A Short, Short Spiritual Dance - 2020
Role: Indie Developer, My First Project
A Short, Short Spiritual Dance was my first original production after my online courses about Unity2D in collaboration with my friend from New York University, with the gaming mechanism not utilizing any previously designated prototypes. It features the adventure of a lost young Maori warrior and his ventures to return home into the forests of New Zealand. As he encounters various tribesmen who met him with hostile reactions, he must learn to reproduce the iconic tribal Haka of these clansmen to be accepted and allowed safe passage through.
As a history student, I took a particular interest in the development of ideologies, and how these “superstructures” can dominate culture, cognizance, and memory. As I travelled across different cultural spheres with rivalling world views, there was an active struggle for me to identify with any political ideas, and I felt an invisible pressure that dictated my behaviours and obscured who I was.
The game’s art design points in two different directions: The adaptation of Oceanian aboriginal art and the use of a single scene for all the levels. Aesthetically, I incorporated the style of Maori paintings and patterns in the design of my game space. The terrain is divided into different layers featuring the foreground, mid-ground, and background, with iconic all-hand-drawn Maori patterns and colours covering the entire terrain.
In terms of level design, the game features an entire uninterrupted scene that is divided into different levels based on different terrains and the tribes associated with it. This enhances the concept of “travel” mentioned above and strikes a discord between the continuation of nature against the divided nature of the hostile tribes.
To me, A Short, Short Spiritual Dance is an unforgettable experience. It is the first time I was able to develop an entire project based on a single concept, that is built upon and enriched. Despite its defects, un-refined nature, it serves as one of the most fundamental milestones of my Game Design journey.