "an iconic zen thing."

"We as humans feel all big because we build great things but the fact is that mountains dwarf us."

If you're intrigued by Mountain, you'll be able to purchase it from the App Store on June 21st for 69p / 99c. There's more information about the game on its official website.

Los Angeles Times
Chris Priestman
Chris Priestman
Anything eccentric, macabre, or just plain weird, is what Chris is all about. He turns the spotlight on the games that fly under the radar.