Game Design + Interaction + Storytelling
Midas
Learn an age old story by living it; the tale of King Midas. An interactive experience of King Midas' story and Phrygia
DURATION:
Oct 2019, 1.5 weeks
SKILLS:
Unity, Game-play
MY ROLE:
End to end product development and evaluation
Using the Unity Real-Time Development Platform, I recreated the setting of the story of the Greek King Midas. Whatever King Midas touched, turned into gold. Focusing on this quality, I coded in the interactions that would trigger the transformations of objects into gold just as is said to happen when king Midas touched objects.
The player is dropped right in the middle of Midas's world with his powers to transform objects into gold. It is a new way to not just learn a new story but to experience it. An experience like this can also, with time, be converted into real spaces through VR software.
The visuals are made to look like the audience has been dropped into a storybook. The fruits are large and the platform and plants are floating, all of these take advantage of the physics-defying imaginative qualities presented to us by a digital medium.
The Player lands at the top of a staircase and makes their way onto the open platform. The spotlights guide the player's movement. Every time the player gets too close to certain objects, such as the fruit, bread and, later, the plants, they turn to gold. The fruit and bread are sent to the river which is where the running water turns them back to their original form as per the story.
The Landscape of the game is based on that of Phrygia, where King Midas is said to have lived. The furnishings and the colouring is an effort to make the players transportation as close as possible to the setting of the story.