UTOPIAS: Navigating Without Coordinates

Each world in Utopias is a site of crystallization where our ideas and how we work as a group have gathered and grown. The process of creating Utopias was a collective deep dive into things like group decision-making, the economics of care (for oneself and others), the sharing of resources and information, generating and maintaining sustainable momentum and examining personal wounds left from living in a hyper-individualized economy of scarcity.

A major motivation for our collaboration is to find alternative methods for making video games while avoiding the exploitative and creatively stultifying software industry. We think CGI should be taken out of the hands of the industry - culture should be made by people, not just companies. By pooling individual skills, we enable collective members with differing levels of technical ability to make video games collaboratively. We work without designated roles or tasks and no-one's technical or creative vision is considered more important than another's. Although we created a series of individual utopian visions, each of us worked on each other’s world, helping one another to realize them. This is our attempt to roleplay our way to utopia.

The subtitle of the project is Navigating Without Coordinates. We are uncertain if we can achieve our utopian ideals and we have come to embrace that. During the long development time of the project, we became aware that “utopia” was not necessarily a place or an idea we could attain but rather a process of trying to navigate the territory that lies between us and change. This very much describes the practical process of learning to organize a collective. Utopias is a viewport into this process.

Something that we keep coming back to as a collective is an attraction to weirdness, a poetic kind of not-making-sense. What happens if you take away the traditional narrative scaffolding? How do you respond to the discomfort, confusion, and frustration that arises from traveling without coordinates, when you don't really know where your next step will lead you? How does it feel to be lost? To be unproductive? To be unusable?

The video game is a medium tightly bound to capitalist productivity values. Built into the essence of many games is an imperative to work, attain goals and be productive. On the other hand, games are uniquely positioned to both critique the capitalist present and to simulate a possible utopian future. Maybe instead of games where we play at working (collecting resources, domesticating wild environments), we need games that help us dream. We want to make games that are like acid - a collective psychedelia, a widening of reality in times when dreaming seems impossible.

The following requirements and recommendations will help you have the best possible experience.

We currently only support Windows operating system. Sorry Mac & Linux users! Sign up to our mailing list for more announcements about future support for other platforms or a video play-through of the game.
A mouse with a scroll wheel. It is possible but not comfortable to play the game with a trackpad.
Computing power. The game will run smoother if you have a powerful GPU but don’t be afraid to give it a go on a less powerful computer - you might experience some lag but most of the game should still be playable. To be specific, we recommend a GPU of 970M or higher.
As with many other independent games and open source software you may need to bypass the Windows Smartscreen warning and click “Run Anyway”. Please make sure to only download this game from our official website or our Itch page.

Please let us know if you have any issues!

INPUT - Utopias uses only a three button mouse to try and simplify controls for players new to gaming. Some inputs are required to be held down for extended durations, such as right click to walk forward. No content in the game is gated by skill-based inputs such as precise timing or quick pressing, so you can relax and take your time to explore. The controls are unfortunately not remappable.

VISUALS - As a 3D game with third and first person viewpoints it's possible that some players with sensitivity to motion may be uncomfortable. There are no repetitive flashes (for example strobe lights), however there are some single frame screen flashes in one section.

CONTENT - This game contains some short references to drugs and addiction. There are no scenes incluing graphic violence.

Utopias: Navigating Without Coordinates was made by:

Find our website, including other projects and our blog at https://aaasoftwa.re

If you're a journalist or would like to write about UTOPIAS please check out our PRESSKIT.

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🕳️ Made in Berlin & Moscow.
❌ No institutions.
❌ No bosses.
❌ No budget.

Utopias is available for free. If you'd like to support us, you can choose to pay for the game or become a Patreon. Money will be put towards operating costs of the collective - for example technical infrastructure, rent for event spaces, equipment hire or occasional travel costs.

If you would like to contact us directly please write to us at mail @ aaasoftwa.re