The Dead Mall Blues
A downloadable game
2024. A freakishly severe storm forces you to take shelter in the local mall. You haven’t stepped foot in it for years, and honestly you didn’t think it was even still open. Looking around at the empty space, you might be right. What happened here?
1994. The thunder outside is drowned out by the sounds of people enjoying their time in the mall. As you walk through it, it feels like the good times will go on forever.
2014. A tornado warning sends you into the mall to seek shelter. Instead, you find yourself in the middle of an event that will change the town forever.
The Dead Mall Blues is an asynchronous mapmaking game for 1-3 players in which players tell the story of a Midwestern town by charting the changes of the local mall. Each player takes turns making the map of the mall during their time period, finding moments that intersect through the years.
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I am intrigued by map-making games. I know it’s a short-term jam project, and it makes me wonder at the opportunities afforded by the theme. What is it about malls that makes them interesting, and how do the formal systems of a mall impact the narrative aspects of them? For example, the architecture of a mall is intentional, and the times I spent as a teenager in the mall were influenced by the architectural and commercial design.
It would be interesting to iterate on this design and see what would make it capture the essence of the theme such that it could be evoked to younger people who don’t remember the time of mallrats.
Thanks, that's why I thought even just for this iteration it was important that it wasn't just making a map of the current day space but to also think back to how it was meant to be enjoyed.
A further step would possibly involve replacing the randomization of a map-making game with more of a "tycoon" sort of mechanic, where the layout is intentional, and then tracking its decay over the course of the play session.
made me think fondly back to the defunct, run-down mall i used to go to :') thanks for this great game!!
Thank you!
I used to work in a record store in a small-town mall, so I'm glad the genuine affection shone through.
This is lovely! It's hard to get people to play games like this with me but I might do a journal run of it this weekend! I love journaling games anyway.
Thank you so much for checking out my game, and for the donation as well 😊
I hope it inspires a great story