This Year’s GaMaYo is being held at Project House, Leeds where 38 games are demoing, with 300+ developers, game industry publishers, investors and platforms in attendance. Don’t miss all the demos in this event’s 24th run!

This event is brought to you by Game Republic along with their Official Partners Barclays Games and Creative, Plus Accounting and Red Kite Games

Today we are looking at ‘MORSE’ which is confirmed to be at the event, from Alex Johansson!

MORSE by Alex Johansson

What would be your description of your game?

MORSE is a minimalist strategy game that teaches the player the lost language of Morse Code through combat, using timing, tactics and telegraphy to vanquish the Kaisers Imperial Fleet. The game is controlled with just two buttons, Morse and fire and involves revealing, targeting and eliminating enemy vessels on a grid of ever changing words and numbers.

The game in exhibition has a special format in that it is played on a telegraph key and a launch button, uses a pair of 1930’s telegraphist headphones and features a vibrant rope of LEDs that display what Morse messages the player is sending. The game will be releasing later this year and will have a demo released in the next couple of months.

How did development start? (Were there any key inspirations or ideas that drove you?)

Development started from a peculiar source: I was experimenting with a clothes peg during a workshop and realised that it would make a good telegraph key, designed a controller then built a game to play it with. More broadly, the era of telegraphy has such a fascinating history and its interesting that even though its use is diminished, millions of people still know how to communicate with the language. Since that initial clothes peg prototype, the game and controller has gone through several iterations and been toured around the world and won awards in experimental games design.

Tell us about the team behind the game!

Whilst the project has had larger teams of collaborators, (it’s been in development for almost ten years at this point in many forms!) this current iterations features the work of myself (games design) and Luke Smith (Music and sound). I also created the alternative controller for the game.

What kind of experiences do you hope to bring players?

In terms of what experiences it gives players, as an educator I want to teach players a new language. I particularly have an interest in encouraging players to design their own alternative controllers for operating the game. With it just being two keys, it’s possible to play the game by wiring up a telegraph, I’ve already tried the game with two different types of telegraph key! As part of that I’ve been recently in touch with the Radio Society of Great Britain who I’m hoping to collaborate with.

In 10 words or less, highlight the appeal of the game!

.–. .-.. .- -.– .. -. –. / — — .-. … . / — . .- -. … / -.– — ..- / -.-. .- -. / .-. . .- -.. / .– …. .- – / – …. .. … / … . -. – . -. -.-. . / … .- -.– … -.-.–