You have four days to put everything back in order. Love, tend to, reprimand and slay Virions until the situation is straightened out again: sorry, Laetitia.
«RUMINANT 4444» is a surreal pet game experience in which players find themselves in a wasteland called Rumina. They are forced to rear a great number of creatures, so-called Virions, within four days – each time in the same order and with the correct tools. Complete their life cycle over and over again to prevent disaster and apologise to Laetitia.
In «RUMINANT 4444» compulsive patterns become tangible – emotionally, mechanically, and at a meta level. The game focuses on their development, cyclical nature and futility from which there is no escape.
«As a ‹weird game›, ‹RUMINANT 4444› presents itself as a surreal experience. In her Bachelor’s project, Mia consistently examines the structures and behaviour patterns of phobias and compulsions, also drawing on her own biography. Both at the design and game mechanics level, she successfully translates complex states of being of the human psyche into an interactive experience.» – Excerpt supporting statement of the Subject Area Game Design
«‹RUMINANT 4444› deals with compulsions and references them at every level of the design – compulsions which are present in almost all games but are hardly ever reflected upon or turned into a conscious experience.» – Mia Buser
