Adelbert Vester: Exhibition Edition

By David Mershon and Mike Sennott

Last semester we produced a prototype of a recombinant-narrative strategy game called “Adelbert Vester: Humoural Physician.” This game combines occult medicine with political intrigue set against the historical backdrop of the holy roman empire on the eve of the 30 years war. Players take the role of a young physician who stumbles upon a golden opportunity to earn a place in the court of Emperor Rudolf II. By visiting a series of important personages each based on real historical figures Adelbert can improve his reputation by healing their ailments. However, since humoural medicine corresponds with the four dominant moods, he can also manipulate the attitudes and actions of his patients to influence events in his favor.

The original prototype was essentially a strategy game where players decide on a course of treatment which has unpredictable results decided by generating a random number. Adelbert Vester: Exhibition Edition will replace these abstract and stochastic treatment sessions with a series of physically embodied minigames which will make use of novel control devices. These minigames will add a new layer of tangible, skill based interaction to the existing metagame framework. In addition these changes will make the game more “spectacular”, suitable for exhibition in a public setting.

There are four mini games, one for purging each of the four types of humour:

Leaches – Used to purge the Sanguine Humour (Blood)

Our ideas for this minigame mostly center around the action of throwing leaches as this seems to be an enjoyable activity. In all variations of this idea the leaches will be represented by a sticky, gelatinous leach shaped projectile.

1. One idea is to throw leaches at a target. Depending on where the leaches strike the surface, a different level of purge is delivered. This schema is superficially similar to a game of darts.

2. If the first idea proves difficult to implement, an alternative is to measure how forcefully the leaches strike the target in order to determine the magnitude of humoural purge to be delivered.

3. Another alternative schema is for the player to have a limited number of leaches, and to measure the effect of the treatment by how many they successfully throw into a bowl. This bowl will be far away.

Vomiting – Used to purge the Phlegmatic Humour (Phlegm)

1. Our concept for a vomiting minigame challenges the player to use a probe to poke at a membrane hidden from view. Some points on the surface of the membrane cause vomiting to happen more quickly than others. The player must quickly withdraw their probe if they have poked a sensitive area.

Enema – Used to purge the Melancholic Humour (Black Bile)

1. In this mini game the player directly controls the intensity of the treatment by working a set of bellows. Based on the rate and intensity of the pumping, the treatment will have a more or less pronounced effect. We will experiment with different methods of measuring the output of the bellows apparatus.

Laxatives – Used to purge the Choleric Humour (Yellow Bile)

Our ideas for this minigame center around the idea of manipulating a mortar and pestle to represent the process of mixing a laxative tonic.

1. Our first concept for implementing this procedure is to install a shaking-sensor such as an accelerometer in the pestle. Depending on how vigorously the player grinds, varying quantities of laxative are produced.

2. The other schema is to actually have powders of differing electrical conductivity that can be mixed within the mortar. Depending on the overall conductivity an analogue value will be delivered to the game to determine the intensity of the laxative treatment.