Project Proposal - Below is a re-write of our project proposal, with extra research added in...

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In The Tower of Babel, players explore a futuristic cityscape in which all know languages have been lost. The main aim for players is to unlock an ancient, towering centerpiece that answers the question: where have all the languages gone, and why did they disappear?

Evidently, our game is based on an old Bible story centered on the city of Babylon that aims to explain why people speak different languages. According to the myth of ‘The Tower of Babel’, a group of travellers bands together after the Great Flood to build a tower that escapes the rising water and reaches God in Heaven. Insulted by the idea of people wanting to escape the flood to confront him, and thereby death, God scrambles their words so that they can no longer understand each other and no longer build. He then scatters them globally where they spread their new languages amongst other civilians. This has also been used to explain why there’s so much conflict in the world today - language was built from God's anger

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The type of essential experience we are aiming for is to give players feelings of power and autonomy via atmospheric exploration and learning, in a world in which this would have previously been unheard of (Schell, J. (2018). Art Of Game Design.)

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Our game focuses on storytelling and discovery, rather than replayability.

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Players find four hidden ‘word-keys’ in this environment, which when said in a sentence using a Voice Controller, unlocks the tower of babel at the centre of the world. Our world contains three main areas: the suburbs, the inner-city, and The Tower Word-keys will be present in both the suburb and inner-city; spread across their respective spaces. Players may travel throughout these spaces as they wish. The closer players are to The Tower, the more dilapidated the area becomes.

 

Word-keys are not explicitly signposted, but rather, a player is directed to them using spatial sound and a series of old-world TVs and Radios placed in the environment. TVs and Radios will play low levels of static and hushed voices, but the closer a player is to finding a word-key, the more frequent and louder these become. These objects will be based on old-style sets and will be contrasted enough within the futuristic environment to successfully visually guide a player. The main asset containing a word-key will play music that can be heard dependant on how close a player is - it will echo through the land. If a player is directly near this asset, static and hushed voices will cease, or most likely will be simply drowned out. When a player collects the word-key, music will crescendo and stop. Music produced from these 4 assets will majorly be the same piece, however, assets in the suburbs will have techno elements added post-processing, whereas, in the inner-city, it will be fully orchestral. Each music piece will sound muffled and scratchy as though it was actually playing from these ancient assets.

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The Tower will have no music playing from it. Instead, it will play loud levels of static and overlapping voices. We are hoping to add enough voices without the use of effects so that it's indiscernible to a player (grasping onto the idea that language has once existed, but it is now lost). We aim to give The Tower a repulsive, foreboding vibe - players DO NOT want to go towards The Tower, but will eventually work out this is exactly where they need to go.​

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- Recommended for players aged 13 and up - while younger players can participate in gameplay, it may be difficult to traverse the environment and look for word keys if players are younger

- A philosophical, explorative narrative will most likely appeal to a mature audience

- ESRB- Teen (some environmental assets will allude to gambling and violent crime)

- PEGI- 12

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The main competition includes games such as Stray (2022) in terms of its exploratory experience, Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) in terms of its highly stylized nature, and The Talos Principle (2014) in terms of its puzzles and philosophical storytelling.

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Unlike Stray, The Tower of Babel will contain completely unguided exploration; players may take as long as they wish within the game without being pushed forward. They may progress the story at their own pace. Unlike Cyberpunk and Stray, The Tower of Babel will feature PS1-inspired shaders. Rather than being highly polished and first-person, we will have grainy textures and fixed camera perspectives above a player that are automatically selected as a player moves. Unlike The Talos Principle, The Tower of Babel will solely feature one story - the story of Babylon - rather than hundreds of myths and legends. Our game will also only reveal the true story at the end, once players enter The Tower, where in The Talos Principle, these are present and labeled throughout via NPCs.

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Gameplay loops:

Activity and Risk: In The Tower of Babel, players explore a space and find word-keys to unlock The Tower at the centre of the map. There are 4 word-keys that create a sentence for the player to say to unlock The Tower. There are no enemies in-game, and no way to die, so the risk is that players do not find the word-keys they need.

Reward: Players answer the key question of the game - where did all the words go? They get to open The Tower - a foreboding piece visible throughout the game - and literally unlock all the answers.

Opportunity: Players can explore new areas and experience layers of satisfaction throughout the game.

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Planned Gallery and Museums visits:

- Tate Modern: Media Networks exhibition

- Design Museum: Designer Maker User exhibition

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Game Goals:

• Unity game: 3D, third-person game POV exploring the surrounding areas and gaining knowledge from gathering forgotten words to unlock the centerpiece in the city.

• Arcade Event: Showcasing the game project at the London Event while people can experience our game.

Functional Specifics:

• Unity

• Trello

• Blender

• Procreate

• GIMP / Photoshop

• PC with mouse and keyboard, or controller

• Microphone \/

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We want players to be able to use their microphone with a Voice Controller to unlock The Tower. Players will be able to speak their ‘word-keys’ in order to gain access as if they have rediscovered the language of the world. As of January, we are unsure how to implement this. It was suggested that we take this process in steps - first work out how to allow Unity to register sound to move an object, rather than diving straight into having the software comprehend what is being said. It may be that, because of our world design, players always get the sentence right and comprehension isn't necessary. For players, the exciting aspect is working out that the game can register their voices in contrast to getting the sentence correct. This will need to be tested greatly.

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Inspiration: 

Our main source of inspiration has been Babel, at the Tate Modern, and lost languages in my game. The installation, Babel, takes the form of a circular tower made from hundreds of second-hand analogue radios. The radios are each tuned to different stations and are adjusted to the minimum volume at which they can still be heard. Despite this, no radio station can be heard over another - the cacophony of voices becomes incomprehensible to the viewer. I attended this exhibition just before starting phase 4, and it has inspired us GREATLY. I had no idea the piece was called Babel, and that the main body was actually made of radios, until after we had decided on a name and theme for our game. I sort of drifted through the room, as it was something I had seen before. After researching, the loud, overlapping voices in a large tower at the centre of space are now something we are going to try to implement into our final game - as is the use of radios throughout the environment.

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Art Direction:

As a team, a lot of research was done when deciding which kind of art style to follow. While the original myth of The Tower of Babylon is set in a period of time BC, we wanted it to be clear to our players that this world was set in a dystopic, far-future land - a land that held a darker secret - whilst encouraging exploration. We wanted our players to feel trapped and contained, as though they wanted to escape this space.

We decided that our main space would have a cyber-aesthetic that would slowly disintegrate as a player got to The Tower at the centre of the map. As stated in our Abstract, the Main assets that would guide a player would have a much older look - hinting at a world unknown to the player that previously occupied the space.

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Our player will begin in The Suburbs. This is the very outer edge of the map and is designed to be most appealing to the player. It will feature bright, neon signs, tall buildings, and secondary assets that allude to a bustling community. Our world features no words but we’re hoping to use pictorials and signs to show our community is not as nice as it may seem - anti-government propaganda, gambling posters, remnants of violent crime scenes, and hints toward homelessness will be prevalent throughout. Our main aesthetics present in The Suburbs will be Vaporwave and Sythwave. Synthwave visuals draw a lot of inspiration from graphics often seen during the '80s, such as sunset graphics, neon grids, neon lights, '80s sports cars, wireframe vector graphics, pixel art that is designed to look like an old-school 8-bit video game, video cassettes, arcades, malls, etc. Vaporwave is similar to this in its visuals. Synthwave is solely about the look which it glamorises, while vaporwave is focussed on an agenda and movement too. Vaporwave aims to take an ironic view of modern consumerism and the soulless glamour of late capitalism - using neon lights and signs in an attempt to promote this.

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As the player travels towards The Inner-city, the picturesque scenery slowly disintegrates. Lights begin to flicker, signs fall, and there is a general sense of disarray in the space. This area will be a lot more industrial - filled with construction and half-finished buildings - as the Inner-city is much less densely populated. This is a space no one wants to be in. There is also a greater amount of ‘old-world’ assets; as though they have been left behind from a previous era.

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The Tower will be the focal point of our world. It will rise above all other assets and will centre in a mostly empty space after the Inner-city. As stated in our Abstract, We aim to give The Tower a repulsive, foreboding vibe - players DO NOT want to go towards The Tower, but will eventually work out this is exactly where they need to go. The Tower will have a mix of the vaporwave aesthetic and the aesthetic present in the Inner-city. The higher up The Tower, the less complete it appears.

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In the world, players will be guided by old-world assets that hint towards a time before them when words existed. These assets will have a much different look to the world - they will be in dull/muted colours and will generally look out of place in the space they occupy. They will increase in frequency as a player gets closer to word-keys and this, alongside sound, will guide a player.

 

Style:

As stated in our Competitive Analysis, we aim to have a PS1 shader that will texture a low-poly environment. We wanted The Tower of babel to be separate in its style from its competitors and found this to be a good way. The neon signs present in The Suburbs translate well in this style, and the grainy-nature is perfect for our inner-city and The Tower.

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Sound Design:

The main sounds present in our game would be considered Foley sounds:

• Sounds of residents in our world going about day-to-day life (despite never being seen) and player actions

• the Tower of Babel will play overlapping voices and static sounds (hopefully not discernable to a player because of their sheer volume). This idea links to the fact that words and languages are not understood in our world, despite being heard

Sounds playing from TVs and radios that guide a player will have static sounds, as well as orchestral music from throughout the ages that signify the main word-containing source. In each case, sounds will increase in volume depending on how close a player is to the object.

We also hoped to allow a player to use their voice to unlock The Tower, however, we haven’t looked very far into this idea yet. As stated above, It was suggested that we take this process in steps - first work out how to allow Unity to register sound to move an object, rather than diving straight into having the software comprehend what is being said. It may be that, because of our world design, players always get the sentence right and comprehension isn't necessary. For players, the exciting aspect is working out that the game can register their voices in contrast to getting the sentence correct. This will need to be tested greatly.