Shoplifting 2
Shoplifting 2 is a modification of the Medieval fantasy videogame Baldur’s Gate II, which is transformed into to a strategy game where players try to survive in a shopping center by stealthily shoplifting products. Unlike most asset management games, Shoplifting 2 does not encourage players to produce anything or purchase goods, but instead rewards the subversion of this typical economic structure.
Shoplifting 2 is a stealth-based and a strategy videogame in which a group of characters, recently cast out of the Forgotten Realms, are doomed to underground life in our contemporary world and need to survive in a shopping centre.
The game therefore consists in shoplifting all sorts of products from the different shops.
Shoplifting 2 subverts the mechanism of many asset management games, since here the gameplay involves getting the goods and money WITHOUT PRODUCING ANYTHING nor BUYING THE GOODS.
The game drives us to the every day situation in which our interior self- this fantastic hero generated by our subjectivity, intoxicated by the food of advertisement: ‘cause I worth it’- is confronted with the function that the consumer sistem asigns to us.
The Shoplifter is born from the existential tensions between the hero and the consumer.
Shoplifting 2 is a total conversion of Baldur’s Gate II (this game must have previously been installed), it uses the Infinity Engine to create a completely new game. The interface has been modified to fit the new game system, and the settings of medieval fantasy have been replaced by others close to the contemporary consumer fantasy world. The tools used to make the conversion are those developed by the huge modder’s community of the Infinity Engine, so Shoplifting 2 is also moddifiable and expandable.
Shoplifting 2 is freely available to download from the web of the project (www.shoplifting2.com) in english and spanish. The game manual, an artist edition, is also available for free in either the printed or the pdf version.