Press Button to Make

So. Some background:

For a brief, we were taken to the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane's CBD and asked to find a piece of artwork that we identified with to create a game around. Our goal was to try and create a game from a place of appreciation, putting what that art meant to us into a game.

The piece that I wanted to base mine around was called "Breath or Echo" by Japanese artist Yuko Mohri, with music composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, an art installation that created an eerie, ambient piano noise that was projected throughout the gallery.

According to the description of the artwork, Yuko Mohri was inspired by her visits to the Hokkaido region of Japan, and in particular the forests and culture of the region.

What I read into the work was purely emotional. When I heard Ryuichi Sakamoto's music, it made me feel like I was falling, and when I pictured the forests in Hokkaido Japan (birches, pines and oaks mostly) I imagined myself flying above it. So I set out trying to make a game that captured that sensation of falling, and that presence in such a specific place and time.

And I failed miserably, and had a total creative breakdown over it. I had a bad, awful day and I burned out quite severely several weeks later as a result of the exhaustion and emotional load.

What I wound up submitting for the brief was this experience, a game about my failure to do something and how that made me feel. A pretty unorthodox response, but it's what I got.