Built Different

Built Different is a short 3D platformer with puzzles and a story about Aldar, a wealthy technologist in the Proxima Centauri planetary system. He builds an empire by taking ideas from others and hiring technicians and engineers to develop them, acquiring or suppressing new technologies according to his vision. But one thing remains beyond his reach: his mother’s digital painting, “The Silly Clown.”

The Silly Clown

The painting is a badly drawn clown image that became a popular meme on GalacticNet, where people reposted edited versions of it in different situations. It was a TFN, or “Totally Fungible Nonsense,” a way of claiming artwork through an inefficient process. Although hundreds of thousands of copies circulated online, Aldar’s mother could claim ownership of the original.

Aldar tries legal tricks, scams and emotional blackmail to get the painting from his mother. She eventually encodes it onto a holographic crystal and builds a heavily guarded, automated facility to protect it. In her will, she orders the painting destroyed after her death so her son cannot take it. To possess it, Aldar must steal it.