Poésystème

Poésystème is a game I developed as a student project. It is an attempt to mix poetry with Darwinian evolution, and to illustrate the changing lives of words and languages. It was selected as a Student Finalist to the 2008 IGF.

Download Poésystème

The player is asked to add words into the game world, where they will live under natural rather than linguistic rules (reproduction, nourishment and predation). Once added, a word can no longer be controlled directly by the player; they can only modify the environment where this word evolves.

At any time, the player can take a “snapshot” of his game world, in the form of a poem composed of all the words that live there; some added by themselves but many new, unknown words birthed during play.

Upon reading the poem (out loud, preferably) these new words are given a sound and a meaning by the player/reader, who will, maybe, decide to use them in everyday speech…

You’ll find that every generated poem is automatically saved in the folder you installed the game. Feel free to spread them around and use them as you see fit.

One of my long terms projects has always been to “remaster” this game in a more future-proof tech. Who knows, could happen soon!