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Arcade › LIFE//SHIFT
LIFE//SHIFT
About LIFE//SHIFT
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How to play
Click the game above and it runs right here in your browser. No download, no installer, no account needed. John James built it with Cinevva, so it works on a phone or a tablet too.
Discussion
Nobody has said anything about LIFE//SHIFT yet. Play it, then tell John James what you would add next.
Make your own game
LIFE//SHIFT was built by John James with the Cinevva game creator: describe the game you want in chat, watch it get built, and play it in your browser minutes later.
Remix LIFE//SHIFT opens the real game in the creator and forks its actual files, chat and design doc, so you start from the code rather than from a description.
Read the build brief for LIFE//SHIFT
Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.
Create a browser-playable 3D third-person exploration game titled “LIFE//SHIFT.” Use Three.js-style rendering with a dark blue-black evening atmosphere, fog, soft shadows, and a low-poly/blocky visual style. The camera should be a perspective third-person camera following the player at about 8 units distance, with WASD or arrow-key movement, Shift to run, and Space to jump; also provide mobile-friendly Talk/Interact and LIFE SHIFT buttons. Build a large flat city environment: dark charcoal roads arranged as a grid crossing a green ground plane, simple sidewalks/curbs, scattered benches, many low-poly spherical-canopy trees with brown trunks, and distant block buildings. Include named blocky buildings/landmarks such as towers, apartments, a hospital, bank, nightclub, hotel, police station, market hall, industrial hall, train station, and villa, using dark, glass-blue, brick-red, gray, and yellow materials. Place a taxi near the starting area that slowly circles/moves over time. Populate the city with animated low-poly human NPCs and additional anonymous pedestrians/citizens. Important named characters are Marcus (taxi driver), Daniel (line cook), Maria (bank teller), Iris (paramedic), Lena (nightclub owner), Victor (police officer), Omar (mechanic), Nia (courier), Officer Vale (detective), and Jules (hotel manager), each with a job, location, personality, goal, secret, money, and personal problem shown in the Life Map once discovered. NPCs should idle and gently wander around their home positions; crowd pedestrians should wander more widely. The core mechanic is “LIFE SHIFT”: the player starts as YOU, a new arrival with $48, health 100, reputation 0, and an objective to explore and earn enough to stay afloat. Walk close to a person and press E/Talk to discover them and receive a short dialogue/toast. Marcus’s first interaction advances the thread and says: “People pay for rides. Sometimes they pay for silence.” Other interactions reveal concise character/job/problem information; Victor warns the player about Marcus. After a character has been discovered, stand near them and press Q or use the LIFE SHIFT button to shift into that person. Show a toast such as “LIFE SHIFT: You are now Marcus, Taxi driver. The city kept moving.” For this implementation, shifting changes the active identity/UI and moves the player to the NPC’s location; shifting again returns to YOU and preserves memories. When active as Marcus, pressing F awards
