TALE OF TALES

game demo project

CONCEPTS & INSPIRATION

Many versions of the "Sleeping Beauty" story seen through the eyes of the Deaf Mute Girl In A Pretty White Dress.
"8" is based on the many versions of the famous fairy tale of "Sleeping Beauty", as they appear in the narrative cultures of regions stretching from Iceland to the Middle East. The user will discover bits and pieces of these, often contradictory, versions of the story while playing. The versions we are most familiar with in the West are those by Walt Disney and the brothers Grimm. They tell the story of a King and Queen who desperately want a child. When a daughter is born, she receives talents from the fairies. A wicked fairy curses her to die from pricking her finger on a spindle. The last good fairy transforms this curse from death to sleep. Then the prince comes and wakes the princess and they marry and live happily ever after. But this is the point where many other versions of the story begin! They go one to tell about how the Prince actually raped the sleeping Princess, making her pregnant and how both the mother and the children are threatened to be eaten by the wicked wife or mother of the Prince. In one version, the Princess takes revenge by demanding that the Prince feign death just like she did. Many of the elements from these stories will be represented in the game, along with personal interpretations and additions. Since it is in the tradition of the fairy tale to retell the tale and add to it, rather than reproducing it faithfully.
The game takes place mostly inside of the walls of the Palace in the midst of the spell that put everyone asleep. Our main character is a little black girl of about 8 years old, dressed in a white dress. She cannot talk nor hear, hence we refer to her as The Deafmute Girl. She is a mysterious character and, though the user will be able to lead her through the game world (or be lead through it by her), will remain so. This in and of itself is an experiment with dramatic concepts. The user will not identify with the main character but will rather develop a relationship of a guardian or parent with it. The Deafmute Girl will sometimes do things of her own volition, beyond the control of the player, either for dramatic reasons or just to be whimsical. After all, she is a little girl.

Ecclectic mixture of styles and combining the virtual with the traditional
Inspiration for the design of the characters comes from African masks (Punu, Chokwe) and hair styles mixed with Medieval European fashion. The palace's architecture will be a blend of Islam and renaissance architecture styles. In general we will not be going for photographic realism in favor of a highly stylized style. We are trying to develop a visual grammar for virtual environments that is not based on imitation of real world environments but rather on concepts and techniques already present within the medium. For making the 3D models we try to sculpt, not clone. Brancusi and some futurist sculptors are important inspirations. Amongst other early 20th century European sculpture that attempted to develop a new aesthetic that was not based on realism but rather on the beauty of more or less abstract and/or geometric shapes. The overall feel that we are going for, on the other hand, is the one of a pre-modern painting, rather than a film. A painting that you can walk through.
For the light, we have found inspiration in 19th century orientalist paintings: "the fierce light of North Africa and the Middle East reversed northern values. Its washed out colours, banishing vibrant tints to the shadows." (John M. MacKenzie, "Orientalism", 65) In fact, the influence of orientalist painting will probably be noticable in many aspects of the game.
The sound in the game will mostly be ambient noise. There will be the sound of people sleeping and the distant crashing of waves, since the palace is built on a cliff next to the ocean. And there will probably be sounds of insects and "warm noise". Here and there key music will be used. We are considering Pergolesi's "Stabat Mater" and Van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".
Also of importance in the game's design, is the fact that we will avoid using any known language, thus making the game virtually accessible to everyone without localisation. The stories will be told through animations and communication will happen through symbols. This, we believe, will enhance the credibility of the world. And it makes narrative sense since our main character is deaf and mute. (Often, in computer games, when language is used, a certain slang is adopted, sometimes even unconsciously. Or at other times a synthetic archaic style is used. In both cases, we think language limits the imagination of the user. The credibility of many computer games is often spoiled by the Californian accent of the game's characters.)
As part of the ecclectic style, anachronisms will be used. The design of the palace will be a relatively timeless orientalist one. But in the palace, we will put more or less modern elements like clocks and perhaps replicas of contemporary art. Also the princes will be dressed in outfits that cover half a millenium of fashion history (from the 16th to the 19th century). The Engineer Prince will have left mechanical objects here and there. And we are thinking about adding sounds of distant jet airplanes and trains. The user could conclude that the palace has been asleep for 500 years. But that does not explain the young age of the children of the sleeping princess or the state of the corpses of the princes. On the other hand, 500 years would be about right to connect the palace with the present-day.
We will be using the pretext of the magical spell as a way to develop an imaginary parallel universe in which things that exist in very different times and very different places can coexist happily together.

3D Aesthetics
One of the things we will be concentrating one when creating the visuals for this project will be the development of a new aesthetic language for the medium of interactive 3D. Most 3D environments default to attempting to simulate reality, television, film or cartoons. We are interested in researching the potential of an aesthetic that respects the medium more for its own sake with its own inherent qualities rather that its more or less succesful capability of mimicking. This applies to modeling where we will attempt to work like sculptors, creating shapes that respect and exploit the possibilities that the technology offers us, rather than trying to make it do somethng it is not good at or neglecting its beneficial qualities. Another aspect will be texturing, where we will investigate the border between the necessity to deploy the simulation of textures (simulation of touch) and the myriad of other aesthetic solutions available in both 2D graphics and their application in 3D. A third matter of concern is animations: how much of reality (physics) do we need to respect to create a believable world and how much "fantasy" can we throw in until we destroy the immersive effect. And is animation really such a necessity? What about the concept of still images in 3D? Finally there is the issue of rendering or the overall look of the image: we do not accept the standard 3D attempt to make everything look photographic. We would rather look into the possibilities of making a 3D world have a kind of painterly feel to it. We will be trying to find the perfect mix between the traditional tricks of the trade of make-believe and the creation of forms that may be challenging and surprising for the spectator. We are not interested in novelty for novelty's sake. We do not want to alienate our audience, rather we want to stimulate them emotionally. We are aiming for nothing less than the sublime.


Interpretations
We try to avoid thinking about it as much as possible but the subject matter triggers many interpretations and associations in our minds, which we will briefly share here with you.
There is a socio-political side to this game. It talks about racial issues and tries to solve conflicts between different cultures. It most notably comments on the current conflicts between the Christian and Muslim worlds. And by making non-white people the main characters of the game, it also criticizes standards in game making and Western entertainment in general. This is not a finger-in-the-air "better-than-thou" attitude of ours. On the contrary: we are outspoken orientalists and are ready to receive the hypocritical Western ciriticism on orientalism.
Then there is the psychological aspect in which the game is about growing up and the relationships between parents and children. The parental conflicts between loving and leaving, between protection and stimulation. And the mutal need for affection.
The sexual interpretation is lead by the work of Marcel Duchamp, especially his "La Mariée mise a nue par ses célibataires même" of which the top half represents the untouchable yet initiating Female and the bottom the mechanical and categorized Male. We often fondly refer to the Princes in our game as the Malic Moulds. Duchamp had 9 -priest, delivery boy, gendarme, cavalryman, undertaker, servant/flunky, busboy/waiter's assistant, Station Master, Policeman- and we have 8 -Priest, Poet, Brother, Tailor, Hunter, Actor, Traveler and Engineer. The fact that one of our moulds is the princess's brother also refers to Duchamp and his love for his sister.
Then there is our criticism of modern art: Beauty has been put to sleep and because of the transgressions of authoritarian men, this sleep won't be ending any time soon. It is our task to undo the mistakes of modern art and restore the glory of Beauty so she can be ready for when the True Prince comes. (or is this a religious interpretation?...)