Computer games today are complex software constructs. They compute diverse layers into plausible, optionally interactive worlds. These machines are called 'Unity' or 'Unreal' today and are the operating systems (quotation from Margarete Jahrmann) or tools for game designers.
One thing has remained the same: games are created within a technical framework, within the bounds of what is possible.
Brainconsole74 is a fantasy console (like Pico8, Tic80), a video console that never existed in 1974. It is a small extension of the language 'brainfuck' developed by Urban Müller in 1993.
Brainfuck is able to compute any program with just 8 characters: with input and output ( + - < > [ ] ; . ) in one of the smallest compilers ever. BrainfuckConsole74 extends the language in the core only by one command for sound (#), one for displaying the memory on the screen (!) and one for interactive reading (;) of input like keyboard or mouse. That's it.
This minimalistic video console/computer is in a certain sense the smallest possible video console and thus becomes a meta-game: what can be done with it, how can these limitations be used? What are its conditions for game design? The consequences of these limitations are serious. Almost everything has to be rethought and as always, the old emerges in a creative new way.
It is a world that players never see. It is the world of constructions and tricks behind the games. And yet it is one of the hardest games ever.
A 'brainfuck' game in the truest sense of the word.
In brainfuckconsole74 you can even hear the sound of the code being executed. Hear the sound of brainfuck here >
