What would you give for love?
Premise
The Eve asks players the question of ‘What would you give for love?’ and allows them to answer it through gameplay. As a 2D platformer, players start this game where most games end; a brave young hero enters the final castle where the evil boss holds the princess. After overcoming the ‘final’ challenge, the player is not rewarded with the princess, but is instead seperated from her once again. To get to the place where the princess is held, the player must travel through various lands representing the aspects of the player’s character that holds him back from being with the princess. Things like lust, pride, and vanity.
Gameplay
At the end of each of these levels the player must give up some part of himself, proving that he will give anything for love. This results in the player losing one of the character’s powerful abilities. By using a degrade system (as opposed to an upgrade), players choose how they make the game more challenging to themselves. Some players will overcome all the difficult challenges, but other players may discover something else about themselves. Maybe it’s not worth it to give it all up. Or maybe, there is something better to gain.
Dynamical Meaning
The Eve provides a space for players to answer their own questions through the technique of dynamical meaning as defined by Jonathan Blow. Nearly every single aspect of the game has relevance to the overall theme and meaning of the game. That being said, The Eve is interpretive, as most interactive experiences are, and provides different messages to different players. There are four endings in The Eve, but neither of them are good or bad, they are just different. We believe this to take advantage of gaming as a medium, allowing a conversation (through interaction) about a topic as opposed to the traditional method of presenting a message as often seen in film, books, and music.
Development
The Eve was developed in Multimedia Fusion 2 over a 4 month period. I had the pleasure of working with Husam Al-Ziab, Mike Fowler, and Alex Gustafson on this project. We used a multitude of programs to develop this game:
Photoshop, Maya, Flash, FL Studio, and, SFXR.
I filled the roles of Creative Director, Engineer, and Composer on this project. My duties included:
Programming the game
Designing workflows and pipelines for art integration and level creation
Composing the soundtrack
Working with team members to make design, narrative, and presentation decisions.
Managing the creative vision of The Eve