Chris Jeffels, Lauri Suoperä, Aaron Frensley, Michael R. King, Mobeen Fikree / Binary Zoo / 2007 / Usa For Personal Computers

Developed as a test for its other games, Binary Zoo’s mono is a simple shooter game that makes color an integral part of gameplay. The goal is to turn the screen from black to white by shooting the circles that float around, leaving stains of color as they are destroyed. The software led to the creation of the company’s downloadable Duo, which contains more explicit references to space combat.

mono illustrates the core attributes of space shooter game genre, most epitomized by the classic video arcade games Galaga (1982) and Tempest (1981). These games owe their appeal to their harmonious blend of challenging gameplay with visually engaging patterns of abstract moving images. The space shooter genre is very much alive today in the form of downloadable games for computers and game consoles such as Geometry Wars (Bizarre Creations, 2006), the award-winning independent game Everyday Shooter (Queasy Games, 2007), and Space Giraffe, a tribute to Tempest from Jeff Minter and Llamasoft (whose Neon is shown in this exhibition).