Hi Everyone,
this is my bachelor graduation project called “When the Snow Stops Falling”.
It is a game demo about dying and dealing with grief, told mainly by interactive 3D texts.
The different stages of grief according to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross are supported by a different physical behavior of the environment (gravity).
More about the project:
The thesis of the work is “Gravitation as a visual storytelling element - for the more understandable conveyance of emotions through the environment in video games”.
The aim is to illustrate all five stages of grief according to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in a 5-10-minute playable demo, using the stylistic device ‘gravitation’. For this purpose, a 3D environment and a linear story is created, which is told by interactive 3D texts in the game world. The imparting of emotions is to be represented by the following aspects:
- Empathy to the main character through comprehensible animations,
- dynamic objects and particles that behave according to the current gravitation
- as well as a well-thought-out color and shape design
The five phases of death in which the dying person shows different behavioral patterns are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
The project is designed to only contain the essential gameplay mechanics. The player controls the character, who for design reasons has no name, gender or age, in a third-person camera through the surreal world of the game, which is becoming more and more surreal in the course of history. The phases of dying are characterized by different buildings and gravitational behaviour but are seamlessly linked with each other. The character’s design is very abstract and its head is made up of particles that also behave according to the current gravity. The types of gravity are: normal, strong and non-gravity as well as an unusual attraction to a certain axis and repulsion.
The five playable phases of the demo are rounded off by a start and end sequence. The level for the start sequence is worked out as a vertical slice of the project and thus corresponds to the quality standard.
References:
References for conveying emotions in video games include The Last Of Us and To The Moon. The reference for game design and art style is the game What Remains of Edith Finch.
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Download the Demo: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vq…IU7bo5yFRgcs24
So how do you like this idea? Do you have any questions or suggestions?
**More Screenshots **at my artstation: https://www.artstation.com/p/WLwDv and https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nQZJyK [HR][/HR]
Category: Narrative Exploration / Walking Simulator
Mode: Singleplayer
Platform: PC
Language: English
Team:
Lea Kronenberger - Game Development, Story, Game & Art Design
Ralf Marczinczik - Supervisor Design & Art
Maximilian Nemmert - Supervisor Character Framework
A Special Thanks to
Daniel Baumann
Nina Janczyk
Christian Küchmeister
and Dennis Pauly
for helping out with a lot of questions <3