Arc Symphony

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Arc Symphony
A side-view illustration of a ship sailing in the sky over a blue ocean
Promotional art for the game, also used as cover art for the fake game boxes
Developer(s)
  • Matilde Park
  • Penelope Evans
Single-player

Arc Symphony is an

adventure video game developed by Matilde Park and Penelope Evans, and released on May 15, 2017, both as a browser game and in a downloadable version for Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and Linux. The player takes the role of a formerly active user of a Usenet newsgroup for a fictional Japanese role-playing game
(JRPG), also titled Arc Symphony, and reads messages from the game's characters.

As part of the game's release, fake game boxes for the JRPG, in the style of those for

fan site
for the JRPG was created to further the illusion that it was real. Critics liked the game and its marketing, calling them accurate to fan communities in the 1990s.

Overview

Arc Symphony is a text-based

personality quiz.[4] Messages include discussions about the fictional Arc Symphony's characters and writing, and about the newsgroup users' usernames.[3] The characters the player interacts with include a couple who chat on IRC at the same time by using two phone lines, a new user who provokes people,[4] and a university professor who wants to be called by his username rather than his real name when in the newsgroup.[4][5]

Development and release

Arc Symphony was developed by Matilde Park and Penelope Evans using the

mailing lists, they still were a part of her. Evans described the game's interactions as feeling like a real forum experience, saying that while people look at pixels at their screen, a real person is on the other side, and that both parties get to accept or reject the other, with the possibility of hurting them.[4]

After the completion of the development, they thought about how to launch the game, and came up with the idea to put together fake game boxes for the fictional Arc Symphony, consisting of a PlayStation-style

fan site for the JRPG was created in the style of fan sites from the 1990s; it was coded by Park, and includes fake fan fiction. As she had never been interested in fan fiction herself, she described what she had written as "accurately bad".[4]

Following a countdown on the fan site, the game was released on May 15, 2017, through Park's Itch.io page,[7][8] and is available both as a browser game and in a downloadable version playable on Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Linux.[7] The game is also accessible from within Park and Evans' game Subserial Network.[9]

Reception

Julie Muncy of

Rock, Paper, Shotgun included Arc Symphony on a list of recommended free games, where he called its characters and the interactions between them realistic, and described it as fun to see the "quirks and squabbles" of fandoms as an unseen observer.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b Kawai, Ritsuko (2017-05-30). "実在しないゲーム「Arc Symphony」：それはSNSの投稿者全員が仕掛人のPR企画だった". Wired.jp (in Japanese). Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 2017-05-30. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  2. USgamer. Gamer Network. Archived from the original
    on 2017-05-20. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  3. ^ a b c d Muncy, Julie (2017-05-24). "The Story of Arc Symphony, a Game About a Game That Doesn't Exist". Wired. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 2017-05-28. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Jackson, Gita (2017-05-15). "People Are Reminiscing About A PS1 JRPG That Didn't Exist". Kotaku. Gizmodo Media Group. Archived from the original on 2017-05-30. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  5. ^
    USgamer. Gamer Network. Archived from the original
    on 2017-08-26. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  6. ^ "Releases". Aether Interactive. Archived from the original on 2018-02-07. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  7. ^ a b "Arc Symphony by interactive, penelope evans". Itch.io. 2017-05-15. Archived from the original on 2017-06-03. Retrieved 2017-06-03.
  8. ^ a b Frank, Allegra (2017-05-15). "Arc Symphony is the classic JRPG everyone loves — that never existed (update)". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on 2017-05-16. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  9. ^ Aether Interactive (2018-01-06). Subserial Network (Microsoft Windows).
  10. Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived
    from the original on 2017-07-13. Retrieved 2017-08-27.

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arc_Symphony&oldid=1185010502"