RPG + Snake = time-image?

I'd like to address race and visuality (and their employment as technology) using the spatial metaphor and interactive mechanics of video games. My aim is twofold:

1) Explore the possibilities of modeling/elucidating critical theory using interactive systems.
2) Push the aesthetic, expressive, and representational potential of video game tropes (ludotropes?)

The game will resemble a classic Nintendo era role playing game like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest:



It will take place within one RPG style town. The player will control a character on a tile map similar to those games, however the character's motion will be limited to a specific section of the town, as delineated by color (perhaps related to the skin color of the character). So, the character will be in a town, but won't be able to move outside of the section of the town that has tiles of a certain color.

As the character walks within this space, a trail of the character's motion will accumulate. The trail will grow over time. This marries the RPG character trope to something like the game Snake. I'm intending this as a gesture toward Keeling's time image.

Inevitably, the character will collide with a part of his/her time-image tail, and s/he will be caught in a hellish loop, now further limited to walk only along the body trail of previous motions (past-as-cliche, limiting the future). Eventually, either through pressing buttons frantically, or walking this trail repeatedly, the character's time-image loop will explode, and for a moment, motion to a new part of the board will be possible.

There will be other (computer controlled) characters to encounter. I'm thinking that I'll play with the RPG trope of having text boxes for character interactions. I'll use windows that look like classic RPG text boxes, but they won't have text. Rather, they'll have the colors of the board that limit character motion. Through interaction with characters, one will be able to travel to other parts of the board and alter the limited boxes of motion. This is a (clumsy) gesture toward using race to open up new possibilities of motion.

This bulk of the piece is grounded in the work of Kara Keeling, but also Beth Coleman and Dona Haraway.

I don't know that I can actually create a full and completed game by the end of the semester, as this is a large project. At the very least, I'll have the following in addition to my FAQ: a demo of the fundamental mechanics, basic game resources, and if needbe, some mock screenshots or a paper prototype. It is quite possible that I'll complete the game itself by the end of the semester - there is just a lot of programming and resource creation in a project like this.

I'm also thinking about reaching out to Kara Keeling when I have a little more to show - I'll inquire if she has any feedback or suggestions. The game will be a free, creative commons, public release when completed.