Fruitflies

I heard about this research which found that fruit flies that have witnessed death are shunned by their peers and have shorter lives. I wondered if the same is true of humans. That's why the player and NPCs are humans rather than fruitflies.

This is one of a few experiments to set up a traditional game environment, then have the game part dissolve, leaving a space for reflection.

In this case, the player quickly learns to avoid witnessing death and usually realises the best way to do this is to hide in the corner, facing away from society.

They feel pretty happy with themselves for a minute until the realise the music has gone quiet, the visuals are faded, and they are safe but bored.

At this point, some people stay where they are and sit it out, happy to see how it plays out from a safe and uneventful distance. Others decide that they'd rather take the risk of inevitable suffering and get involved - they need to hear the music of life.

The background music is "No Use Crying" by Spencer Adams and his Orchestra (1922). Downloaded from the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/78_no-use-crying_spencer-adams-and-orchestra-hirsch_...

Extra static sound (the stuff for the silence, not what's already on the recording from 1922): vinyl_record_needle_static_01.wav by joedeshon -- https://freesound.org/s/140295/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

Huge thanks to Pippin Barr for help and comments, philosophical and technical.