Many popular games are made with well-known game engines such as Unreal Engine, Unity, and Godot; But sometimes developers decide to go off the beaten track and build their game with other tools.
One of these examples is the game Roche Limit: The Death of CMK, which a young architect named Jack Street In 2022, he designed and built it entirely in PowerPoint. This game uses the unique features of PowerPoint, such as GIF support, and is different from the slides that are usually made with the software.
Roche Limit: The Death of CMK is a point-and-click adventure game developed with over 1,500 slides and 80 unique pixel-style scenes. Street drew all the frames of the game by hand and mentioned in an interview that not being able to create animations with KeyFrame in Photoshop made the design process more difficult for him. However, his ability in stop motion animation made the game very smooth and attractive in terms of visual effects.
The name of the game Roche Limit: The Death of CMK is derived from an astronomical concept called Roche Limit. The mentioned concept refers to the distance at which a celestial body such as a moon or a planet disintegrates under the influence of the gravitational force of another body. This game inspires users with an apocalyptic and scary feeling. Street said in an interview that the “horror” label was mostly used to market this work and that the game is beyond the usual horror genre.
The idea of ​​Roche Limit: The Death of CMK came from Street’s interest in abandoned places. While studying architecture, he designed an imaginary house, which later became the main location of his game. This interest in empty and abandoned spaces is well felt in the design of the game environment and its surreal feeling. He’s also inspired by classic games like Pajama Sam and artists like Anas Abdeen who draw pixel art.
One of the amazing things about Roche Limit is how creatively it uses PowerPoint. Some elements of the game, such as guide arrows that change direction in the gamer’s progress or suddenly disappear, have created a very dynamic and exciting game experience. Despite the simplicity of the crafting tool, this title offers an experience similar to classic games like Monkey Island.
Roche Limit: The Death of CMK has only one ending; But Street plans to add two more endings. Although the release time of new versions is not known, this game managed to present itself as a creative and different work. The said game not only moved the boundaries of tools like PowerPoint; Rather, it is known as one of the strange and interesting horror games.
