Skyrise
Location
Humanities Fine Arts Building, Recital Hall
Event Website
https://2026undergraduateresearchsy.sched.com/event/2Ix7g/skyrise
Start Date
15-4-2026 5:00 PM
End Date
15-4-2026 5:45 PM
Description
This fall, I set out to explore the intersection of imperialist narratives and mechanical design, in an appropriately named project: Skyrise: Anticolonial Narrative through Mechanical Design. Despite rapid adoption and popular appeal, video games typically aren’t the subject of scholarly discussion. In my project, I thus sought to demonstrate the importance of games as art, the means through which mechanical design reinforces narrative through gameplay, and the necessity of designing games capable of moving past imperial narratives that dominate the medium. Over the course of the semester, I developed a roguelike video game, Skyrise, in which players assemble a tower out of variously themed buildings, in order to meet an ever-rising profit margin. Throughout the game’s development, I sought to incorporate a satirical examination of imperialism into the aesthetic and mechanical design choices of the game, and to more broadly intertwine the gameplay experience with the project’s narrative goals: as the game progresses, players must take an exploratory approach, learning a variety of interactions between pieces, despite the game’s misleading, single-minded focus on profit. The project’s current state includes a playable, feature-complete demo of Skyrise for one to four players, as well as rough prototypes for other projects inspired by this exploratory approach to game design. I eventually plan on publishing a collection of games, including a finished release of Skyrise.
Skyrise promotional flyer
Demo Clips 1.mp4 (6000 kB)
Demo clip 1
Demo Clips 2.mp4 (3337 kB)
Demo clip 2
Demo Clips 3.mp4 (4987 kB)
Demo clip 3
Demo Clips 4.mp4 (1319 kB)
Demo clip 4
Demo Clips 5.mp4 (3747 kB)
Demo clip 5
Demo Clips 6.mp4 (17284 kB)
Demo clip 6
Publication Date
2026
Skyrise
Humanities Fine Arts Building, Recital Hall
This fall, I set out to explore the intersection of imperialist narratives and mechanical design, in an appropriately named project: Skyrise: Anticolonial Narrative through Mechanical Design. Despite rapid adoption and popular appeal, video games typically aren’t the subject of scholarly discussion. In my project, I thus sought to demonstrate the importance of games as art, the means through which mechanical design reinforces narrative through gameplay, and the necessity of designing games capable of moving past imperial narratives that dominate the medium. Over the course of the semester, I developed a roguelike video game, Skyrise, in which players assemble a tower out of variously themed buildings, in order to meet an ever-rising profit margin. Throughout the game’s development, I sought to incorporate a satirical examination of imperialism into the aesthetic and mechanical design choices of the game, and to more broadly intertwine the gameplay experience with the project’s narrative goals: as the game progresses, players must take an exploratory approach, learning a variety of interactions between pieces, despite the game’s misleading, single-minded focus on profit. The project’s current state includes a playable, feature-complete demo of Skyrise for one to four players, as well as rough prototypes for other projects inspired by this exploratory approach to game design. I eventually plan on publishing a collection of games, including a finished release of Skyrise.
https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/urs_event/2026/oralpresentations/19
Comments
©Pierce Richards 2026