The Mind Being

In this interactive story, we follow a character - The Mind Being - as they travel through space and dimensions and collect information, ultimately discovering the meaning of life. 

1. The story begins in the middle of space, just moments after the Big Bang. In this first space, we meet TARS who becomes our narrator sidekick throughout the remainder of the story, and we collect various dimensional objects or keys. I was very eager to do a lesser-thought of time travel story and going back to the beginning of time was intriguing to me, especially with how it ties into dimensional existence and “God”. 
2. Next, we travel to the 5th dimension, where we learn a little more about our journey and collect a few more dimensional keys. 
3. The same occurs in the 3rd space, which is the 8th dimension. 
4. Finally, we end up in the 10th dimension where we meet “The Creator”. The Creator asks for all 10 of the dimensional keys to be handed over before allowing the player to proceed.
5. In the 5th room, we finally learn why we are on this journey in the first place. The Creator prompts the player to move onto the final room to learn more about the purpose of life.
6. This is the final space in the story. The player collects items representing various passions and purposes in life and the meaning of life is revealed to the player. 

I feel like the challenge of visual representation of an incredibly complex idea like String Theory, which doesn’t even have a clear visual representation to begin with is the ultimate mastering of the concept of abstraction. To portray the 5th and 8th dimensions, for example, I used a branching design to represent the relationships between different realities. In the various dimensional items collected throughout, the branching design illustrates how realities branch from the same start or multiple starts. I also struggled with how to connect or portray transitions between spaces but ultimately settled on two different kinds: a more physical transition that takes the player to and from a space in the same spot, and then a more literal “time travel” transition using a transition effect in the last few rooms, since it was less logical to travel chronologically then. 

Regarding the design of the game space, I wanted the player to be able to visually understand the dimension that they are in. This concept proved to be challenging at first since we can’t actually see dimensions, so I had to get creative with designing the branching visuals in order to represent various realities and concepts within that dimension. This idea of allowing the player to travel specifically through interaction with parts of the story came to me in one of the class activities when we completed the Imagineering activity.