Marco Project Phase 1.0

Kiki Wu
Sep 21, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Oct 1, 2019

0.0 Personal Motivation

Virtual Reality provides us with an alternative cyber environment, where we have agency to manipulate the rules, objects, aesthetics and perspectives. On one hand, we can augment/enhance our experience in the ground reality in a simulation world.

On the other hand, we can also challenge and extend our physical ability to explore a new fantasy. For this project, I want to create a fantasy world derived from our familiar ground reality, and build an escape-room + simulation themed game, featuring the realistic and explorative atmosphere with visual boundary.

1.0 Brief Description

Have you ever wonder how yeast and other micro creatures living in a bread dough during the fermentation? Is it just the magic of time and temperature? Perhaps, every single yeast is very much like human beings in this fast-paced society: work really hard and seek for the answers of where we are from and where we will be.

Under the just right temperature and humidity, this little yeast wakes up somewhere in a soft dough, and he suddenly realizes he needs to escape the dough for...maybe...the reason why he was brought here, or just curiosity. However, it is always not that easy to get out, and he has to collect information from this chaotic environment and use resources smartly during his escape...

2.0 Initial Assets (continue on Phrase 2.0)

Currently, I am also writing an old-school text-based Interactive Fiction for this narrative, so I will focus more on the story and logics itself at this point. After doing some research on bread fermentation, I have abstracted a list of variables as building blocks: Yeast, Sugar, Flour (Flower), Alcohol, Fat, Gluten Wall, Baker's Voice... (TBD). I have also drawn a simple grid as the initial game map, dividing areas and props arrangements.

STORY MAP ITERATION (will be continuing):

Try 1.0 -- I wrote both the story and the puzzles simultaneously, and I tried to pen down all of my little sparks. Of course, I won't get it right at the first time and I didn't finish the story, but I became clearer about the long-term and short-term gaming goals, as well as the type of puzzles I hope to insert.

Try 2.0 -- Further inspired by Ron Gilbert's article on puzzle design, I adopted his method of "Puzzle Dependency Chart" and finished the draft for a complete puzzle-only flow chart.