Archi-texture: The video game in which a city is the protagonist

Cambridge, Massachusetts – Two architecture students have created an architecturally inspired video game in which the protagonist is the city.

HomeMake is the creation of Cory Seeger and Matthew Conway, aka Franklin Cosgrove and Archgame, students at Harvard who study architecture by day and design video games by night. The game features characters that players use to complete a variety of quests, but the central character is the city in which the game takes place. Inspired by the Shibuya district of Tokyo, buildings, lights and colours in the game continually change, making it seem as if the city is almost sentient.

The ambitious goal of HomeMake is for the city to change and reshape itself around the player, creating an ever-changing cityscape, which, the designers say, 'is never fully understood as a constant state of progression is maintained'.

'The game began by trying to represent a continually changing city that adapts to, and morphs, for each unique user,' say the duo. 'We want it to be as sublime as possible, mixing nostalgic suburban landscapes with futuristic urban boroughs.' The project, which has raised more than $18,800 (€13,820, £10,950) in funding on Kickstarter, is due for release in September 2015.

This is a great example of a project that combines artistic sentiment with video game aesthetics and functionality. To see other examples of art and gaming merging, read our Game Imitates Art microtrend.