The Reverie of Being

In 2031, In an effort to better understand the subconscious and to develop artificial intuition through machine learning, the IBM Watson team collaborated with the Max Planck Institute of Neuroscience.

The experiment involved making an interactive simulation from nothing but the data generated by the subconscious brain activity of an individual over nine months.

On October 19, the first-ever simulation of the subconscious was made.

The Reverie of Being is a short interactive audiovisual experience featuring a science fiction story which contemplates on musings on individuality and existentialism.

This is the final project for my Game Environments class at Parsons School of Design. While I was free to pursue the game in any direction, the underlying creative constraint or challenge was to tell a somewhat of an autobiographical story through the game. This was initially confusing to me until I realized that all of my work till date has been a reflection of nothing but me and how I view the world around me and my very role in it.

Often it is said that when you truly know that you are going to die, your life changes. When you come to terms with your own end, the journey to that suddenly becomes more important. Despite all attempts, we all lose agency in front of time. What happens to us might not be in our hands, but how we interpret it certainly is. Having this as the underlying idea behind the game, I set out to very much use the narrative of the game as a catharsis for me and those who have experienced similar emotions like me. While I did attempt to put my own interpretation of existence and fully poured my meaning in the game, I also tried to keep the game as much open to interpretation as possible.

I did this by attempting to tell an experimental story featuring autobiographical elements which would be open to interpretation through a combination of spatial arrangement, an atmosphere created by the visuals and the music, embodiment of the player character and most importantly, the interaction in the game or the lack of it. In closing I want to say, although I faced a lot of challenges in terms of technical issues and the project is far from perfect, I will be continuing to polish this project beyond this class. I am glad that I was able to take up the challenge and express myself through this piece.

Controls -

For Computer,

Use Mouse to look around.

Use W, A, S, D or arrow keys to move.

Press Space to Jump.

Hold Shift to run.

Xbox 360 gamepad controls-

Look around with Right joystick.

Move with Left joystick.

Press A to jump.

Hold X to run.