'One Hour One Life' gameplay news: Multiplayer game focuses on social experiments

Screengrab from the trailer for "One Hour One Life" One Hour One Life official website

Games are becoming more than just entertainment sources and are starting to become a social experiment. This seems to be the case with "One Hour One Life," the gameplay of which puts players in a difficult dilemma reminiscent of real-life situations.

"One Hour One Life," created by Jason Rohrer, is slowly gaining momentum as a curious game about the goodwill and survival instincts of human beings. The game is set to test out the moral compass of players as well as the way they respond to responsibilities and unprofitable burdens.

The game will give one hour to 90 minutes of play time for players to make sure their character reaches old age, all the while trying to further whatever they achieve in the virtual life by raising children. These children will then be other players who respawn after dying for whatever reasons such as hunger, disease or natural causes. Every time a player dies and start over again, they will be given a new mother (another player) and will have a 50 percent chance to spawn as either male or female.

The said mother will then have to raise them until they are old enough to look after themselves or contribute to whatever community the other players may have built. The game world will also be massive in order to allow for foraging and for civilizations to grow as large as possible.

This does not mean that the game will be easy though, as cooperation is the key to survival, something which can be difficult in an online game with strangers. The biggest factor in determining survival in the game is currently hunger since the food sources are scarce and can be exhausted by other players looking to feed themselves or their children.

Each session is not necessarily limited to just one hour, but each minute usually sees the player character aging at least a year, meaning they will be a senior citizen by late game and will probably die earlier than expected depending on how the other players build up their civilizations.

"One Hour One Life" has no release date yet but will soon enter a paid alpha phase. Those interested can check out the official website.

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