When I was a kid, Paul Daniels was the greatest magician on Earth. He had a television show on prime time BBC, back when there was only four channels. And one of those was in Welsh because I lived too close to Cardiff.
Anyway, on this television show he’d have the nation spellbound as he told his jokes and did his magic tricks – all the while ably assisted by his wife who’s name was Deborah. One part of that show that I’m unable to find any evidence of, was called the Bunkum Booth. In which, Paul Daniels the magician would show an antiquated contraption made specifically for the amusement of a player.
Actually, to be specific, these contraptions were made to rinse the player of some money, but to have given them enough of a good time along the way that they didn’t feel like punching the owner of the Bunkum Booth.
Now I don’t know if you’re a fan of old thoughtful Greek fellas, but there was none more Greek and thoughtful than Plato. Plato had this idea that for everything that exists, there’s a perfect one somewhere that you can’t ever actually see. So you like donuts? Plato can imagine one so flippin lush that you can’t ever have it. There’s nothing wrong with Plato’s donut.
Imagine what Plato’s Bunkum Booth would look like. Man, I bet he’d have some LED’s on that shit. Flashing lights, pounding music, a challenge that was different every time… but ultimately so much fun that you wanted to jump straight back in and play again should be be unfortunate to not bring sufficient skill and luck to a game.
OK I’ve just realised, they were called Bunco Booths, not Bunkum Booths. That’s why I couldn’t find anything about them. Here’s Paul Daniels regardless
Going back to Plato’s Bunco Booth. It’s pretty much describing an arcade game. So if the Platonic ideal of a bunco booth is an arcade game, what’s the platonic ideal of an arcade game?
Obviously I’m going to try and conclude this blog post by saying that 3D Don’t Die, Mr. Robot is our interpretation of the Platonic ideal of the arcade game. The challenge in these closing paragraphs is doing this in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a wanker. Let’s see how I do!
Firstly, the Platonic Ideal arcade game should firstly have a goal so relatable that anyone from anywhere can understand it.
I heard somewhere that that funny little guy who discovered Scientology, one day he decided to take all the wisdom in the world and condense it down to 500 words. Then 100. Then 10. Then 1. The final word? “Survive”.
I’m not a fan of Scientology, and I don’t even know if that story is true at all, but one thing that life at all levels tries really hard to do is to not die, so actually I can imagine that if you did have to condense all human wisdom of how to live into one word, it probably would be survive.
If it was two words, it would be “Don’t Die.” And now you can see where I’m going with that.
Secondly, it needs to reward the player on a primal level. This is not an intellectual endeavour. There’s no time to waste when every second needs to inject as much fun as possible. Story is no good here. No, we need to look deeper for our rewards than a satisfying plot arc.
Do you know why we see in colour? It’s so we can tell what fruits are going to taste nice, and which are going to give us the squits. The single reason we are able to appreciate a rainbow? Or admire a flower bed’s beauty? We used to collect fruit or die. We’re all hunter gathering machines designed to be experts at spotting an unripe banana in Sainsbury’s at 50 meters. So what better trait to reward than our in built predilection to do what stops us from dying – collect fruit!
3DDMR is simply about not dying, and collecting fruit. Added to that, we’re throwing so many pretty colured lights about I’m quite concerned whether this is going to even run on consoles (don’t worry, it will).
As a cherry on the cake, we’ll be titillating the player’s ears with the time honoured “far too banging for its own good” ISG soundtrack and SFX – each tune and sound hand crafted for maximum euphoria and remember-berries.
Now listen, I’m not saying we’ve made the platonic ideal arcade game with 3D Don’t Die, Mr. Robot. That’s the thing is that we literally couldn’t. Only Plato can in his afterlife space arcade. But, if you were going to wishlist something on Steam which we’ve made with that concept in mind, you could do a lot worse than wishlisting 3DDMR
Infinite State Games 
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