Nibble in Cyberspace:
#Digipres Adventures

Vol. 1

Nibble in Cyberspace: #Digipres Adventures, Volume 1


Nibble lives in cyberspace but their very reality is crumbling before them. Help Nibble fight entropy itself by following good #digipres practice - collect strategy and policy to actively tackle the degradation of the digital world around them. Along the way, avoid *all* the risks, viruses, physical damage, power surges; and try and get your score high enough to avoid the complete collapse of cyberspace.

Nibble is an infinity game. The game will eventually self-destruct, but can you prolong its existence by following good practice?

Nibble in Cyberspace teaches players that good digital preservation will help our digital materials last longer, but there is a cost to inaction as well. Players are invited to get the highest score they can before the eventual collapse of everything around.

After all, you can't beat entropy, but you can fight it as long as you try.

Click to play

Notes on game-play:

In-game memory is actively corrupted as the player hits digital preservation risks such as viruses. Memory is corrupted at random. To a limited extent the player can "put memory back" by looking for good digital preservation practices in the game. The random decay of memory is designed to demonstrate to players the effect of bit rot in real time and demonstrate how its effect will be insidious, and different every time.

Notes on format:

Those attending the session will be invited to play the game either on-screen, or on their own mobile devices. There will be an opportunity to discuss the mechanics of the game, development process, and the platform itself.

Colophon:

A Nibble is a 4-bit subset of a byte (8-bits); part of a byte.


Prior art

Via Somaya Langley Electro Online (2009) had a game entered called Lose/Lose which even garnered a reputation as malware.
Players of Lose/Lose would be warned that playing the game will likely result in files being deleted from their computer. Indeed, when baddies were destroyed in the game, the logic would identify a random file on the player's hard-disk and delete it - creating its own digital preservation dilemma!