Panoramic view of game as played, showing entrance into a solid space. Elements built in Rhinoceros and imported to Unity Engine.
Descent | Architectural Gamespace
This conceptual studio, sited in an experimental 360° projection room on Rensselaer’s campus, began with the prompt to design an immersive game allowing players to inhabit and experience spatial conditions that would be difficult or impossible to achieve in physical three-dimensional space. The resulting project began through experimentation with the relationship between solid and void and, more specifically, what a space might look like if that relationship began to break down. This manifested as a labyrinthine series of alternating spaces and interstitial passages between said spaces, with the goal of the game to descend through the structure and escape it.
Game as played
Diagram of installation space
This journey through the voids of the spaces is facilitated by the solid objects interspersed throughout, which the player is able to phase into and enter. Once inside the solid, the player is able to view the game world through different eyes, with color cues either giving clues towards the player’s progression or allowing that progression to occur. As the player descends through the interstitial spaces, strategic translucency and cuts in the passages allow glimpses of the exterior of the structure, which eventually culminate in the escape, in which the player is rewarded with an unshuttered view of the labyrinth that has just been successfully navigated. This project was a two-person effort.
Diagrammatic section of gamespace
Screenshots of game in panoramic view (Unity Engine, formatted for projection screen)
