Recompile

Recompile (2021) is a platform game about hacking and exploring an expansive virtual world. Drawing inspiration from the Tron film, It's a combination of a classic platform game where you progress by gaining more powers, and a narrative game with branching paths. The whole game takes place in a single second of real-time.

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As you explore the world you can discover the sprawling ruins of an old computer and the new movement abilities it offers to help you on your journey. It's running and jumping, but along the way, the choices you make affect how the game develops and whether you uncover the true nature of the mysterious virtual world.

You must decide whether to help or hinder the Mainframe computer and its inhabitants. Nothing is hardcoded, everything is systemic, and everything is fully exploitable. Logic gates can be freely inverted, overridden or disabled entirely, allowing puzzles or other threatening obstacles to be peacefully and safely bypassed. Even the inhabitants themselves can be tampered with, their programming changed to follow the player's commands.

"Recompile is a game about choices and consequences," says the developer. Playing the game is a novel way to consider these choices, and elevates the conversation towards other dichotomies: life and death, chaos and determinism, sentience and sapience.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Recompile 3 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 10 weeks ago.