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The exhibition presented a work in progress and enabled visitors to better understand the complex conceptual and production methodologies involved in producing a fully-functional computer game. The installed works including original drawings by Chad McCail, animations from the game, large-scale models of game characters and buildings, and computers running the game environment in its most recent version.

spring_alpha is a networked computer game system set in an industrialised council estate whose inhabitants are attempting to create their own autonomous society. The game serves as a 'sketch pad' for testing alternative forms of social practice at both the 'narrative' level, in terms of the game story, and at a 'code' level, as players are able to re-write the code that runs the simulated world.

The original narrative is based on a series of drawings by Chad McCail - Spring and Evolution is Not Over yet, which shape the game's visual aesthetics. The original stories and images become a framework that is fleshed-out by people's own ideas and experiences. The basic aim of the game is to change the rules by which the society in that world runs. This is done through hacking and altering the code that simulates that world, creating new types of behaviour and social interaction. How effective this becomes depends on the players' ability to spread these new ideas into the society.

www.spring-alpha.org

www.spring-alpha.org/pages.php?
content=mod_04_exhibition