Mind Diver
Released
Play on: Steam (student version), Steam (full version)
After completing DADIU (loved this course) in Denmark, I joined Victor to help on his thesis game with programming and prototyping. The idea was as follows: narrative driven game; unique photogrammetry aesthetic to give a fragmented “memory-like” vibe; puzzles akin to Return of the Obra Dinn.
This was the first time my role was mostly prototyping, which I’m not really an expert at, though I found it quite fun due to the team focusing on the development process and tight feedback loops. We tried many funky mechanics, such as gliders (I copied a bit of this logic to Exer Gale :D), memory streams, graph-like puzzles and similar. We used and abused Scriptable Events in this version of the game.
The star of the show, of course, is the 3D photogrammetry scans mostly done with Polycam for this version. I recall optimizing the 3D assets was quite painful, especially when the levels grew large.
After the project was released, Victor formed a small studio called Indoor Sunglasses where they continued development on the game. Make sure to try the full version on Steam.
Oh, by the way, the game got nominated at IGF 2023 - Mind Diver and A MAZE. 2023 Berlin - Mind Diver.