Progress Update #1: Simulacrum

So, I've been working on a few art assets for the game that I'm making right now. The game is called Simulacrum, and it's a existential exploration of reality and illusion through the lens of a 2D puzzle platformer. Anyway, I just wanted to post a quick update with some screenshots. Let me know what you think of everything so far!


One of the benefits of this being a personal project and, at that, a rather philosophical one, is that I can pretty much draw on whatever influences and include whatever references I feel like. As such, this last little bit of work has been primarily adding "figures of    disillusionment," an exceedingly pretentious epithet for historical/literary characters who were fed up with the phoniness of our day-to-day interactions and/or who were confronted with severe contradictions in terms of their idealistic view of the world and how things actually were. Thus, for your viewing pleasure, I present Nietzsche, Holden Caulfield, and Joan of Arc, along with some cherry blossom trees that I made yesterday.

J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield next to a
Japanese cherry blossom tree. These trees are
a symbol of the ephemeral in Japanese art.

Joan of Arc, likewise beneath a
Japanese cherry blossom tree. 

The level in which each of these characters features is more of an art demo than a real component of game play, though it becomes necessary to resort to this area at various times in pursuit of other goals. It is one of four "layers" of a virtual reality in which the player resides, and the player must pass through it in order to overcome obstacles that, in the other layers, are otherwise impassable. The problem is, every second that the player spends in this world visibly degenerates it: the trees shed their blossoms, the streams become polluted and dry up, those characters caught in restless deliberation decide at last and leave, others simply disappear without a trace. The world itself is meant to represent the psychological or metaphorical place wherein those who have "escaped the world" live, but it's likewise a commentary on idealism and the fleetingness of the dreams we talk ourselves in and out of throughout our lives.

Nietzsche

Now that I've thoroughly bored you, I want to touch just briefly on this week's programming endeavors. I've been working on developing a pathfinding system, which basically takes static enemies or objects and allows them to behave in a way similar to how they would act if a player were controlling them. That might seem a little bit abstract, but it's basically just writing the artificial intelligence for enemy characters so that they can walk, jump, and interact with their environments in ways that are at least pseudo-intelligent. I think AI and storytelling are kind of the next big things in video games, and really, I think they go hand in hand, so I'm excited to be working to push the limits with each of them.