Chimera
Concept, Design, Development
As initially conceived this two week prototype was going to be a narrative in complete darkness but as I began laying out the level I found myself growing attached to the feedback opportunities that visuals allow. I still wanted an opportunity to experiment with audio so I used Unity's 3D sounds, particularly playing with the doppler effect. This prototype has one level of three that are planned - representing the shamanic journey including the underworld, middle world and upper world - and each level will unlock narrative specific to a question the user has selected to begin the experience. Thanks Sam and Adriano at Playcrafting and special thanks to Carmine Guida for helping with the trickier bits of code.
Inspiration
Initially I wanted to map internal dialog in a non-visual space but as I designed the level I started relating to the concept more to the shamanic journey, and my own experiences with ayahuasca and shamanic meditation, which influenced the look and feel. The color and lo-poly idealization of the landscape are similar to what I see during meditation.
The Story
When journeying a shaman will often enter the meditation/dream state with a question in mind. Eventually, in Chimera, the user will be able to select a question at the beginning of the experience and unlock dialog in each of the three levels that relates to internal dialog, the influence of others and the environment.
