Muna- A digital interactive narrative on water in the context of stepwells

DEGREE PROJECT Muna A digital interactive narrative on water in the context of stepwells Sponsor : Living Waters Museum, Ahmedabad

Volume : 1 of 1 STUDENT : BRITTO N PROGRAMME : Bachelor of Design (B. Des)

GUIDE : JONAK DAS

2019 COMMUNICATION DESIGN FACULTY (EXHIBITION DESIGN)

The Evaluation Jury recommends BRITTO N for the

Degree of the National Institute of Design COMMUNICATION DESIGN(EXHIBITION DESIGN)

herewith, for the project titled "MUNA- A digital interactive narrative on water in the context of stepwells" on fulfilling the further requirements by*

Chairman Members :

Jury Grade : *Subsequent remarks regarding fulfilling the requirements : This Project has been completed in ________________ weeks.

Activity Chairperson, Education

COPYRIGHT ©2019- 2020

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

ORIGINALITY STATEMENT

Student Document publication meant for private circulation only.

I hereby grant the National Institute of Design (NID), the right to archive & to make available my graduation project /thesis/description in whole or in part in the institutes Knowledge Management Centre in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, subject to the provisions of the copyright act. I have either used no substantial portion of copyright material in my document or I have obtained permission to use copyright material.

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work & it contains no full or substantial copy of previouslypublished material or it doesn’t even contain substantial pro- portions of materials which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of any other educational institution, except where dueacknowledgement is made in this graduation project. Moreover I also declare that no one of the concepts are borrowed or copied without dueacknowledgement. I further declare that the intellectual content of this graduation project is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design & conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. This graduation project (or part of it) was not and will not be submitted as assessed work in any other academic course.

All rights reserved.

Bachelor of Design, Exhibition Design, 2015-2019 National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India.

No part of this document will be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means including photocopying, xerography, photography and video recording without written permission from the publisher, Britto N and The National Institute of Design.

All illustrations, visualisations, drawing and the photographs in this document are Copyright © by respective people/organisations.

Edited and Designed by: Britto N paulcarnelious125@gmail.com Processed at: The National Institute of Design (NID) Paldi, Ahmedabad - 380007 Gujarat, India. www.nid.edu

Student name in full : Britto N Signature : Date :

Student name in full : Britto N Signature : Date :

Acknowledgment At NID I would like to thank our pillars of Exhibition Design, Jonak Das and Tanishka Kachru for their constant guidance and support throughout these 3 years. I always have admired the way they exhibit themselves calm and composed all the time, even though they would be surrounded by tons of work. I wish to express my sincere thanks to Jonak Das, for his expert guidance and continuous encouragement and support through the duration of this final project. Thanks for trusting in me during the hardest situations of the project. Mayank, Muntaha for making my Pavilion Design DP the most memorable one. And all the faculties, visiting faculties, Jury members, for sharing their knowledge and insights.

Then my batchmates for always being there when needed and for all the fun times.

I am very grateful for the Alif family, Sudipta, Pallavi, Siddhant, Partha, Praful, Aaroolya, Balaram and occasional visitors for these lovely months of staying and sharing together. My Seniors and Juniors who made my NID life much bigger and more memorable. All my junior friends who had been around and helping me out in this project in different ways. My PG friends for those conversations, wise advice and motivations.

Lalu’s support through his chai and Jayanti’s support by bringing it to my table every day. All the guards who waited for a few minutes to a few hours more till we finished our work late nights. I am really grateful for each and everyone who had been around and made my every day at NID, happening! All the people who I missed mentioning, I am really sorry and I owe you a chai or Ice tea.

At Living Waters Museum

ENUGIS(ED UG 15)

I would like to thank Sara Ahmed, the founder of LWM, for giving the opportunity to work on this interesting project. I thank her for the full creative freedom she gave me in the Project. It helped me a lot in exploring myself throughout the duration.

I would like to thank Bhargav, my colleague for his useful feedbacks and constant mentorship.

I thank Priyanka Kumari for her insights which helped a lot. Vijay, Saif, Aanchal and all other friends at LWM for the insightful fun chai times.

I can’t explain how embarrassing it is when I think that I won’t be able to talk much about you guys. I am sorry but when I was writing this I was under so much pressure to submit this doc that I was not able to think properly. But one thing I want to tell you all: Akshay, KG, Vave, Shristi, Vishwa, Jessica, Aniruddh, Komal, Shubhangi and Yatharth. That first week of Exhibition design, after that performance at Old Canteen,our life’s first experience of working together as a team, I was at the top of my happiness that I have got the best batch to spend the rest of my years in NID. Hope that explains it all. Love you guys!

Thanks Akshay, for this iconic graffiti of all of us on our lockers. We shall keep it in our future ‘ENUGIS’ studio.

6

7

National Institute of Design

The Indian Report, submitted by Charles and Ray Eames laid the underlying spirit for the founding of the National Institute of Design and design education in India. NID was thus set up in 1961 under the philosophy of the Bauhaus Design movement, learning by doing with a problemsolving design consciousness that linked learning with actual experience, and suggested that a designer could be a bridge between traditions and modernity.

Having entered the 6th decade of design excellence, NID has been playing an active and pivotal role in shaping the realm of design in India. Internationally acclaimed as one of the foremost multi-disciplinary institutions in the field of design education and research, NID is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. NID has been declared ‘Institution of National Importance’ by the Act of Parliament, by virtue of the National Institute of Design Act 2014. It is alsorecognized by the Deptartment of 8

Synopsis

Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India as a Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.The overall structure of NID’s program consists a combination of theory, skills, design projects, and field experiences. Sponsored design projects, transdisciplinary courses and inspiring visiting faculties provide professional as well as ground experience.

The social learning pedagogy, “learning by doing” creates an environment between peers, faculty and management that provides opportunities to develop and connect design abilities and theoretical dimensions within historical, cultural and social context. Thus, stimulating independent critical judgement and locating individual design approaches to unravel our agency as designers and pursue innovation led designs professionally. With interdisciplinary design studies it aims to widen the students’ horizons and increase general awareness of contemporary issues.

NID is a unique institution with many problemsolving capabilities, depths of intellect and a time-tested creative educational culture in promoting design competencies and setting standards of design education. The rigorous development of the designer’s skills and knowledge through a process of ‘hands on-minds on’ is what makes the difference.

This document narrates the journey I took for designing a digital interactive experience on the stepwells of Ahmedabad. This project was sponsored by Living Waters Museum (LWM) based in Ahmedabad. The Sponsor’s vision behind this project was to create an experience to explore a fictional world, which narrates and triggers thoughts on the cultural transitions of water, in the context of stepwells.

The primary target audience proposed by the sponsor was young children between 10 - 14 years old, but open for all global audience of all age groups.

The project started with wide research on understanding the context of stepwells, their journey from a Millenium ago till present.

Also, the role water played in the thriving of the stepwells and a look into the scenario of water at present.

Then research on understanding the medium was done.

Being a game devotee myself the initial understanding from the brief, was to have a gamified experience to engage young people.

So video games were looked into and inspiring games were studied to come up with a suitable nature of experience, for the project.

A workshop on game development for a social cause, at Hyderabad, was attended during the project. Learnings from the workshop became a large inspiration behind the core theme of the Narrative. During the workshop, I also got exposed to the mammoth of the digital game development industry and how much work, money, time and human resource are put behind each development.

The core theme chosen for the narrative was ‘Water crisis’.

The building of the narrative structure involved condensing factual content to a fictional storyline. Then elements of environment design like assets, forms, colours, movement in space, transitions were explored to varying extents to incite intended thoughts and emotions throughout the narrative.

Finally, a story was formed with the narrative structure built.

The story revolves around a little girl’s adventure to find water, which gradually turns into a chase for water and finally saving it. It stretches across 2 timelines and 3 worlds, where World 1 is the establishment of the theme ‘Water crisis’, World 2 is fiction where stepwell is an important element.

World 3 is more fantastical and is imagined to be the most interactive portion of the experience, which was born out of the sheer ambitious bold exploration of the narrative building process. Stepwell Section of the narrative has been refined in detail in terms of its Environment design.

My project deliverables are the story, it’s narrative design and proposed Environment design visualisations, which are subject to be modified and refined as it gets into the production phase.

The production phase would involve developing the art style for the experience, building the environments, programming, coming up with interaction mechanics, prototype and testing and finally followed by the launch.

9

The elixir of life The most basic intuition of any life on the planet is to survive. And the very essential need for any living being to survive is, the water. As living beings, humans consistently have an obligation to regard and esteem water. The human civilizations started close to water. People went along the courses of water while they investigated new terrains. Water encouraged settlements and affected the method for living. The act of quenching thirst was viewed as the prime deed one could do. Particularly in arid land like Gujarat, where water made the difference between life and death, the person who gave water had extraordinary benefits among the community.

Soon water was deified due to its significance in human life. Water turned out to be something beyond for endurance. Water had became an essential ingredient of rituals and ceremonies in all religious traditions, where it played a vital role in births, marriages and funerals.

Be that as it may, things changed through time. With the increase in the ease of accessibility, changed the meaning which the Water held. As the Water gradually began turning into an advantageous asset, people started to underestimate it. That have put the whole life on earth on a verge to confront alarming consequences. Humans are failing to keep up their obligation. So there is a genuine need, particularly now, at present to act. An immediate, improved and more grounded commitment to keep the water alive. For such a long time it has been keeping every one of us alive.

10

Image source: www.keywordbasket.com

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.�

Loren Eiseley

11

CONTENT Acknowledgements National Institute of Design Synopsis The elixir of Life

6 8 9 10

1. Project background 1.1 The sponsor

Living Waters Museum Why Living Waters Vision Activities

1.2 The umbrella project Steps to hope Objectives Components

1.3 My project

Map Fiction Project brief Vision Intent Proposed Target Audience Proposed deliverable Proposed medium

1.4 Scope of project 1.5 Timeline

1. Project background 18 Living Waters Museum Why Living Waters Vision Activities 19 Steps to hope Objectives Components

22 Map Fiction Project brief Vision Intent Proposed Target Audience Proposed deliverable Propos ed medium 24 25

2. Research phase 1

5.Research phase 5.Research 2 Phase 2

8. The final narrative 8. The final narrative

2.1 Aspects of research 2.2 Research journey

5.1 5.1Nature Natureof ofexperience experience

76

ChapterChapterChapterChapter-

5.2 5.2Nature Natureof ofnarrative Narrative

96

2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4 2.2.5 2.2.6 2.2.7 2.2.8 2.2.9

The need of a Step well Women and Step wells Birth- Health- Marriage- Death The Architectural Marvels Obsolescence Stepwells the dumpyards, Water a commodity Stepwell visits Talk with Locals Revive?

2.2 Reflection 2.3 Research synthesis

28

3.1.1 Through sketches

54 55

58

3.1.2 Quick storyboards 3.1.3 An experiential approach 3.1.4 A narrative

3.2 Interesting take aways

66

4. Understanding the Target Audience 4.1 School visit

4.1.1 Aim 4.1.2 Session course 4.1.3 Insights

4.2 Visit inference

Interactive storytelling 5.1.1 Interactive storytelling Video games 5.1.2 Video games What are video games? 5.1.3 What are video games?

Story driven games 5.1.4 Story driven games Case studies 5.1.5 Case studies

5.2.1 Inspiring TED talk 5.2.1 Inspiring TED talk 5.2.2 Games for Good workshop 5.2.2 Games for Good workshop

3. Narrative design phase 1 3.1 Initial explorations

5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3 5.1.4 5.1.5

70

73

5.3 5.3Reflection Reflection 5.4 5.4Conclusion Conclusion

102 103

6.Redefined 6.Redefined brief brief and and intent intent

1 2 3 4

QuestChapterfor the Elixir 1 Quest for the Elixir 131 Chase the ChapterElixir 2 Chase the Elixir 137 Save the Elixir Chapter- 3 Save the Elixir 156 The twist Chapter- 4 The twist 166

9. Environment 9. Environment design design World- 1 World- 2 World- 3

World- 1 172 World- 2 174 World- 3 198

104

10. Character 10. Character design Design

202

7. Narrative design phase2 7. Narrative design phase2

The plan ahead 11. The plan11. ahead

208

7.1 7.1Final Finalnarrative narrativetheme theme 7.2 Narrative building process 7.2 Narrative building process Abstract A kickstart Initial structure

7.3 7.3 Scenario Scenario buildingbuilding11 7.4 7.4 Character Character development development 7.5 7.5Objective Objectivebuildingbuilding-1 1 7.6 7.6 Turning Turning point point 7.7 7.7 Scenario Scenario buildingbuilding22 7.8Objective Objectivebuildingbuilding-2 2 7.8 7.9Revised Revisedstructure structure 7.9 7.10 Scenario building-3 7.10 Scenario building-3 7.11 Objective building7.11 Objective building3 3 7.12Final FinalStructure Structure 7.12

108 112

Abstract A kickstart Initial structure 117 118 120 121 123 123 124 126 126 127

12.

Reflection and Conclusion210 12.

Reflection and Conclusion 13. Citations

13. Citations

214

Project background 1.

14

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

The sponsor The umbrella project My project Scope of project Timeline

15

1.1

The Sponsor

1.2

Steps to hope

Living Waters Museum

Why stepwells?

The Living Waters Museum is a digital repository of visualised knowledge on water heritage and practices. Through the power of storytelling and technology, the museum seeks to commemorate the past, inspire the present and be a source of learning for the future.

Image source : chm.ahduni.edu.in

16

Why Living Waters?

Vision

Activities

The term ‘Living Waters’ reflects the diversity, dynamism, and continuity of water. Not only is water the source of life, but the cultural services provided by water have also shaped civilizations across India, inspiring art and architecture, stories, myths, folklore, rituals, poems, songs, movies, dance forms, etc. Timeless in nature, from the Himalayas to the oceans, flowing across rivers and plains, water sustains us, in our homes and communities, our faiths and ritual practices, through trade and navigation – water is Nature’s ( Change from our') elixir.

The Living Waters Museum (LWM) recognizes the need to collect and collate rich and diverse traditions of water practices as a living and dynamic repository of visualized knowledge, which can both commemorate the past, inspire the present and be a source of learning for the future. The museum has been built as an open access online platform, licensed under the Creative Commons, and housing both permanent records (e.g. water archives on customs, laws) and periodic exhibitions featuring different aspects of water cultures, livelihoods and ecologies.

The Museum is an extensive and ambitious long-term project which involves inviting individuals and institutions in building the visual platform by sharing ideas, stories, photographs, visual stories, etc under the following themes, Art and Architecture, rituals and traditions, livelihoods and communities, music and folklores, people and personalities.

Content source : www.livingwatersmuseum.org

The umbrella project

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Living Waters Museum’s logo if noticed closely is a representation of steps to water, and the concept is inspired by Stepwells which are ancient man made water structures. These structures are found across India more dense from North India, Delhi to Rajasthan and Gujarat here in these states as they were part of silk route. Stepwell played important roles in the past. Living Waters Museum even though a virtual museum is physically part of Ahmedabad University’s Center for Heritage Management. Since its inception it has close associations with stepwells.

In October 2018, Living Waters Museum founder Dr. Sara Ahmed organised a meeting in collaboration with Sahapedia to explore if the stepwells can be mapped and its knowledge can be brought forward in public domain. Since then Living Waters Museum started discussion around how knowledge about stepwells can be documented, After that through series of activities done which led to the emergence of “Steps of Hope”, an online platform showcasing knowledge of stepwells of Ahmedabad.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Objectives

“Steps of Hope” is an online Platform initiative by LWM. It has aimed at showcasing the knowledge of stepwells of Ahmedabad.

Image credits: LWM

•

To visualise narrative of stepwell as connectors with the past when water was revered as sacred and spiritual.

•

To use digital media in designing an interdisciplinary, social interface with water which can engage youth and children in re-valuing water.

•

To facilitate greater public awareness and involvement in addressing challenges around water.

•

To dissect strategies to impart education in schools on water infrastructure, heritage and its importance.

Content source : www.livingwatersmuseum.org

17

Components Steps to Hope project has four conceptual components to it: Web Repository, Mobile App, Tangible products and Map Fiction. All four components are designed such that the whole knowledge is made accessible to various kinds of audience and in various knowledge, experiences and memory forms.

1.Web Repository It is the documentary component of the project, that aims to map and showcase the existing stepwells and the knowledge associated with it.

As a platform, the Web Repository will allow anyone to get informed about the information of stepwells.

2.The mobile app

3.The tangible product

This is an onsite experience using augmented reality, which is aimed at visitor experience and interpretation on site.

It is an extension of the souvenir store of Living Waters Museum from where one will be able to take away souvenirs and merchandise products about stepwells.

4.Map Fiction

Layer 1: Basic map

Layer 2: Virtual Reality

Layer 2: Works done by others Source: LWM

18

Source: LWM

Source: LWM

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

19

1.3

Image: The initial idea of Mapfiction, presented by LWM.

My project

Map Fiction Project brief

To design an interactive digital experience in the form of a fictional world, which narrates and triggers thoughts on the cultural transitions of the stepwells.

20

Vision

Intent

Proposed deliverable

“Map Fiction” is a digital interactive storytelling experience which will focus on explaining the “context” of time and place in which the stepwells were created and used.

The aim is to create an experience for people especially the young to explore a fictional narrative and world which is inspired from the history of stepwells and triggers thoughts to make sense of the rich context and cultural transitions of the stepwells.

The project’s intent was to tell the story of a transitioning heritage of the Stepwells.

Proposed target audience

The Term Map - fiction was coined specifically for the project. As the name suggests the initial deliverable idea proposed by the sponsor was designing an interactive Visual map (refer image on the right side)

All lobal audience, primarily focused on young children between 10 and 14 years old.

Proposed medium The initial expectation of the sponsor was to have a web-based experience which would be accessed through the LWM website.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Image source: LWM

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

21

1.5

1.4 • • • • •

•

Timeline

Scope of the project Researching about the history of stepwells and water heritage in Ahmedabad; understand the evolution of human - stepwell interactions.

Research on what effects or consequences would the Digital/virtual museums have on the contemporary context.

Research on interactive fictions and similar practices.

Understanding the impacts of Interactive digital storytelling.

To research, understand and experiment the making of Interactive Fiction Games(IFG), the platform would not only be entertaining but also educational and relevant to the culture and history that is being portrayed.

Coming up with a narrative for the whole experience

Penetrate • •

•

Environment design for the created narrative, visual treatments, attention to forms, roles of assets.

Learning and exploring various tools used in creating digital interactive narratives. For example, Photogrammetry, unity, 3D modelling softwares, generative coding, web development etc.

Trying different permutations and combinations of methods of using the design tools, to understand how that would boost the process of unleashing creativity in the real world.

Validate

Ideate

Create

Apr

May June

July

Aug Sept Oct

Pre-Production

Nov End of Gp

Production

Dec

22

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

23

2.1 Aspects of research 2.2 Research journey

Research phase 1

2.

2.2.1 The need of a Step well 2.2.2 Women and Step wells 2.2.3 Birth- Health- MarriageDeath 2.2.4 The Architectural Marvels 2.2.5 Obsolescence 2.2.6 Stepwells the dumpyards, Water a commodity 2.2.7 Stepwell visits 2.2.8 Talk with Locals 2.2.9 Revive?

2.2 Reflection 2.3 Research synthesis

24

Stepwell : Ashapura Ni Vav

25

The need for a Stepwell

2.2.1

Aspects of research

Gujarat is a dry and arid land from time immemorial, except for the torrential rains between June and August. So people had a need to harvest the rainwater before it would evaporate back to the sky due to the scorching weather.The natural structures like river, ponds, rivulets, depressions would dry up during the summer. Even Artificially built pols, ponds, reservoirs and tanks were not able to keep water for a long time. The water would become stale after some time.

2.1

The project started with the plotting of different possible directions of research on stepwells and the journey of water in their context. The research began from basics of speculating the need of stepwells at first place. Then the scopes stretched along aspects which included, the role of stepwells in socio cultural context and their evolution through time.

Scope of research •

Acquiring information from pre-existing works on stepwells, from books, archives, thesis, documentaries, heritage enthusiasts and from other digital and physical mediums.

•

Collection of stories (folklores), myths, songs and other forms of knowledge on stepwells from local communities and other sources.

That’s were the Stepwells came for rescue. The step wells sunk deep into the earth, not exposed to the heat and sun and were the only source of drinkable water. The step wells derived their water from the underground springs/aquifers hence a constant flow of fresh water filtered through the earth. They acted as resting and rejuvenating places for the traders and pilgrims.

Not only for humans but they provided shelters for animals and birds too.

EXTERNAL MAP

Stepwells played a vital roled in providing water and keep Lives and their activities running

“one finds that nearly every village and town in Gujarat has at least one stepwell of it’s own”.

Distribution Soon they became familiar feature of the landscape of western India, distributed in numerous numbers in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. The Distribution of stepwells were in such a way that they facilitaed the busy trade networks of Gujarat. That indicated the vital role the Stepwells played in providing water and keep Lives and their activities running.

26

Stepwell : Ashapura Ni Vav

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

source : Mirat-i-Ahmadi, by Ali Muhammad Khan

Distribution of Stepwells in Gujarat

27

Women and Stepwells

2.2.3

‘Half a millennium ago, Gujarat was under the rule of the Sultan, Mahmud Begada. His stepmother Dhai Harir, played a vital role in administration at his court house. To pay respect for that, he once gifted her two well crafted golden Bangles. Dhai Harir gave a munificent reply that bangles could bring fortune only for their generations, but having a well would bring fortune for many generations.So she insisted the king to sell one of the bangles and build a stepwell. Hence, For the benefit of 84 Lakh people, the king spent 3,29,000 Mahmudis(a golden issue by the Sultan) and built a stepwell.’

Purnima Mehta Bhatt in her book ‘ Her Space, her story’ had written that around 3000 stepwell were built all around Gujarat among which One fifth or more than were commissioned by Women Patrons.

‘Queens, women of the royal families, wives of prosperous merchants, mothers, daughters, even servant girls and prostitutes’ -Her space, her story written by Purnima Bhatt Mehta

Image source: Yahoonews Image credits: Amit Dave, REUTERS

Fetching water from the stepwells were one of many chores of Women of Gujarat. Even Though the Stepwell’s were related to women in many aspects, the women did not have the freedom to use them of their needs and wishes.

In rural India, the public places were only open for men. So the women may access the stepwells only in the early mornings or in the late afternoons. But the stepwells were the only gathering place for the women who were otherwise mostly under the male shadows.

That’s were they felt independent to share their opinions, ideas and gossip about their mother-in-laws.

That’s how Bai Harir stepwell, which is the present Dada Harir stepwell in Ahmedabad was born. Like this, Women played a vital role in the creation of a number of stepwells in Gujarat. Even the world famous Architectural site, the Adalaj Stepwell has a tragic story of a woman’s love and sacrifice behind its creation.

From these stories it could be understood that the women from the dry lands of western India knew the importance of a stepwell for their community.

Image source: Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India, Morna Livingston

Bhai Harir’s Tomb, Dada Harir vav.

28

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

29

Birth-HealthMarriage-Death

2.2.4

The stepwells did not just architecturally carry the genes from temples but also functionally.

The stepwells were places of cultural and religious happenings. Young married women offered hand carved wooden arm at the belly of lord Ganesh idol wishing for a child. For a boy child, the ritual was more specific of tying bangles with pieces of their sari near bushes of the wells. Young girls would visit the stepwells during yearly festival carrying sprouted grains, wishing for a good husband.

The water of the stepwells were also believed to have properties to cure diseases from cough to smallpox. Any uninhabited place is considered to be haunted. The stepwells were no exceptional and had held supernatural myths like Jalachar, the restless spirits living in water, Pinjari, Ghost of a female cotton carder and goes on.

Stepwell covered with worship decorations.

Location: Mata Bhavani vav, Asarwa, Ahmedabad.

Offerings for Lord Ganesh

Bangles tied to a tree near a stepwell

Image source: Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India, Morna Livingston

Image source: Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India, Morna Livingston

Different kinds of hand carved offerings

Young girls carrying sprouted grains to a stepwell to wish for a good husband.

Images Credits: Arnav Das

Image source: Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India, Morna Livingston

Image credits: Arnav Das

30

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

31

2.2.5

The Architecture

Early Stepwells.

The information about earliest stepwells from various citations tell different stories. But the common idea got from them were that the first of stepwell resembling structures were rock-cut cisterns found in Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Those belonged to the time period between 4- 5 A.D.

“The major experiential quality of stepwells is one's movement descending towards the water. The viewpoints shaped by the columns, all joining towards a vanishing point, the perplexing carvings on the brackets and niches, which become increasingly entangled as continued downwards. The decrease in the power of warmth and the intriguing coolness from the base. The view of the sky from the Kuva.�

-Yatin Pandya.

32

An array of small rock cut square openings, to regulate air flow and keep the place cool.

Navghan Kuo-Junagadh -Around 2 AD.

Stair case cut through a wall of eroded Sandstone, Adi Ki Vav-JunagadhArOund 2 AD.

Images source : flickr Image credits: Manfred Sommer

Images source : flickr Image credits: Manfred Sommer

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

33

A landing between sets of steps in a stepwell to provide a place to stand and rest.

Their components are columns and horizontal pavilions, with Niches at the inner side walls. Kutas are typically covered bystacked pavilions divided into levels corresponding to previous Kutas.

Stepwells can be divided into types based on the number of Kutas within them. The intricacy of carvings in the Kutas vary among the stepwells

The main architectural elements in a Stepwell All Stepwells share combinations of the following elements.

Ardhakuta: A supporting arch, like a Kuta, but without a pavilion or landing.

This Classification is majorly focused on Stepwells in Gujarat Region.

Entrance of the stepwell

Toda

Toda(Mukhamandapa) - The entrance pavilion

Kuta

Kuta(Mandapa) - Pavilion towers Steps

The shaft at the end of the stepwell giving access to groundwater can be refered to as the wellshaft.

A pair of pillars at the entrance of a stepwells to mark its locations. They can be very heavily ornamented or very plain depending of the style and scale of the stepwell. Sometimes the Toda would be missing and the Stepwell starts simply with the steps.

Kuva- The well shaft

Kuva - reached through steps

Not for scale

34

Kuva - Reached through Pulley system

The stepwells’ water which was used for drinking shouldn’t involve other interactions. The Stepwell architects were aware of this. Hence most of the stepwells had two separate well shafts.

• One well could be accessed through the steps.

• The other well was to be reached only through pulley system.

In that way drinking water and water for other purposes were kept distinct through the stepwells’ intelligent architecture.

Content sources : ‘Lesser Known Stepwells in and around Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar Region, Urban Managment Centre’ and ‘The step wells of Gujarat - Jutta Jain-Neubauer’

35

Kuta

Toda

Kutas in form of Arches- Amrit Varshini Vav, Ahmedabad.

Column Brackets, Ashapura Mata ni vav, Ahmedabad.

Image source : Go2india.in

Ardha Kuta- Dada Harir vav, Ahmedabad.

Elaborate columns, Rani Ki Vav, Patan

Top left: Entrance Pavilion- Dada Harir Vav. Top Right : Entrance Pavilions- Adalaj vav.

Bottom : Entrance starting with Sculptures on each side and not pavilions - Mata Bhavani vav, Ahmedabad.

Image Credits : Victoria S.Lautman

Kutas(Pavilion Towers)- Ashapura ni vav, Ahmedabad.

36

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Ashapura vav, Ahmedabad

Niche-Dada Harir vav, Ahmedabad.

Elaborately carved Niche, Adalaj vav

37

Kuva Locating the spot The task of locating the perfect spot to dig the well was given to the water diviners, the ‘Panikals’. The techniques they followed had many says. It was believed that the panikals had a magic power of being able to hear the water flow underground. For some the Goddess would come in their dream and revealed.

That practice is still followed in some rural parts like Umrit Village of Gujarat.

But the actual science behind the practice are still unclear and have different views.

One of the reliable methods which was gone across was the technique of locating using Bhilipatra( wood apple) tree. The Bhilipatra tree’s roots could reach to the deepest of water available underneath the arid land, making it the sign of presence of water below.

In those days, water diviners ideally used a Y-shaped twig in the process.

Image source: Blogger Credits: Water Diviner

Left: Octagon shaped Kuva- Dada Harir vav, Ahmedabad.

Right: Square shaped Kuva- Ashapura ni vav,Ahmedabad

The Bhilipatra tree’s roots could reach to the deepest of water available underneath the arid land, making it the sign of presence of water below.

38

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

39

A still unknown process It was learnt that there is still no clear evidence about how the stepwells were built. Different Scholars have their own speculations. The technique used to bear the lateral load of the earth using the horizontal pavilions still amuse the modern practitioners.

“Everything is speculative and even scholars frequently disagree. While we know about the pre-industrial use of manpower, oxen and ramps, the engineers I’ve spoken with have differing opinions about how stepwells were constructed. They do, however, agree that building down into the earth is subject to more stress than building above ground, and is therefore more challenging,”

Golden era of stepwells By the 6th century AD, the newly powerful Hindus were looking for a new Architectural identity. So they used the same Mason Community, the Sompara/ Sompura who were already employed in Crafting temple sculptures in Stepwell building.

The rich Brahmins with their theoretical knowledge of ‘Silpasastra’ or ‘Vastusara’ ordered the low caste Somparas to construct the stepwells. The 9th to 12th centuries were known as the golden era in the stepwells history, during which the construction of temples and stepwells happened in numerous numbers. Elaborate intricately carved stepwells rose at those times.

-Victoria Lautman, author of ‘The vanishing stepwells of

India’.

Intricately carved sidewalls of Rani ki vav(Queen’s stepwell), Patan, built in the 11th century AD.

40

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

41

Fusions, compromises, adaptations The inner conflicts between the Hindu rulers made it easy for the Mughals to conquer Gujarat. The Mughals established their power and continued ruling Gujarat from 14th to 18th century. The obvious influence of Islam style in the later built stepwells were mainly the diminitive sizes of Hindu sculptures and the removal of figurative sculptures. The major changes were on the pavilions as they were the stand out icons of any stepwell above the ground.

Even though a number of other Hindu architecture were damaged by the Mughals, the stepwells were unharmed. Might be because the muslim soldiers were under a mandate, amounting to religious injunction, never to harm the well. even in war. And India’s dry heat made this vow easy to keep. Hence, the water played an important role in demanding an understanding and adaptive coexistence of two completely different communities.

2.2.6 Pyramidal Hindu Pavilion roof, Rataba Stepwell, Rampura, 13th century

Dome shaped Muslim Pavilion roof, Dada Harir Stepwell, Ahmedabad, 15th century

Obsolescence

With the advent of the British came the new ideologies and technologies. The introduction of new water technologies like taps, pumps, tubewells had sent the stepwells to obsolescence.

Also, the pumping of water exceeded the amount that the soil could hold, affecting the groundwater. The farmers due to political and financial complexities were forced to misuse water supplies.

The stepwells were also deemed unhygienic due to the stagnant nature of water in them. As an attempt to eradicate Guinea worm endemic, a number of stepwells were locked down. With decreasing water level, the unattended stepwells started losing their significance while getting buried slowly under layers of silt.

‘The major Muslim influence is seen in the change in the entrance Pavilion roof.’

-Steps to Water, Morna Livingston

‘Muslims rejected nothing of water architecture except for the deities.’

-Steps to Water, Morna Livingston

content source : Steps to Water: Ancient Stepwells of Inida by Morna Livingston.

Vikia Vav, Ghumli.

Image credits : Victoria S.Lautman

42

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

43

Image Credits: Jamie Bursey

Image Credits: Jamie Bursey

Stepwells the dumpyards, water a commodity 2.2.7

pictures

Water tanks around Ahmedabad.

Rapid industrialisation demanded more water.

Hence more pumps and borewells were drilled. The groundwater was getting depleted like never before.

In the past three decades the underground water table had gone down 80 metres. In Ahmedabad, water scarcity had become a yearly routine. The city, especially the outskirts had to rely on new borewell plans.

Image Credits: Jamie Bursey

The stepwells which had already lost their original significance began to get treated worse.

The meaning and purposes of the stepwells had changed. The lifeless structures became dump yards of household wastes and ritual remains.

Image Credits: Jamie Bursey

It was surprising to learn that there are around 45 stepwells in Ahmedabad region.

Among which only 7 were protected by the government. The significance of the stepwells had vanished along with their water.

Statistics reference: Lesser known stepwells in and around Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar region, Urban Mnagment Centre.

44

Madha Vav, Vadhavan Image credits : Victoria S.Lautman

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

45

The stepwell visits

2.2.8

As a part of understanding the present scenario of Stepwells, four stepwells in Ahmedabad were visited. They were chosen with a diversity of popularity, activities and physical condition.

Dada Harir Vav It is the most popular among the stepwells which were visited. Has a resembling architectural style as Adalaj stepwell as both were built by the same king Mahmud Begada between the years 1498 -1500. It is preserved by ASI(Archaelogical Survey of India) Location: Asarwa, Ahmedabad Condition: Well is completely dried. Litters and scribbles on the walls could be found.

46

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Activities : • A tourist spot. Tourists visit in the wintertime.

• Mostly foreigners. Auto drivers near Gandhi Ashram who are assigned to take tourists to places.

• Locals visitors are extremely rare.

• Visited by young men for clicking photos and chilling spot.

• Occasional model photography • A chowkidar assigned by ASI, cleans and clears litters every day.

47

Amrit Varshini Vav One of the rare L-Shaped Stepwell. Concealed among the buildings around and the busy streets of Khadia. According to the inscriptions in the stepwell it was built in 1723 AD. Location: Panchkuva Darwaza,Khadia, Ahmedabad.

Condition: Well is completely dried.

Activities : • Regularly cleaned by the family living beside, in a temple premise.

• Occassional Pujas.

48

“When I was a boy, around 50-55 years ago, this well had already lost its water. So it was drilled with a bore and the water was used to feed Horses, which were used as major transports those days.”

- Balu Bhai, a resident beside the well as he recollected some memories about the well.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Ambe Mata Vav One of the stepwells which has been completely transformed into a temple. Commonly known as Malav Talav vav, as it is located beside Malav Talav lake. into a temple.

Location: Malav Talav lake, Ahmedabad.

Activities : • Regular visited by workshippers to conduct Pujas in early mornings and late evenings.

• Special decorations and Pujas are organised during the month of Navratri.

Condition: The walls in the interiors and covered with Mozaic mirror patterns.

Well has little amount of water and used only for cleaning and gardening purpose.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

49

Talk with the locals

Yet another stepwell which is completely transformed into a temple. Built in 11th century AD and claimed as the oldest stepwell in Ahmedabad. It is located very close to the Dada Harir Vav. Location: Asarwa, Ahmedabad.

Condition: Still contains water, but not fit for drinking purpose. Also is prohibited by the temple authorities to access it.

Highly decorated.

50

2.2.10

‘even the oldest individuals living around were too young for the thousand year old stepwells.’

An inquiry emerged that ‘Whether it is conceivable to restore and bring back water in the stepwells of Ahmedabad, Riyaz Tayyibji the Principal Architect of Anthill plan, Ahmedabad was looked for. His answer was that would be incomprehensible as the underground springs have dried and the water table had gone down to an extreme low, particularly in Ahmedabad where the wellspring of the spring isn’t really ought to be nearby. It could differ from a couple of meters to many kilometers. That is the explanation despite the fact that with the nearness of the Sabarmati in the city, the water table was continually decreasing.

The endeavour to get inputs with respect to the past from the locals living around the stepwells was not of extraordinary achievement. Being without any familiarity with the local language it was difficult to blend with the individuals. In any case, that was not the only explanation. One of the genuine explanation which was found after a few troublesome interactions were, even the oldest individuals living around were too young for a thousand years old stepwell. Even the tales of the considerable number of elderly people, who had an association with the stepwells in their childhood were similar. They all gave similar portrayals of the fun times they had as children in the waters of stepwells which steadily got evaporated over the span of time. The stepwells were either lying surrendered without a lot of human association or, have totally been changed into temples and were running with an entirely different identity.

Mata Bhavani Vav Activities: • Constantly visited by workshippers • Pujas are conducted regularly.

“This stepwell is 300 years older than Amdavad itself, who would know that much old history”?

Reviving stepwells?

2.2.9

“The underground springs have dried and the water table had gone down to an extreme low.”

- Riyaz Tayyibji.

-An old uncle who takes care of activities in the stepwells

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

51

Research synthesis 2.4

2.3

Reflections

•

Throughout the research, only a small number of books were come across on the topic of stepwells and they hold the major content source of secondary research.

•

A pattern was noticed when looked at the authors of the books. All of them were women and most of them were foreigners. Which could be further related to interesting insights on the connection women and stepwells had and in general with water. Water has always been portrayed as women. All the stepwells with idols came across during research were of women.

•

There were no visible contemporary stories, that was being shared among the local communities. The attempt to find folklores from local language books was nonproductive. There were very few books and was not possible to locate them due to time constrain.

•

There were not many visual records that could be found in contexts of stepwells, which are really old. Like Sara Ahmed, founder of LWM explains, it could be because Visual documenting in India started happening in full force only after the advent of British in India.

•

Some of the stepwells like Mata Bhavani, Ambe Mata(Malav Talav) was completely transformed into temples. The stepwells were converted into full-time worship places rather than for water.

Atleast in that way, they were still used and taken care of rather than being left to crumble.

•

There has been extensive architectural documentation and conservation of the stepwells. But the water which had already vanished from the structures didn’t stand a chance for such actions.

“We never make stories about old buildings in contemporary scenes” - Riyaz Tayyibji.

52

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

‘A detoriating journey of the stepwells and th water.’

About a thousand years back, lives began to survive and thrive in the parched lands of Western India in and around the presence and availability of water. Water was indeed the prime factor that determined their longevity and sustenance. It is into this habitat, the idea of stepwells dawned upon the then civilizations, to store and save water and themselves. Over time the stepwells elevated their prominence from being mere sources of water to surpass the scorching summers to cultural symbols, speaking of the lifestyles and believes of the community owning them. With stepwells at their foci, settlements started growing in numbers.

Be that as it may, the time had changed. The need for climbing many steps to arrive at water had changed all of a sudden to simply arriving at a tap. That changed the worth of water, how it was accessed and thus how it was perceived. Water had become an easyto-obtain substance for humans. When obtaining something turns out to be simple, the brain neglects to gauge. The water started to get sucked unfathomable.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Newer and easier facilities were discovered to push the stepwells down the pages of history. They started to present themselves as vestiges of our earlier civilizations, often neglected as slight surviving traces of some conditions, practices of the yesteryears. Before our bare eyes, these icons of human progress began to wither away like ageing myths.

Therefore, the whole research process could be summarized as a detoriating journey of the stepwells and the water.

53

Narrative design phase 1 3.

54

3.1 Initial explorations 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.1.4

Through sketches Quick storyboards An experiential approach A narrative

3.2 Interesting take aways

55

3.1 Initial explorations

3.1.1

Through sketches

The reflections from the Research on stepwells were transcribed into immediate impression sketches.

The Narrative design started with exploratory sketches. The sketches were made as the depictions of the immediate expression of the research journey on the water and stepwells.

The sketches representing two parallel times and the effect of presence and absence of water in the stepwells

The present dried and dead state of the stepwells were juxtaposed with the pictures framed in the mind from the depictions of the past. It was a consistent correlation between an abandoned stepwell of present dried, loaded up with litter, ruined architecture and a vivacious well from the past with water.

Hence the intital ideations were about mostly playing around with various timelines, drawing parallels between the present and the past.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

57

Quick storyboards 3.1.2

From fetching water- a time of freedom to fetching water- a battle.

58

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

As an inital warm up of story building, a quick story was written and visualized. The story is about two women from different timlines visiting a stepwell. The main idea of the story is to depict the kind of value given to stepwell and water.

The story of the woman from the past was inspired from one of the rituals followed by the newly married women. The ritual involves offering of a hand carved wooden hand to the idol of Lord Ganesh praying for a boy child.

59

An Experiential approach

3.1.3

•

The concept:

•

An interface with a static stepwell, the environment around and the underground water table.

The audience would get to interact and influence the activities happening in each environment.

•

As a result, change in the condition of the water in relation to the interaction would be reflected in the underground water table.

•

Five timelines would be shown between the time of early stepwells to present.

•

Audience can scroll along the timelines and according to the timline they are in, the environment in and around the stepwell would change and depict a scene from the respective time.

The idea behind was, to show various interactions happened in and around the stepwells through time and their effect on underground water, as a cue of realisation about present and warning about the future.

Stepwell

Environment

Underground water table 60

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

61

3.1.4

A narrative

The journey of a traveller from past who is in search of water finds a stepwell and descends down. As he reaches water, it acts as a portal which takes him to the future (a fictional dystopian future). As he ascends back after quenching his thirst, he comes across the same stepwell but destroyed and harmed, relinquished.

After he comes up he observes the explanation because of which the stepwell was pushed to such fate. He steps along the future city of Ahmedabad, where he explores for answers.

62

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

63

Interesting take aways 3.2

64

•

Having water as an objective to reach/ find.

•

A descending movement in the experience, which is a metaphorical representation of one’s movement in a stepwell towards water.

•

The intriguing perspectives formed by the vanishing points of coloumns.

•

A mysterious unending journey towards darkness, along a maze like path.

•

Journey across timelines to show cultural transistions in the stepwell environments

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

65

Understanding Target Audience

4.

66

4.1 School visit

4.1.1 Aim 4.1.2 Session course 4.1.3 Insights

4.2 Visit inference

67

4.1.2 Session course The session was started with a small activity. An incomplete picture of a stepwell was shown and the students were asked to guess what it was.

4.1

School visit

As an attempt to understand the local primary Target group, a school visit was done. An interactive session was conducted at IQRA English School, with around 30 Students between class 6th and 8th.

4.1.1 Aim

Image credits: Aaroolya Rajesh

The aim of the visit was to understand the amount of awareness the students have on the topics of water, stepwells and their level of engagement on digital activities.

68

Image credits: Aaroolya Rajesh

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

The responses as the picture was gradually revealed.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Entrance!

Pillar!

Door! windows!

Pillars of a Bungalow!

Broken Bridge!

Rani Ki Vaav!

69

4.1.3 Insights

When the Picture was completely revealed, all of the students could recognize that it was a stepwell. Most of them even shouted that it was ‘Rani ki vaav’.

Though it was happy to learn that the students were aware of stepwells, the chorus response that it was ‘Rani ki vav’ did explain a lot. The stepwell which was shown was instead ‘ Ashapura Ni vav’ a not so popular stepwell located just 7 kilometres from the school at Bapunagar.

The students responded in that way because Rani Ki Vav is one of the popular stepwells also a popular tourist spot. When asked Where was Rani Ki Vav located, most of the responses came were ‘Adalaj’. Another misconception by the students, as Adalaj stepwell is a different stepwell located a hundred kilometres from Rani Ki Vav.

70

Water knowledge

Digital engagement

Visit Inference

The talk about the water started with a basic question.

As a matter of first importance, the point of computerized diversion made them extremely energized, they wouldn't quit yelling about their preferred mobile game or TV shows.

The inputs received from the visit were discussed with the guide to infer.

4.1.3.1

How many stepwells?

Then the students were asked to throw a wild guess on how many stepwells were built all over Gujarat. The numbers they responded were nowhere close to the actual numbers. When revealed that there were around 3000 stepwells built in Gujarat, all their faces were filled with surprise.

Where do you get water for your house from?

All the students were aware that they get water from the government tankers or Borewells, but hardly beyond that.

Why were they built?

Different answers popped for that question like, for cooling, water storage, for queens to live, for people to know the historical value.

The answers were understood to be their learnings from the textbooks.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

The students knew only a small portion of the subject like water pollution and rainwater harvesting. Also it was observed that they were less interested to discuss about the topic of water.

The inquiries regarding water crisis, underground water, water wastage got no reaction. They looked either if they were not aware of those or not interested.

Subsequently, the discussion about the water didn't keep going long.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

4.1.3.2

Every one of them had access to mobile phones and almost all of them played video games. The choice of genres was very differing with dominant parts being Adventure, puzzle and Online multipliers. The content which they watch on TV were for the most part Hindi serials, films, TV serials and Cartoons. Few had interests in Science and history. When they got access to use the internet at school, they generally googled things which intrigue them or surf videos on youtube.

4.2

The inference made was, From the school visit, it was an obvious realisation that there was not much knowledge existing among the school children about the topic. Whatever knowledge they had was also from the general content from their textbooks books which were minuscule. Also as expected the students showed an active interest in engaging with digital experiences, watching as well interacting. Hence the school visit was considered as a validation for the project’s purpose and as suggested by the guide, a decision was made to move ahead to continue with the narrative design.

Hence the digital contents which the students were consuming were of different topics and styles. So not a particular pattern in style of interest could be found. That offered a hint that the kids, in general, showed enthusiasm in engaging with digital interfaces for the amusement they gave independent of what the content was.

71

5.1 Nature of experience

Research Phase 2

5.

5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3 5.1.4 5.1.5

Interactive storytelling Video games What are video games?

Story driven games Case studies

5.2 Nature of Narrative

5.2.1 Inspiring TED talk 5.2.2 Games for Good workshop

5.3 Reflection 5.4 Conclusion

72

73

Terminology Traditional Video games:

The popularly known games which are usually entertainment-based and comprise of elements like a goal, challenges, puzzles, rewards, difficulties, eg. action games, adventure games, puzzles, FPS, time-killing games.

The gameplay: It is the way a player goes through the experience narrative of a game. It includes all aspects of the interaction between the player and the game.

5.1

Nature of experience

Game mechanics: It provides the gameplay for a game in any state of the game to move it through the narrative.

A game loop: It is a part of the code which is constantly updated after every change in the game state.

Narrative metaphors: In the context of game development, it could be described as the narrative cues and details used to convey certain feelings in the game.

Art games: Refers to games

that slightly stray away from traditional goal-oriented games and weigh more on the artistic side of things, meant to incite an emotional feeling with its audience. Typically these games don’t feature much of gameplay hence are more like “interactive experiences.�

Emotion arc: It can be defined as the emotional journey a character goes on throughout the course of a story: the growth, changes, denials and acceptances of the events and incidents they experience along the way.

Game art: It is part of game

development which provides for the aesthetic mood and the visual narrative of the game.

74

75

5.1.1 Interactive storytelling In the line of different methods of storytelling, from oral to books to films, interactive storytelling could be considered the most immersive. With the fusion of digital technologies, the art of storytelling has been taken to a whole new level of immersion for the listener/ experiencer/ audience/ user. With the feature of interaction added to the story, the role of the audience has transformed from being a witness to being(or an illusion of being) an influencer of the story, which enhances immersion.

5.1.2 Video games - The default

5.1.3 What are video games?

Being a game devotee, grew up playing a lot of video games as a critical leisure activity, games looked like ideal models to start the research for interactive narrative mediums, in light of their default interactive nature. The interactive capacity of video games has been utilized to recount to wonderful vivid stories since ages. The player is given the opportunity to expect a character or various characters or even control the entirety of elements in the game. This feeling of the opportunity of authority over the story upgrades immersion.

There are a lot of speculations still going on regarding this question. A personal take on this is anything that is interactive and entertaining could be called a video game if the user/player wants to call it so. In those early days, computer processing power limited the types of games programmers could create. Fastforward to today, and technology allows game developers to create anything they can dream up. To that point, in the last few years, new game categories and genres have been created.

inspirations

“Interactive storytelling is the art of telling stories enhanced with technological, social or collaborative interactive features to offer content adapted to new behaviours in a rapidly changing cultural ecosystem”

iD Tech, a tech camp from silicon valley family have done a wide classification of game genres and their subgenres which stretches to around 50 genres of games and claims more to come. Hence no matter what the interest, there is definitely a game genre that will appeal one’s taste.

- Benjamin Hoguet

76

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Types of games, iD tech : (https://www.idtech.com/blog/different-types-of-video-game-genres) If you’re interested in getting a deep perception of this speculation, refer to this interesting article: What makes a game? article by Keith Burgun in Gamasutra.

77

This map is an attempt to articulate the personal understanding of video games and their kinds. Unlike represented in this table, the world of video games is fluid and a lot of overlaps happen as constantly new form of experiences emerge.

5.1.4 Story driven games Story/ Narrative driven games adopt a very differnet approach when compared to traditional video games, when, looked at from gameplay point of view. They ususally have minimal interaction options. The gameplay would be specifically made to experience through a narrative which is designed to incite certain emotions in the audience. The “gameplay loop“ of such experiential games are too shallow and hence might bore users who look for instant gratification. Mechanics are there just to serve as per the demands of the narrative.

Still those games shine in using their mechanics as a narrative metaphor, to convey emotions. The art of the game plays an important role in these cases to create strong, unique experience.

Ideally in story driven games the story won’t just run alongside the game (in cutscenes, dialogue, text or audio logs), but becomes the game itself.

Due to their unique, narrative driven nature which stays off track from traditional gameplay driven videogames, story driven games could be considered more as rich experiential narratives.

78

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Article reference: https://medium.com/@fischerdesign/games-as-experiential-narrative-17be10caf77f

79

5.1.5

Case Studies

Story driven games

The following case study was done with an aim to understand and learn from few interesting story based games. Contains information about the story and other key elements of each game, discussed in varying levels. So if you dont want any spoilers, please go play the mentioned games and come back.

Journey(2012) I Florence(2018) I Father and Son(2017) I The Plan(2016) I That Dragon, Cancer(2016)

80

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

81

Journey (2012)

Journey is an experiential game made my indie developer, Thatgamecompany.

The story as explained by the game’s creative director, Jenova Chen,

About ‘Journey’ is an experiential game about an adventurous journey along a desert to reach the top of a mountain. It was made by the indie game developer, Thatgamecompany, in 2012. The company was founded with the philosophy that games are a form of entertainment, and entertainment is the food for emotion. When humans are hungry for certain feelings, they go out to look for entertainment, from music to movies, to novels, to games, to satisfy their emotions.

Thatgamecompany realized that there is actually a whole spectrum of feeling that games are capable of creating, but not a lot of them were on the market. Hence they started with a vision to extend the depth and width of the emotional spectrum that games can communicate.

“Journey stays with you for years.”

“I think when we were arranging the world, we were trying to create a story arc that is mimicking the different stages of life. You are born into the world not knowing anything, everything is fresh and new. You can fall and roll down and it doesn’t hurt. Everything is very safe. And then a teenager is risk-taking and adventurous and fun, exhilarating. In the middle of life, you are a little bit lost, you don’t see the light from the mountain.

You are rediscovering yourself, focusing yourself.

Eventually, you find your direction and you walk toward it, the responsibility and the trials of adulthood. You go through all the difficulties and in the end, you get to transcend. That is the story we talked about.”

Experience Abstract In Journey, the player takes the role of a robed figure in a desert. After an introductory sequence, the player is shown the robed figure sitting in the sand, with a large mountain in the distance. The path towards the mountain, the ultimate destination of the game, is a linear journey. The journey is subdivided into several sections, each section depicting various stages of life.

- Kevin Vanord, Gamespot

82

Image source : Otlgaming.com

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Source of all the Images in this page: Journey(2012)

83

The role of colours

The Gameplay and Emotion arc Different emotions are conveyed along the stages of gameplay, through various elements.

In the starting, that is the early stages in life, the pace is slow and the player would get to explore the environment peacefully. As it proceeds, the pace becomes the fastest, where the player would be gliding across the shimmering sand, depicting the young age where lot of exciting things happen and also a sense of contemporary competitive rush. Then its the phase of adulthood where life is slowing down, suddenly become confused about how to go ahead. This phase depicted by putting the players into the darkness where they face challenges. Along the way, the player encounters flying creatures made of cloth, some of which help the player along. In later levels, the player also encounters hostile creatures made of stone, which upon spotting the player rip off parts of the figure's scarf. Towards the end of midlife, life becomes an extreme struggle, depicted by the snowy tiring uphill journey. By

Colours

84

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N Source of all the Images in this page: Journey(2012)

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

the end of life (The game), the player falls and collapses in the snow. But soon the player would be granted new energy, allowing the player to reach the summit of the mountain, depicting the travel to heaven afterlife. But the experience wouldn’t stop with the end of gameplay. After the credits, a scene shows a shooting star emanating from the crevice and traversing the path the player took through the ruins and shows glimpses of other robed travellers heading towards the mountain. Eventually, the star comes to rest at the sand dune where the game began, and the player is given the option of starting the game again. This portion gives an interesting perspective that the end of life doesn’t mean the end of the world. It’s a cycle. And the developer wanted the player to feel, they are part of something bigger than just themselves.

‘Journey’ starts with a relatively peaceful and calm note, so the colour was visualized as low contrast with overcast lighting and everything very yellow. As it gets slightly exciting in the first act, when the players surf through the sand, the sand was made to be more contrasting, using the colour to make it feel exciting. Then while the player gets lost in the underground, colours should introduce a cold feeling, cyan and blue and green, to give the player this lost and underwater atmosphere. And during the mountain level, the player should feel lifeless, their energy drained and uses gone, so the white colour works great there. In the end, the climax, the colours had to bring a sense of freedom, a sense of liberation, and the blue sky and the mountain streams were the right fit.

85

Game mechanics and music The game mechanics are quite simple. The player can walk in the levels, can jump. One of the interesting mechanic features of Journey is, the players can emit a wordless shout or musical note to interact with the environment and the note stays in tune with the background music. The robed figure wears a trailing magical scarf which allows the player to briefly fly; doing so uses up the scarf's magical charge, represented visually by glowing runes on the scarf. The scarf's runes are recharged by being near floating pieces of red cloth, or a variety of other means The music, composed by Austin Wintory, dynamically responds to the player's actions, building a single theme to represent the game's emotional arc throughout the story.

Image source: Journey(2012)

The idea of Multiplier The journey was the first online game by Thatgamecompany. The idea behind making Journey, an online game was to have a real social experience. To incite an emotional exchange between people. For Journey to create a sense of smallness and a sense of awe will encourage the players to be together and exchange emotions.

“You want to make sure all the sounds and visuals and gameplay and music all work together to communicate an arc of emotion.�

The developers sought to evoke in the player a sense of smallness, in the environment to emphasise on the vastness of things which life contains. Also, a sense of awe To wonder and to forge an emotional connection between them and the anonymous players they meet along the way.

- Jenova Chen.

86

The idea was when two players are put together online in a difficult environment, they will create a bond. But just being difficult is not a complete and entertaining experience. So a story about the journey of life was sewn in and two players who meet, will go through the transformation of life together.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

87

Florence

(2018)

Game mechanics The game mechanics are very basic form of touch and dragging on the screen.

Florence is a game rendered much like a sketchbook comic style. It was developed by Australian company Mountains and published by Annapurna Interactivewhere.

It is a game where two people meet, fall in love and eventually drift apart. It is a story about holding things in your hands, and about letting them go. The game follows 25 year old Florence Yeoh, through her daily routines and her relationship with a cellist called Krish.

Simple but effective •

The way conversations and complexities portrayed in form of simple puzzles of filling chat bubbles.

•

Transistion in emotions and mood through colours

‘Florence Is a Mobile Game That Captures the Power of Touch, A story of a woman's first love, Florence gains immense power from remembering how meaningful tactility can be.'

-Wired 88

Source of all the Images in this page: Florence(2018)

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Source of all the Images in this page: Florence(2018)

89

The Plan (2016)

Father and Son (2017)

The Plan is a little experimental video game, made by Krillbite studio, as a side project. It’s about a Fly which ascends to the skies, pondering the pointlessness of its brief existence.

Father and Son is a poetic, story based game about a son’s quest to find his father through art.

The game is actually a brilliant piece of advertising published by the Archaeological Museum of Naples.

The story is about treasuring the past and the many similarities between the ancient world and the modern. The player would take up the role as a man whose father has passed away. The father used to work in the Archaeological Museum of Naples and spent most of his life dedicated to his work. After his death, he leaves a note pointing the son to his writings which are stored in the museum.Using simple point and click controls, you can then interact with different people and find out more about the objects of art that surround you.

Credits for all the images: Father and Son (2017)

Additional game content is unlocked if you open it up when you are actually in Naples. While not many of us can do that, Father and Son is still a great game to play.

It is a great example of a game being used to develop curiosity and facilitate learning, while presenting it in a deeply enjoyable way. Father and Son is a must play for people who like story-based gameplay.

The game is very short, hardly 5 minutes it would take to finish.

It starts with a fly on the screen.

The game doesn’t tell you to play, it just puts you in a context to explore at your own pace.

The gameplay involves a simple mechanics of controlling the fly and just keep soaring upwards.

Along the way, sense of threats come in the form of wind, falling leaves and approaching sound of a lawnmower.

Even that few minutes of gameplay could be boring for some players as there would be nothing else to do other than keep pressing and holding one button.

That Dragon, Cancer (2016) But the ending of the game is quite interesting.

The fly comes in contact with a light bulb and as soon as it does it gets electrocuted and dies Instantly. While for some it would be a waste of precious 5 minutes, for some it might put them into contemplation, later; evoke thoughts and questions about death and the whole meaning of life.

"Krillbite's The Plan is a short, sharp experimental deliberation on the meaning of life."

That Dragon, Cancer is an autobiographical game created

by Ryan and Amy Green as a way of coping with and a testament to their son, who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 10 months. It features a series of abstracted vignettes from the life of their son, with the player taking on the role Ryan and Amy. By forcing the player to interact with the scenes presented, it makes us take on some of the emotional grief that the couple went through. It made understand the loss of a loved one and how we must try to make each moment special with people while they are still around.

Ideally, the players would be just clicking their way through different environments. The elements of interactions are actual voice recordings, voicemails and letters that are scattered throughout scenes that showcase the genuine emotions of people going through a drawn-out tragedy.

That Makes the players feel like they are with the family in their time of loss.

That Dragon, Cancer is a game that will make you want to hug your kids and never let go

-The Verge

- Andy Chalk, The Escapist

‘a great example of a game being used to develop curiosity and facilitate learning, while presenting it in a deeply enjoyable way.’

Content from : https://skoar.digit.in/mobile/father-and-son-game-review-android-ios/

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

91

A classroom project

Brahmar

Brahmar is a short 3D game made during a one-week unity workshop. The game was found relevant to be discussed here, as a lot of links could be made with the understanding of the topic of story-driven games.

The game starts inside a womb, which was depicted using a completely red, fluid environment with heartbeat sound in the background.

Then the player is directed towards a door, indicating the birth. As soon as the player comes out the other side, he would be already given a shopping cart.

As the player proceeds, different ages would be represented through various objects of interest at that respective age. Starting from toys in the early stage, like cricket bat, bike in the middle to alcohol bottle later.

At the end of shopping, the players would be put to face an unprecedented long fall into a pit, indicating the uncertainty of the future.

The player then wakes up inside a grave, where they could only see around but can’t move. The objects collected previously would hover above the grave for few seconds before they fall on the ground, but nothing falls inside.

That small clip of animation was made to convey a strong message, that no material travels with us to the afterlife. As the grave closes, the player is taken back to the womb, where they could start again.

The story behind brahmar was ‘Story of life’, similar as,Journey. But here the idea was to compare life with the modern materialistic approach. So the entire life was metaphorically represented as a shopping experience.

Team : Britto, Yatarth, Aniruddh Verma, Shubhangi Sangwan.

Guides : Salil Parikh, Hugo Pilate.

92

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

93

5.2 Nature of Narrative

94

95

5.2.1

An inspiring TED talk.

Games for Social change

Games made by Jane

Superstruct (Online, 2008) :

Jane McGonigal (born October 21, 1977) is an American game designer and author who advocates the use of mobile and digital technology to channel positive attitudes and collaboration in a real-world context. Her PhD on ‘ Why humans are better in games than they are in real life’

In an attempt to use games to address real-life issues, Jane developed several games through the course of years.

Superstruct was a massively multiplayer forecasting game, created by Jane at the Institute for the Future, and played by more than 7000 citizens future-forecasters from September November, 2008.

World Without Oil (Online, 2007).

The goal of the project was to harness the collective intelligence of bloggers and gamers to create a bottom-up a map of what it would mean to live through a massive oil shortage in the U.S. The project’s mantra: Play it, before you live it.

In her TED talk given in 2010, she talked about how gaming can make a better world. The aim was to make it as easy to save the world in real life as it is easy to save the world in online games.

She described gamers as super - Empowered hopeful individuals due to the qualities they developed through gaming which she states as follows, Urgent Optimism: Extreme self motivation, desire to act immediately to tackle an obstacle, combined with the belief that there is a reasonable hope of success. Gamers always believe that an epic win is possible and trying and trying now. They don’t sit around.

Social fabric : Gamers are virtuosos at weaving a tight social fabric. Playing games with someone increases the bond between them. It build bonds, trust and cooperation.

Image source: blog.ted.com

Epic meaning : The second largest wiki on the internet after wikipedia (in 2010) is the ‘World of Warcraft’* wiki with 5 million users every month. They have stored and shared more information about warcraft than any other wiki in the world. They are building stories, epic stories.

She stated that gamers are ready to change the virtual world because of reasons like, humans achieve more in game worlds, they get inspired to collaborate and cooperate.

To get up after failure and try again. They get more and better feedback which makes them feel more rewarded. Her vision was to find a way to apply those in real world scenario, to make the world work more like a game.

The players would be placed in a circumstance to endure an oil deficiency. The oil lack situation is fictional, yet there were sufficient online substance for the players to accept that it was reality. The players would be approached to join with their living spots. At that point they would be nourished with data about their anecdotal oil deficiency situation and were welcome to report their own lives in this new reality, through blog entries, recordings, photographs, web entries, geocaches, sound messages, and any other means necessary!

‘After the game was over, many players wrote to World Without Oil to express how much the game had affected them: not only in outlook, but also behavior.

Blissful productivity: Gamers are happier working hard. They are willing to work hard all the time if they’re given the right work.

96

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

“As for me, in this here and now, I'm a different person thanks to World Without Oil. I'm much more aware of the fragile thread that supports the lifestyle that myself and others keep. I'm making changes, but there's a long way to go. But I am changing, and that means that for me, WWO was a success," -Mtalon (player).

World Without Oil, 2007 Image Source: www.iftf.org

The game puts the players in a scenario where humans have only 23 years left on the planet and they have to come together to form a dream team to solve future problems of food, energy, health, security etc., Jane claimed that around 8,000 people played and had come up with 500 insanely creative ideas.

Superstruct, 2008 Image Source: www.wordpress.com

97

5.2.2

Workshop for a cause

Games for Good: Designing Games with a Social Impact.

One of the issues of discussion was water scarcity. And that was the most chosen topic by the teams to develop a game on.

A four-day workshop at International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, an initiative by the U.S Department of State initiative, organized by the Indo- American Center.

The idea of the workshop was to communicate and inspire more video game designers to use their skills in creating video games that address social issues.

The program included a two-day workshop led by American games design expert Sean Bouchard, of the University of Southern California’s Media and Games Division, American gaming industry veteran Vijay Lakshman, and IIIT Hyderabad Professor Dr Kavita Vemuri specialized in game design and engineering.

The first two days were packed with sessions by the experts with discussions on game design fundamentals, experimental game design, polishing and publishing games and game production. Two days of game jamming followed, where participants formed teams and conceptualised games addressing social issues like water scarcity, interfaith conflicts, misinformation, human trafficking and other pressing issues.

Image credits: Games For Good workshop documentation team

Image credits: Deepti Mahesh

98

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

99

5.3

Reflection

Video games never fail to attract people, especially the young.

There are a number of genres of games already existing there in the world, and new genres are coming up every day. There are games to appeal to any one’s taste as there are games about anything and everything, thanks to technology and creative minds. But most of the games nowadays are about killing each other or killing together. And they are highly popular worldwide.

Personally being an avid gamer, even I have always looked for pure adrenaline rush entertainment in games.

5.4 Looking into story-driven games while researching for the project was a real turning point in the way, I saw video games. Few storybased games I came across have introduced me to a whole new field and perception towards games.

The use of game elements like mechanics, gameplay and visual elements like colours, forms, the elements of space like interaction with environments were all used creatively to tell powerful stories.

They weren’t just the means of entertainment but a lot more, as they intended to incite strong emotions and they did succeed.

Emotions of joy, Emotions of love, emotions of confusion, emotions of longing, emotions of anger, emotions of grief, emotions on meaning of Life.

“There is actually a whole spectrum of feeling that games are capable of creating. And we wanted to be a company to extend the depth and the width of the emotional spectrum that games can communicate.”

And then I came across the TED talk by Jane McGonigal. I was revealed to another perception of video games, as tools to Influence positive changes in people’s lives. It got me introduced to video games, used to create positive social changes through playing, learning and reflecting. And the Games for Good workshop helped me have an on-hand experience in this great step towards creating a better world!

Conclusion

The video game industry, being the biggest digital entertainment industry in the world right now, hence looks a tool with huge potential. So, rather than questioning what makes a video game, if moved past the genres, gameplay loops and start exploring the more fundamental principles of interaction, creativity is the limit and the possibilities are endless.

Story-driven games have a unique nature of having interactions and other game elements which serves the purpose of the narrative. They were good inspirations to decide the nature of the experience of this project.

With 2.3 billion gamers World wide, gaming is the biggest entertainment industry in the world.

Bigger than the film and music industries.

“Instead of providing gamers with better and more immersive alternatives to reality, I want all of us to become responsible for providing the world with a better and more immersive, reality”

The inferences from the ‘Games For Good’ workshop inspired a major decision for the theme of the narrative.

- Jane McGonigal.

-Hero network, medium.

- Jenova Chen, Creative Director, Thatgamecompany.

100

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

101

Redefined brief

Redefined brief and intent

6.

To design a narrative (fictional) and environment of an interactive digital experience that narrates and triggers thoughts on the cultural transitions of water through the context of stepwells.

Redefined intent

‘To instigate reflection on present water scenario and initiate thoughts about a probable future crisis, through the fictionalized past, of the stepwells.’

102

103

7.1 Final narrative theme 7.2 Narrative building process

Narrative design phase - 2 7.

104

Abstract A kickstart Initial structure

7.3 Scenario building- 1 7.4 Character development 7.5 Objective building- 1 7.6 Turning point 7.7 Scenario building- 2 7.8 Objective building- 2 7.9 Revised structure 7.10 Scenario building-3 7.11 Objective building- 3 7.12 Final Structure

105

The water crisis is the most pervasive , most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth.

7.1 Final Narrative Theme

Water Crisis

106

-Vandana Shiva

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

107

108

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

109

7.2.2 A kick start

7.2 NARRATIVE

BUILDING PROCESS

7.2.1 Abstract

LETTING CREATIVITY AND INTUITION TAKE OVER.

To Kick start the narrative building process, a fictional scenario was established

Designing the narrative was a nonlinear process. Initially, I tried following a methodology of building over the foundation of my research learnings. I was constantly questioning my design decisions, drawing parallels to the research. But I met with a creativity block. I was getting stuck on how to think out of the box.

Then, I decided to let my creativity flow and started trusting on my intuition to make decisions. I believed that each intuition I had were all from my learning, imprints and takeaways, conscious or subconscious. It came from everything that affected my perception of the context I was looking into during the research stage.

Getting into forming a structure for the narrative, layers of meanings were added by building the structure with bits and pieces of narratives that would pop-up now and then.

The process involved connecting thoughts as they emerged. This process helped because there were no restrictions on what I can come up with. The challenges were in making connections between the pieces, modifying and rearranging the narrative structure till it formed a story with a series of narratives that would finally serve the purpose of the larger narrative intent i.e., the pre-set intent of the project itself.

A scenario to relate It’s future Ahmedabad city The city is affected with a severe water crisis.

It is difficult to find any trace of water.

Water is provided through trucks only once in a week, but inconsistently.

• •

A Character who is resident of the city.

Lives in one of the severely affected area.

A problem • •

Water is running out at house and concerned about the family.

The character realises, something has to be done quickly to improve the situation.

A goal The Character learns that a lot of water is treasured in a stepwell.

Objective to reach the goal

To explore the stepwell and come across set of events and tasks.

I wanted the narrative to not have a good happy ending. I felt that the end of the narrative should give a sense of questioning about the future.

110

A Character to assume

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Yes, but with a warning as the future is uncertain and alarming.

Epilogue Was the goal reached?

Will the character be rewarded?

111

7.2.3 Initial structure

Scenario-1 Objective - 1

This was the first sketch made during the final narrative building. This sketch shows the idea of having a complex maze kind of stepwell environment.

The objective is to find the right path to reach the goal.

Along the journey, there would be portals which take the audience to alternate scenarios which they would face in form of tasks. Once they finish a task, they would be back to the stepwell environment, to continue the journey towards the main goal, the Water.

Character

l el w s ep ts s k St e n ta Ev nd a

!

Water Reward with warning

112

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Visualisation of the first formed narrative structure.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

113

7.3

Scenario building -1

Present

Ahmedabad, 2030

The city has been struck with worst water scarcity in decades.

A water crisis has been unfolded that is unlike any that occurred in the past decades. All the surface water has evaporated. The Sabarmati is bone dry.

The Kankaria is dried up as well. The groundwater table has gone low beyond repair, which was the only sources that once quenched the thirst of the city. The borewells also started giving in, coughing up nothing but dust. Privileged families were receiving water from trucks that only inconsistently arrived once a week. There was no patch of green in sight. The landscape is surrounded by constructions of buildings. High level of pollution was choking a population whose size was not manageable. Pirana now holds the record for being the tallest garbage mound in the country. The whole city is now aware that extinction is inevitable.

Few concepts ideated involving tasks and portals

114

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

115

Character Development

A 10-year-old girl, whose family is severely affected by the water crisis.

To represent the audience as they explore the narrative, a character was developed. Making the audience assume a character’s role in the narrative was aimed to improve immersion. Experiencing the narrative through a representative’s eyes would make the audience put themselves in the situation.

Name

Personality

Anvesha Izumi

Aab

Arvi

Asbah

Amrita

Muna

Curious Mischievous Adventurous Helpful Courageous Athletic Risk taking

Inspirations

Water Desire Wish Overflowing spring

• •

Women- Stepwell-water connection.

A little girl to make primary audience connect more and engage.

Initial impression sketches of the character, Muna in the form of silhouettes. As the character was imagined to be the representaion of water, she was visualised to be in a flowy attire like a frock or petticoat.

The Character was envisioned to be a representation of water, hence names which mean ‘Water’ from different origin were searched. Finally the name ‘Muna’ was chosen as it felt neutral and not biased towards a specific religious background.

‘Muna’ name has various origins. In Arabic origin it means Water, desire and wise. In Native American origin it means an ‘ Overlowing Spring’.

Chihiro, a fictional character.

Source : Spirited away(2001) Credits : https://picsart.com/

A Protagonist

Alice, a fictional Character.

Source: Alice in wonderland(1951)

7.4

Amudha, a fictional character Source : Kannathil Muthamittal(2002) Credits : https://www.revolvy.com

116

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

117

7.5

7.6

Objective building-1

TURNING POINT

As the scenario was established and our character Muna was put in, next step was setting a goal for her.

While building the narrative of Muna’s adventure to find water, an idea sparked, of making her fall inside a borewell. That felt interesting ,as I thought that could be a portal which can take her to an alternate world where she would come across a stepwell.

Muna notices her family struggling to get water. Also her ‘curious’ mind keeps asking her, where all the water have gone?

Along with this another idea emerged of making her come out, again out of a borewell which would bring her back to her world.

Find the water

The Portal idea

Borewell to Borewell During her quest for water, Muna comes across a borewell, inside which she slips

Hence to help her family and to answer her mind, Muna sets on an adventure to find Water

The idea of bringing in a borewell inside which Muna falls, was inspired by a scene in ‘Alice in wonderland(2010)’ where Alice peeks inside a rabbit hole and it pulls her inside.

118

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

119

7.7

Scenario building- 2

Past

The Village

Where does the borewell take Muna to?

7.8

Objective building- 2

The borewell portal, takes Muna to the past Ahmedabad. A millenium behind.

Bring the water back

It is a village scenario, Muna wakes up to a bunch of villagers surrounded her.

She expresses her desperation to go back home. From their response, Muna learns that even the village is facing a deadly water scarcity.

A new objective is established for Muna, in the alternate world. She needs to bring the water back to the stepwell, which is the only way to restore the situation, which as well holds the key for her to go back home.

The cause Muna learns from the villagers, the reason behind the threatening situation.

The only resource of water, their stepwell, which the village was relying upon for hundreds of years, is now dried up.

120

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

121

7.9

Revised structure

Scenario-1 Objective - 1 - Find water

Muna Borewell in

Past World-2

What is the cause for the tragic scene in the village?

Portal

Portal

Present World- 1

Borewell out

And how to restore peace?

Scenario-2 Objective-2 - Bring water back

l el nd w ep ts a St en s Ev s k ta Water brought back, situation restored!

122

Water! Reward with warning Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

123

7.12 Final

Narrative structure

Scenario-1 Objective - 1 - Find water Present

World- 1

1

7

Borewell in

Borewell out

Muna

The City

The Draining Devices

2

The reason the village’s stepwell have dried up is because of the appearance of big structures from the same world where Muna comes from. They all are draining the water which provides the village.

Past

Portal

Portal

Scenario-2 Objective-2 - Bring water back

World-2

3

The Village l d el w an ep t s St en s Ev ask t

Objective building- 3

7.11

4

The Holy Ocean World- 3

Muna has to destroy all the devices for which she needs to go even below the Stepwell’s bottom, to the ‘Holy Ocean’ where the devices are located.

The Holy Ocean

Water brought back

Scenario building- 3

7.10

6

Reward with warning

Scenario- 3

5

Objective-3 - Destroy the threats

Objective-3 Accomplished

124

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

125

The final narrative

8.

126

Chapter-1-Quest for the Elixir Chapter-2- Chase the Elixir Chapter-3 Save the Elixir Chapter-4 The twist

127

The journey of the Elixirs

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

129

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4, 1.5

Chapter- 1

Quest for the Elixir 1.1 Muna and her Baima’s stories 1.2 Mother’s struggle 1.3 Quest for water 1.4 Borewell farm 1.5 The Portal

PRESENT

WORLD - 1 THE CITY

130

131

Narrative

World setup

The City 1.1 Muna and her Baima’s stories Syria, 2019.

Image credits: Narciso Contreras

Concept art for Leila Netflix series Credits : Yuvraj Jha

A water crisis has unfolded that is unlike any other that occurred in the past decades. All the surface water has evaporated. The Sabarmati is bone dry.

The Kankaria is dried up as well. The groundwater table has gone low beyond repair, which was the only source that once quenched the thirst of the city. The borewells also started giving in, coughing up nothing but dust. Privileged families were receiving water from trucks that only inconsistently arrived once a week.

There was no patch of green in sight. The landscape is surrounded by constructions of buildings. High level of pollution was choking a population whose size was not manageable. Pirana now holds the record for being the tallest garbage mound in the country. The whole city is now aware that extinction is inevitable.

Pirana garbage mound.

Credits: NDTV

132

Muna is a 10-year-old girl from a middle-class Ahmedabad family. She lives with her mother (Ma) and great grandmother(Baima). She grew up listening to her Baima’s childhood stories. As in the recent times, the city has been struck with serious water scarcity, Baima often tells stories about how she and her friends used to go to a nearby stepwell to fetch water, take a bath and generally to play.

Baima would describe the intricate beauty of the stepwell and its surprising potential of providing water to a whole village. Muna becomes excited whenever Baima mentions about the stepwell. Muna has never seen a stepwell in real, as they are long gone and buried under the constructions above them.

River Mahanadi.

Credits: The new Indian Express.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

133

1.2 Mother’s Struggle

1.4 The borewell farm

Muna has been observing her mother’s struggle to sustain the family, amidst the water scarcity. Also she gets very curious about where all the water has gone and why people are struggling.

She wants to help her mother as well as feed her curiosity.

During her quest, Muna hears a strange sound. The sound is very distinct from other noises around her and is coming from a certain direction. Muna starts walking towards the direction of the sound, which leads her to an abandoned borewell farm. There are a number of borewells scattered all over. The sound is now strong and it is from one of the borewell, Muna understands. She gets excited that the sound might be a sign of the presence of water. She starts peeking into the borewells one by one, trying her luck.

1.3 Quest for water

1.5 The Portal The sound becomes louder and unbearable as Muna nears a particular borewell.

Though Muna feels like her ear drums are going to explode, she gathers all her strength and peeks inside. In no time, Muna gets sucked inside the borewell, which takes her back in time.

‘Muna sets on a quest to find water in the bone dry city’

‘The borewell takes Muna to the past of The City’ 134

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

135

Chapter - 2

Chasing the Elixir

PAST

2.1: The dying village 2.2: The Grand Octagon

WORLD - 2 THE VILLAGE

136

137

World setup The village

The Village

The Grand Octagon

The Village is a representation of Ahmedabad around a millenium ago. It was imagined as a floating mass of land to give it a fantastical visual in contrast to its present counterpart, The City.

The Grand Octagon, is the only resource of water for the entire village. Like the name suggests, it is a majestic Octagonal stepwell, located in the centre of the village.

The floating village

The Grand Octagon at the centre of the village

Settlements One of the ideas, where the floating village is connected through bridges with other such villages, to make the World look more interesting.

A reference image for the concept of floating village.

Image source: Artstation Image Credits: Mackenzie Melendy

138

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

139

Scenario: Muna wakes up amidst a tragic situation in the village. It is an atmosphere with a heavy sand storm, making visibility diminish to its extreme. All the elements both living and non living have become sand statues that are rapidly disintegrating and dissappearing into the sand storm.

2.1.1 2.1.2

Moodboard

2.1.3

2.1.4 2.1.5 2.1.6 Pavilion

2.1 The dying village Sand storm in Southern Madagascar, Aug 17, 2012.

Source: www.dfic.cn

2.1.1 In the middle of a sand storm 2.1.2 Hope in the distance 2.1.3 The sand statues - A shocking sight 2.1.4 The Oracle 2.1.5 A procession in hope 2.1.6 Towards a pavilion

140

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

141

In middle of a sandstorm

2.1.1

The hot arid wind forces little Muna to open her eyelids slowly. She cannot open her eyes properly because there is sand hurling at her from all directions. She can feel its sharp brushes against her face and hands. She peeks a little and finds that she is in a desert. But her sense of direction is lost and there is only so little that is visible in the distance. Muna is unsure of where and how she ended up where she is. The disorientation slowly subsides and she suddenly realises that she needs to go back home. She is frightened and her mind is racing all over the place. Under all her instinctive feelings of fright and longing, there is a curious voice within her that beckons her to step forth and explore the strange new landscape. She realises that she does not have any other option but to go onward. Muna starts her journey along the heaps of sand.

142

2.1.2

Hope in the distance

2.1.3 The

sand statuesA shocking sight

The sand hindered everything in sight for Muna. As she struggled to see in the distance, she saw something of interest. Afar, it looked like a settlement. She tries to increase the pace and trudges through the intensifying sandstorm. As she nears the settlement, she notices forms resembling huts and people who seemed to approach her. She finally felt safe and calm.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Muna approaches people. She feels her throat go dry in shock. She notices that the people are actually sand statues that are eroding fast due to the harsh winds. Muna is horrified by the sight and can’t believe her eyes. The statues posture seemed like they were frozen right when they were evacuating the place. Muna walks further and finds that trees, animals and all signs of life have become sand statues. The entire village is dying.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

143

2.1.6 Towards

a pavilion

Muna follows the trail of women that led her far from the settlement. She trudges onto a large elevated patch of ground and notices something. Buried in the mounds of sand, what resembled a large chunk of an ancient ruin of sort. Could it have been a part of an old building, pavilion or a landmark. Muna climbs the mound further.

2.1.4 The

Oracle

As a petrified Muna tries to process what she is witnessing, a bright light appears out of nowhere. It is an Oracle! Muna looks at the entity with great curiosity. The Oracle serenely starts to move and a voice rings from it. The voice explains what lies around Muna. The Oracle says that the dying of life here started years ago and has now snowballed to the current state. The Oracle also reveals that Muna’s place of origin is the hand behind the tragedy that is unfolding around her. The Oracle is still leading Muna through the landscape and insists that deeds have to be done before all of life perishes. The Oracle fades after conveying the message and Muna finds herself in a new place. She can see something in the distance.

144

2.1.5 A

procession in hope

Muna reaches a path. A long line of women carrying ‘Matkas’ who were turned into sand statues. They were frozen while in the act of walking towards a general direction. Their expressions were that of anguish, longing and desperation. Clawing thin air in the desperate hope of getting saved.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Something is waiting!

Muna nears the pavilion and a gushing sound from the other side reaches her ears. Muna is excited and bubbling with anticipation. She trudges faster across the mounds, approaching the pavilion.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

145

2.2: The Grand Octagon 2.2.1 A

Pavilion

2.2.1

2.2: The Grand Octagon

Longitudinal section - Grand Octagon

2.2.11

2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4 2.2.5 2.2.6 2.2.7 2.2.8 2.2.9 2.2.10 2.2.11

A majestic sight!

The elixir The chase A moment of marvel The Guardians The quake Escape Degrading well A moment of grief The quake returns The Kuva

majestic sight!

Muna was experiencing something so other-worldly and surreal that even she knew she could not have possibly dreamed or imagined any of this. In front of her, is a massive octagonal stepwell. Muna felt puny and fragile in the face of this structure. Even in her very sophisticated hometown, she has not seen a structure this huge. For a moment, this unreal structure filled her vision and blocked everything else out of sight. Muna takes a moment to get back to her senses and walks towards the well.

2.2.2 The

elixir!

As she walks, another beautiful sight lies ahead. She finds water! The sole purpose for which Muna took upon this quest.

Much to Muna’s surprise, the water did not look normal. Words can not come close to describing it. It appeared to be glowing! If one were to imagine what Elixir would be like, this would be it. It is exactly what one would imagine when the word Elixir is uttered.

The Kuva

Interestingly though, the water was not still but rather flowing constantly into a whirlpool.

It appeared as if an entire waterfall was contained in a bucket and whirling in it.

146

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

147

2.2.3

The chase for water

2.2.4

Muna climbs down to reach the water. As she nears to touch it, to her astonishment, it immediately repels. Muna swiftly tries to reach out again, but the water escapes much just as quick.

A moment of marvel

The water picks up pace as if the well had a sink stopper in the bottom which got suddenly removed. That reveals the beautiful architecture which was submerged under the water. Muna is intrigued by the stunning architecture of the Well. She boosts herself to continue her pursuit.

2.2.5 The

During the chase to attain the water, Muna stumbles upon various characters.

They are the guardians of the well. On a normal day, these guardians would be found living contently in the submerged niches within the walls of the well. But now even they are helpless and desperate as the raging chaos of scarcity is beyond what they could expect in their otherwise peaceful and lively world. However, Muna’s arrival symbolizes a new hope for them. Hence they bestow powers upon Muna in the hope that she will use them to save the dying village and restore peace.

‘A descending chase for the water begins.’

148

Guardians

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

149

2.2.6

The quake

2.2.9

Muna is curious to exercise and find out what powers lie within her. But before she can, her world shakes under her feet. The ground trembles violently. The place oddly begins to become dark very fast. The stepwell starts to disintegrate and perish just like the village above.

2.2.7

The tremors subside soon. Large chunks of the well have disappeared, leaving behind only the pedestals of the columns. The site looked like a freshly stripped patch of forest that once had majestic trees and flora. The whole site was filled with deafening silence. For a moment, time slows down, the dust, the air, everything slowed down for a brief moment.

Escape

The quake returns

2.2.10

The water has receded too far now and more than pursuing the receding water, Muna has only one goal and that is to save herself.

2.2.8

It's the tremors again and this time, the floor and the stairs under Muna’s feet begin to tremble. Muna has to act much faster and find footing as the floor too starts to dissolve. The ground cracks and evaporates into nothing. Muna has to reach the distant bottom of the well which is the only thing visible in the quickly darkening surroundings. Muna swiftly vaults across the pieces of the floor that were still intact. Muna has to be careful and alert, as the whole site was extremely sensitive, fragile and dangerous. Anything could be dislodged with the slightest touch.

Degrading well

The grand octagon is now slowly dissolving into nothing. The roofs of the pavilion give in and disintegrate, thus baring the columns. The columns too now begin to perish.

The cracks and niches in the walls lose their beauty and become lifeless.

150

A moment of grief

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

151

The metaphor behind 2.2.11

The metaphorical narrative of ‘The Grand Octagon’

The Kuva

Muna with tremendous effort and luck manages to reach The Kuva, the bottom-most part of The Octagon. The rest of The Octagon above her becomes completely annihilated.

A deteriorating journey.

The narrative of the Grand Octagon(the stepwell) was a depiction of a deteriorating journey which was the insight from the research conclusion.

The whole idea of water evading and chasing in the Octagon was a take on the vanishing of water in the stepwells, a reality which had happened through time in the history of stepwells.

The stepwell was placed as a part of the bigger narrative to focus more primarily on the overall narrative theme. And it had fit properly with the other part narratives, as the narrative of the stepwell added more meaning by bringing in the past of the water, where it all began, which slowly lead towards the crisis situation in the present.

At The Kuva, the next world gets revealed to Muna.

152

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

153

The Guardians The idea of the Guardians was to bring in various characters which were come across during the research. It was imagined to be an all-women set of characters who played various roles in the stepwell culture. Like a Patron, a worshipper, a goddess, a spirit women

Other ideas of character intervention • • • • • Image Source: www.disney-bornandraised.tumblr.com

• •

Translucent Holographic

154

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

The characters could be Patrons who together built the step well-spending lot of wealth with generosity.

Characters at different levels representing different timeline, and have respective stories to tell Muna.

Characters each helps Muna acquire the power to build and create a specific element of the stepwell.

Muna’s task to unlock characters which are hidden somewhere inside the well.

Collect items which would be required to arrange a grand Puja to bring water back.

Even evil characters which would try to stop Muna’s progression.

Characters which confuses Muna into a puzzle.

155

Chapter- 3

Save the Elixir 3.1,3.2

WORLD - 3 THE HOLY OCEAN

3.1 The Oracle again 3.2 The Guardians’ gift 3.3 Save the water 3.4 The restoration 3.5 An extraordinary gesture!

3.3

3.5 3.4

156

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

157

Ideal scenario

World setup World - 3 has three major components.

The Holy Ocean

The Village

The Holy Ocean and The Channel

The Grand Octagon filled with water The Kuva

It is represented as a vast endless entity of water. It is the ‘source’ from which The Grand Octagon usually draws water to provide the whole village.

The Channel connecting The Grand Octagon and The Holy Ocean

The Channel This is the connector between the World- 2 and World-3. Through The Channel is how the Grand Octagon draws the water from the Holy Ocean. The Channel resembles a waterspout.

The Draining Devices

The Holy Ocean

Waterspout above the sea.

Image source: www.wikipedia.org

Current scenario

The Draining Devices

The Draining Devices are represented in the form of water taps, inverted upside down. They can be seen scattered all over the Holy ocean and draining the water from it. These devices are the reason behind the tragic situation that the World- 2 presently is in. They are constantly sucking the water from the ocean and dissipating it upwards.

The whole evasion of water which happened in the previous chapter was because of The Draining Devices. The rapid draining of the Holy Ocean has lead to the weakening of The Channel. As The Channel weakened, it could no longer maintain the supply to the stepwell. And that’s why the water started evading down the well.

158

The Village The emptied dying Grand Octagon as the water evaded The Kuva The weakening channel, detached from the stepwell The Draining Devices rapidly sucking all the water from The Holy Ocean and dissipating upwards

Inverted water tap, leaking water upwards

The Holy Ocean Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

159

3.4 The

Muna starts building her way through, slowly learning to have control on the power. Above the rapidly draining Holy Ocean, a bridge/network of hope is been constructed. Muna reaches the nearest Draining Device, destroys it and proceeds building towards the next one.

As she destroys The Draining Devices one by one, The Holy Ocean is revived and regains its life and its contents gradually. A long forsaken channel now gradually rises, flowing towards The Kuva. (for more information about this portion,

From The Kuva, it is revealed to Muna why the situation in The Village was so tragic. Muna witnesses a terrifying sight. The Draining Devices are scattered all over The Holy Ocean, sucking all the water it held and dissipating it upwards.

3.1 The

Oracle again

refer pg: 161)

At this moment, the Oracle reappears and urges Muna that the Draining Devices should be destroyed at the earliest. The Oracle also throws a hint about the power she had acquired from the Guardians, earlier.

3.2 The

3.5 An

extraordinary gesture!

When Muna destroys the last of The Draining Devices, a magical incident happens. The Channel which was flowing towards The Kuva, takes a moment, deviates from its course and starts flowing towards Muna, who is left stranded in the middle of The Holy Ocean. As a kind gesture for her great deed, the Channel has bent from its usual nature for a brief time. When it reaches Muna, it slowly coils around her. For the first time in this arduous journey, Muna now finally comes in contact with the water. Actually, it is the water which came to Muna. The elixir felt so soothing on her skin. The Channel gently lifts Muna up, she lets herself float, as The Channel gets back to its actual course and finally bridges to The Kuva strong just how it supposed to be.

Guardians’ gift

This allows Muna to finally find out what powers are bestowed upon her. She is bemused to find that she can now, with her thoughts, create and control the elements that make up a stepwell.

3.3 Save

the water

The objective now changes from chasing the water to saving it. She now realizes that she has to use her powers wisely to reach the draining devices and destroy them, thus saving the elixir from being lost upwards 160

restoration

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

161

Interactivity: As the narrative suggests, the World- 3 was designed to be the most interactive and gamified part of the experience where there would be less of a narrative involved and more of action.

The metaphor behind ‘The Holy Ocean’ is a representation of the underground water table (Aquifer), which once used to be surplus. But after the advent of modern technologies like pumps and borewells, it has been depleted drastically. The water taps are the representation of this. The choice of having general household water taps was also to emphasise the wastage of water on a daily basis due to leakage, a serious thing which humans are negligent about. Hence the water taps are represented as huge structures in the fictional world.

162

The production work in this world would be, • Designing and building different stepwell elements like stairs, columns, horizontal pavilion towers, niches and kuvas.

• Designing unique attributes for each element, rarities, making them available for a cost (a cost inside the narrative, not actual money).

• Each element would have its unique difficulty of handling and the difficulty could increase as Muna progresses towards the objective.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

163

How Muna would stop The Draining Devices?

The magical property of The Kuva In a stepwell, the bottom most portion is the Kuva.

That is where one finds the water. The speciality could be seen from the extreme intricacy of the carvings around the Kuva. In the narrative, this quality of Kuva is fictionalised. The Kuva has the ability to hold water like a container.

So when Muna reaches each Draining Device, as the final action of the objective, she has to build The Kuva around the mouth of The Device.

It would be the most difficult task she has to perform. When she manages to complete building The Kuva, it will act as a barrier which would start holding all the water coming upwards through The Draining Devices. Since the water starts getting accumulated at The Kuva, The Draining Device would start getting pressurised, as the excessive water it is sucking from The Holy Ocean wouldn’t have space to escape. This would result in the destruction of The Draining Device.

Level Design: Image to the left: A visualisation of the Kuva acting as a barrier and preventing the water from dissipating.

Image to the right: Visualisation of the final task of Muna, where she has to build The Kuva, the ultimate element of the stepwell, around the mouth of The Draining Device to stop the water dissipation.

164

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

The idea of destroying The Draining Device would be completing one stage and further stages go likewise. Hence new style of elements, with varied attributes could be brought in (upgrades).

And the number of stages could keep getting added on, with more research and development.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

165

Chapter - 4

The twist

166

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Muna starts to believe that the situation is safe now. She has arrived back to The Kuva and stares at The Grand Octagon above that has now been revived to its former glory. A sight that will remain unforgotten in her mind for many more lifetimes to come. Life is now restored. The village is also resurrected now and gathers at The Kuva, showering Muna with praises, their hearts filled with joy, gratitude and relief.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

167

Twist in the tale Peace and order seemed to be restored. The people are overjoyed and there was a festive mood at the gathering

by The Kuva. But then suddenly something happens. The villagers celebrated too soon and the feeling of dread has returned. The Kuva, which was standing strong even during the previous tremors, now starts to shake dangerously.

There is shock and fear in everyone’s eyes.

The elixir slowly levitates upward from The Kuva and so does Muna. Muna can’t escape and doesn’t understand what’s happening. The people around

168

Muna is not happy though, not in the least bit. There was no joy for her in knowing that she has returned to her world. She didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment, even though she brought an ample amount of water back to her world, which was what the sole purpose of her quest was. Her mind and heart were still with the people in The Village down there who were celebrating. She wondered what happened to them. What happened to the people? The Village? The Stepwell? The Guardian beings that lived in the walls? Her questions stay unanswered.

are dumbfounded too. Before anyone can react to any of this, a strong jet of the elixir shoots upward and Muna is abruptly taken with it.

In the blink of an eye, Muna and the water are thrown upward and out, and this time it was out of a bore well. She was back in her city somehow. She observes a crowd of people who are joyous and frolicking, just like the sight in The Village a few moments ago. A horde of people rush to the bore well site which was now overflowing with water. Men in uniforms who seemed like guards were trying their best to control the crowd.

Everyone was elated, celebrating a rare and pure moment in their lives- seeing water flowing from the bore well.

----- The End ? -----

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

169

ENVIRONMENT DESIGN

9.

170

As the narrative is intertwined with the environment it occurs in, the design of the environment has already been revealed and its spatial components, their nature and role in the fictional narrative have been discussed a decent amount.

Now, it is time to get a more detailed look into the environment design process. This phase will be focused on discussing the initial ideas followed by the process to arrive at final designs of the environment ending with Final Visualisations. The ideation process followed different approaches. Some ideas emerged to support the narratives formed, some sparked as intuitions and later went into a continuous process of reasoning, refining. The topic of allegory also has been discussed which were the results of reasoning, meaning and connection making across the narrative and the environments.

171

World- 1

The City ‘The City’ being portrayed as a dystopian one, would have a monochrome grey colour palatte.

This visual language creates a strong impression about the hopeless, doubtful and uncertain future the City is yet to face in the fiction.

The major elements of environment would be densely packed constructions, dried water bodies, high and huge garbage mounds and a polluted smogy atmosphere.

Monochrome Dystopian Hopeless Bone dry Polluted Densely packed Chaos Smoky Unorganised

A street scene from Ahmedabad 2030.

Conept art by Tom Antony.

172

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

173

Scenario: The dying village

World- 2

The scenario of ‘ The dying village’ was conceptualised to evoke the same sense of atmosphere as the dystopian city. But here in The Village, the condition is much worse as the entire village has been frozen into sand statues and is rapidly annihilating too.

The Village The environment ideation of The Village was done parallelly with the ideation of the stepwell since the well is the most important and integral part of The Village. The Village imagined to be a floating entity from the starting as it created a strong interesting visual as a fictional environment. The next step was ideating the depiction of the stepwell and its placement in The Village.

The core aim behind developing such a scenario is to put Muna in a situation where she should get the sense of responsibility to restore the condition.

The initial idea was to make Muna wake up to the villagers surrounding her. They would explain her the situation and make a plea to her to save the village. Later the idea emerged, of making everything into disintegrating sand statues. It felt like an interesting idea as it still worked well in terms of serving the purpose of the aim. Muna has then naturally become the only one who can technically save the situation, being the only living thing in the past world she has fallen into.

Initial approaches involved exploring with existing forms of linear and square stepwells and placing them in and around The Village.

The square well in the centre of The Village was found interesting since it’s location emphasised its importance. After the location of the well was decided, the form of representing the well was explored.

174

Monochrome Fierce Dusty Confusing Smudgy Dense Annihilating

The colour palette was inspired by the colours from a desert storm. As the scenario is the same as The City, the colour palette too. It is monochrome but with a varied tint which would suit the established atmosphere and also as a visual language to represent a past environment.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

175

Visualisation of the scene when Muna realises that the whole village is frozen into sand statue.

Visualisation of The Village

Final Visualisation Visualisation of the dying village scenario, showing a fierce sand storm atmoshphere and a rapidly annihilating settlement of huts, trees completely dried up and withered and the sand statue turned human beings and other lives.

Visualisation to show the style of disintegration of the sand statues.

Concept Arts by : Yamini Sujan

176

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

177

The Grand Octagon

Form

Captured essence

Amalgamation for fiction The idea behind the Octagonal well

The intent was to take the actual experiential essence of one’s descending journey in a stepwell but fictionalizing it to bring in the essence needed. The immediate impression sketches made during the initial narrative design explorations were good inspiration at this stage.

Inspirations • •

The deep stepped ponds of Rajasthan.

The beautiful view from the well bottom(Kuva) of Dada Harir Vav.

There are linear descending stepwells, stepwells which are L-shaped, square shaped stepped ponds reaching towards a central well. But for this fictional experience, a unique stepwell environment was planned to be designed.

Mood of the environment A sense of closed darkening environment An infinite converging path towards the water

When ideating a unique representation of the stepwell in the fictional world, the stepwells from Rajathan were good inspiration. They differ from the ones in Gujarat in their form and depth. And the beautiful sight as a my personal experience had during a visit to Dada Harir vav inspired the idea of having an Octagonal well in the fiction.

Intriguing perspective Sense of inside a maze 178

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

179

Environment building process

Final visualisation drawings of the block out form of the ocatgonal well.

Initial skeches The initial process of environment building involved explorations to come up with an overall block out form of the stepwell.

Columns and pavilion tower

Perspective view.

Orthogonal plan view

Orthogonal longitudinal view

The Kuva (Bottom most portion)

180

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

181

Movement The descending path The descending path would be through the ideal elements of a stepwells, the steps

Muna’s descending movement in the Grand Octagon

‘A spiralling, descending journey inside an Octagonal well’ The movement of Muna i.e the experience’s flow would be starting from the pavilion. As Muna chases the water, she would be climbing downwards in the octagonal well, which converges as proceeded.

182

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

183

The spatial elements The pavilion towers The main spatial elements of the Grand Octagon are the iconic architectural elements in a stepwell, the pavilion towers (Kutas). They comprise the Columns, horizontal pavilions and niches. They are chosen since this architectural style was found to be the uniqueness of the stepwell architecture and would easily be recognizable.

The niches During the process, a problem arised. As in an Octagon, the vertices do not meet at right angles, it was difficult to visualise the corners of the well, as the stairs and pavilions get distorted.

Then the Octagon was truncated at the vertices(corners). Later, the corners became interesting spaces to bring in niches, where character interactions would happen.

For more details about Kuta refer pages: 34,35 and 37

The interaction between Muna and The Guardians would happen at the niches. The Niches are fictionally conceptualised to be the living places of The Guardians who are the watchers of The Grand Octagon.

184

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

185

Final stepwell environment Inside The Grand Octagon

Placement

Along the converging descending path of stairs, the main spatial elements, the columns, the pavilions and niches would be stretched.

That makes the overall environment language of The Grand Octagon.

The Grand Octagon located in the centre of the Village The final environment of the Grand Octagon, showing its major spatial elements stretching along the converging path.(The top portion is shown without the side walls)

The pa

v ilion t

ow e r s

The niche

The Grand Octagon, Longitudinal Cross section

The Kuva

Descending steps 186

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

187

Longitudinal section showing The village and The Grand Octagon in the centre

The Kuva The Kuva, being the bottom most part of The Grand Octagon also becomes the bottom most part of The Village. The Kuva is where The Channel connects drawing water from The Holy Ocean.

Water in The Grand Octagon

The Kuva

The whirlpool form •

•

The Channel connects with The Kuva at this opening

While ideating a visual that would depict that the water would evade soon, like it does in the narrative.

An image of water sucked inside a sink with full force emerged in my mind, which was the inspiration.

A whirlpool Source: www.p2p12.org

188

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

189

Initial visualisation of water in whirlpool form and its evading motion inside the stepwell.

Final visualisation

The process of creating the whirlpool for the environment through sculpting.

Software: Blender

Visualisation of the descending evasion of water forming a whirlpool.

Inital visualisation

190

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

191

The Colour

Stepwell once a lively environment towards a dark obsolescence

Water from its elixir form, becomes ordinary and in the end endangered

The Colour of the water and the stepwell undergo a transiion together, from a bright palatte to a dull, dark and lifeless, monochrome palatte, finally becoming similar to that of the World - 1.

Transitions To support the transitional nature of the narrative, the environment too undergoes a constant transition through out.

192

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

193

Final visualisation of transition in colour along The Grand Octagon as proceeded downwards

Initial- bright lively environment

Final- monochrome, dull

Evading Movement of Water and colour transition as Muna chases it.

194

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

195

Spatial Elements Transition in space The sense of detoriation in the stepwell space would be brought in through the disintegration of the Spatial elements in the stepwell environment. The major spatial elements, The pavilion towers and the columns would start disintegrating upwards. After they completely annihilate, there would be a brief pause, for the audience to reflect. Then again the disintegration would start, this time the floor itself. Here’s where the pace of the experience would slowly start to speed up. It is imagined to be vaulting along the crumbling envrionment like experience. This would continue till Muna reaches the bottom part of the well, the Kuva.

For narrative description, refer pages: 148 and 149

196

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

197

World- 3

The Holy Ocean

The Draining Devices

The environment of The Holy Ocean is similar to a middle of an Ocean. The whole atmosphere would be misty to limit the visibility and to create the feel that it is an endless entity. The colour palatte followed is tints of blue.

As The Draining Devices are from the World-1, The City, they follow the similar monochromatic grey palatte. The water which comes out through the mouths of The Draining Devices also becomes the similar palatte as the devices. This idea is to evoke a negative sense about the whole action of dissipation as well as to differentiate the water dissipated from the devices from the water of The Holy Ocean.

Ideal scenario: The Grand Octagon draws water from The Holy Ocean which forms The Channel.

198

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Since the appearance of The Draining Devices: The Draining Devices are rapidly draining The Holy Ocean. They are sucking the water and dissipating upwards. The water coming out of the Devices are vanishing into nothing.

199

The Draining Devices and the objective 3

The Draining Devices are distributed over The Holy Ocean.

Each device would be at varying heights. Muna has to start building towards the nearest device first, stop the dissipation by building The Kuva around it. Then she has to proceed to the next closest.

This continues till she reaches the farthest device and stops dissipation completely, which would be the accomplishment of the objective in the World- 3.

2

1

Visualistion: Post destruction of The Draining Devices 1. Destroyed Draining Devices 2. The Channel connected back with The Grand Octagon 3. Muna back at The Kuva.

200

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

201

Character Design

10.

Character spotting Artist credits Explorations: Meenakshi Ayyappan and Alan Dev Final design : Alan Dev

202

Spotting people around the campus who had similar attire to the ones imagined for Muna. They were good references to communicate better with the Character design artist.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

People in the photos in the order left to right: Muskaan Agarwal, Gouthami M G, Reshma Rose Thomas.

203

Explorations Flowy Messy Modern

• •

204

• •

Initially imagined as flowy frock- like cloth, as she represents water.

Later evolved to a Poncho resembling top with tights in the bottom to keep the modern look as Muna lives in 2030.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

More iterations went in the top.

Square cut design was included to make the Character go well with the Stepwell environment, in the same time not loosing the flowy nature.

205

Final Visualisations Final visual explorations of including patterns and colours depicting water.

The inspirations for the pattern styles were taken from traditional dyeing techniques practiced in Gujarat.

Inspirations From top, clock-wise

• • • •

Lehriya Lehriya Shibori Bandhani

Artist credits Explorations: Meenakshi Ayyappan and Alan Dev Final design : Alan Dev

206

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

207

Production phase • • •

The plan ahead

•

11.

• • • •

Deciding the medium and platform, given it is going to be an online accessible experience.

Working with visual artists to develop the visual treatments (Art of Muna).

Prototyping phase - Building of narrative environments in software which would involve creation and collection of assets.

Working with game developers if and when needed to develop specific interaction mechanics, level designs Working with programmers to develop interactions and creation of walkthroughs and refining(Beta testing) Final Character design Sound design and music.

Testing and refining through out, till the launch of the experience.

The chronology of the scope may subject to vary, since the order of approach would depend on arising constrains at the time of production like the budget, time and resources.

208

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

209

A funful challenging journey

Reflection and Conclusion 12.

Learning from Exhibition Design It was my first try in both, creating a fiction as well a digital interactive experience. So the whole project was me exploring my learnings from the Exhibition Design courses and applying them in new ways. It made me form my own way of approach in creating fictional narratives.The learnings from classroom courses like Spatial narratives, Design Project on Pavilion Design, The VR and game building workshops by Quicksand, Visualisation Drawing helped me plot my own design process in the project.

Understanding the Topic The insights from the Research on the topic of stepwells and the consequent experiences I came through on the context of water, especially the pressuring issues of water scarcity all over the country were marked influences behind the theme of the narrative chosen. It was indeed a relevant topic to discuss. Still the strong negative notion about the future emerged, could have had less influence on the narrative.

The process of narrative making The Narrative design was a fun process. It was a tricky excercise of coming up with narratives and later ordering them in places and modifying, refining them each time a narrative gets its new place. And that process would go on till all the narratives together felt are in a proper order to form a sequential story.

210

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Elements of Narrative Design The narrative design was parrallely done along with the Environment design of the narrative. Being from an Exhibition Design background that was not surprising, as I have always worked on narratives around spaces.

That appraoch was actually a positive thing in this project since it dealt with the spaces of stepwells.

Balance of Intuition and Methodology After establishing the theme of narrative, I struggled to start with the narrative design of the fiction. Then after the advice from my guide, colleague and friends, I realised that to create a fiction one should get into a intuitive mode and keep a methodological approach aside. When I started doing that, Ideas started flowing in my mind.

Dilemma of Interaction and Narrative My initial understanding of the nature of experience comes from my interest in video games. The project started with the assumption of creating a gamified experience. The research on video games created a big confusion in balancing narrative and interactions.

Narrative and its interactions had equal importance in the early stage of Narrative

Building Process. As interaction design for games require its own expertise, building narrative became a more and more challenging process.

Even though my role was to design the narrative and environment only, I felt that I need to keep interactivity also in mind.

As I believed that thinking of interactivity would help take better decisions in terms of feasibility of the idea. That decision was good as well as distractive for narrative making.

Struggles in making the Storyline The story involves narrative sequences, where the environment would be in constant animation(The Sand statues disintegrating(World- 2), Water dissipation from the Draining Devices(World3)) and also animation triggers as a feedback of Muna’s action (The evasion of water in the Grand Octagon, the disintegration of stepwell elements, Muna spawning elements of stepwell as she builds her way towards the Draining Devices. With me being the only one working in the narrative, these things were not able to be made in motion to test how they work. This hindered further explorations in these aspects which were ideated with animations having in mind, due to unavailability of technical asssistance. It was also challenging to convey those ideas in this document.

211

During the Game For Good workshop, I had a talk with Dr.Kavitha Vemuri, Professor at IIIT, Hyderabad. She explained designing something for children is extremely difficult. And in that short time she had for me, she threw words which are to be kept in my mind if I am designing gamified experience for children.

Though, I knew already that it will be possible to follow all of those in my project duration.

One thing which made me go ahead with designing the narrative was the less touched topic I was working on and the project being digital and interactive, which in general the children are fond of, an insight from the school visit I did.

Design Prosess Working on my own formed design process helped me to go in a flow with my though process. Hence at times when I was lost in the process, I was not able to refer to other related approaches to clarify my confusions. Hence following a personal methodology provides with creative flexibility in the same time comes with a cost.

As the nature of the narrative is more experiential and does not have frantic entertaining interactions, the intended effect on the primary audience is uncertain. But a personal take is that having a story driven narrative for a serious topic of discussion chosen is a wise decision. The aim was to focus more on the theme of narrative and not getting carried away with the entertaining interface. Through that cannot be assumed and commented on until an initial version of the experience is built and user tested. Hence the questions are yet to be raised and answers are yet to be found in the Production phase.

Discussions to get clarity about key influencing factors of the final experience should have happened on right time. Factors like the medium of the experience, whether it is going to be 2D or 3D, the camera angle, the platform of launching, the graphic style, the target audience and the technical requirements were not clearly discussed with the sponsor, when needed. The major aspects of budget and time feasibility also weren’t the factors of hindrance.

Personally the kind of project being totally new, I could not confidently take decisions on such major factors. Since these factors weren’t the constrains during the narrative building process, it gave me freedom to explore my creative ability through out. But getting into production phase means, answering all the questions and addressing the constrains as they rise. That is concerning because that most probably will lead to a compromise in the narrative designed, like modifications, simplification or even scrapping of portions.

Open-ended Project The project started without any constrains to be bothered about. That gave me a lot of freedom in exploring my creativity. But that was also a huge challenge, in terms of forming a methodological approach, priorotising the goals, organising the information collected from wide areas of topics looked into.

212

Personally managing time, organising research content to get clear insights, prioritising between have to’s, need to’s and want to’s, keeping myself away from distractions were a very hard tasks in this longest project I have ever worked in.

Finding loopholes in the narrative and filling them was a very exciting process. But could go only to a certain level and things which were left without giving much importance came back to bite while breaking down the narrative while writing this document. Questions were arised inside my mind as well as by the people who listened to the complete narrative of Muna. There were ideas in my mind to fill those gaps and reason by adding more fictional backgrounds. But that process would just go on as creating fiction have a number of possible ways to justify and make things complete. Also it was very challenging to figure a way to put them inside the structure of the document.

Being my first time in creating fiction I feel it is fine as it was a good learning process.

“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.”

– Arthur Ashe.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

213

References Books

Papers, articles, blogs

Games

Jain-Neubauer, Jutta. The Stepwells of Gujarat : In Art-Historical Perspective. New Delhi Abhinav Publ, 1981.

Fischer, Fabian. “Games as Experiential Narrative.” Medium, Medium, 3 June 2019, medium. com/@fischerdesign/games-as-experiential-narrative17be10caf77f. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Journey,2012 Florence, 2018 Father and Son, 2017 ‌The Plan, 2016 That Dragon, Cancer, 2016 Minecraft, 2011 Phallaina, 2016 Celeste, 2018 Raji (releasing in 2020) Antriksha Sanchar (in making) World Without Oil, 2007 Superstruct, 2008 Darfur is Dying, 2006

Lautmann, Victoria. Vanishing Stepwells of India.

Merrell Publishers Ltd, 2017.

Citations

13.

Livingston, Morna, and Milo Beach. Steps to Water : The Ancient Stepwells of India. New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.

Manvita Baradi, and Urban Management Centre -UMC. “Lesser Known Stepwells In and Around Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar Region.” Academia.

Edu, 2019, www.academia.edu/36697692/Lesser_ Known_Stepwells_In_and_Around_AhmedabadGandhinagar_Region. Accessed 29 Dec. 2019.

Purnima Mehta Bhatt, and Daniel Del Solar. Her Space, Her Story : Exploring the Stepwells of Gujarat. New Delhi, Zubaan, 2014.

Videos McGonigal, Jane. “Gaming Can Make a Better World.”

Ted.Com, TED Talks, 2010.

214

Inspirations

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

Ohannessian, Kevin. “Game Designer Jenova Chen On The Art Behind His ‘Journey.’” Fast Company, Fast Company, 12 Mar. 2012, www.fastcompany. com/1680062/game-designer-jenova-chen-on-theart-behind-his-journey. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Casberg, Chris. “‘That Dragon, Cancer’: A Video Game on Death, Grief, and Our Living Hope.” The Gospel Coalition, The Gospel Coalition, 21 Jan. 2016, www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/that-dragoncancer/. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“Heritage in Motion - Europeana | Father and Son.” Heritageinmotion.Eu, 2019, heritageinmotion.eu/ himentry/slug-1b6636423c159aa9db02f7d6e24b0 0a8. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Movies Alice in Wonderland, 2010.

“The Lead Designer of Monument Valley Deconstructs His Latest Game, Florence | The Work Behind The Work.” Milanote, 2019, milanote.com/the-work/leaddesigner-of-monument-valley-deconstructs-his-latestgame-florence. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“The Plan.” Giant Bomb, Giant Bomb, 10 Feb. 2013, www.giantbomb.com/the-plan/3030-41636/.

Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

215

Webliography

Images (Pg. 108 and 109) Ahmedabad Mirror. “Water Crisis Closing in, Where Are the Borewells?” Ahmedabad Mirror, 11 Apr. 2019, ahmedabadmirror.indiatimes.com/ahmedabad/ civic/water-crisis-closing-in-where-are-the-borewells/ articleshow/68822261.cms. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai among 21 Cities to Run out of Groundwater by 2020- Technology News, Firstpost.”

Tech2, 25 June 2018, www.firstpost.com/tech/science/indiaswater-crisis-bengaluru-delhi-chennai-hyderabad-among-21cities-to-run-out-of-groundwater-by-2020-4590221.html.

Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“Chennai Water Crisis: City’s Reservoirs Run Dry.” BBC News, 18 June 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-asiaindia-48672330. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

NDTV. “21 Indian Cities Will Run Out Of Groundwater By 2020: Report.” NDTV.Com, 20 June 2019, www.ndtv.com/ india-news/21-indian-cities-will-run-out-of-groundwater-by2020-report-2056129. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Times Of India. “Hyderabad Has Just 48 Days of Drinking Water Left.” The Times of India, Times Of India, 13 July 2019, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ hyderabad/city-has-just-48-days-of-drinking-water-left/ articleshow/70198833.cms. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Today, India. “Why India Does Not Have Enough Water to Drink.” India Today, 28 June 2019, www.indiatoday.in/ india/story/why-india-does-not-have-enough-water-todrink-1557669-2019-06-28. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

216

Varsha Dilip. “On Verge of Acute Water Crisis, Bengaluru May Turn Uninhabitable in Next Few Years, Warn Experts.” News18, News18, July 2019, www.news18. com/news/india/on-verge-of-acute-water-crisis-bengalurumay-turn-uninhabitable-in-next-few-years-warnexperts-2130111.html. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Vishal Patadiya. “Helpline Floodedith Water Scarcity Complaints.” Ahmedabad Mirror, Ahmedabad Mirror, 3 May 2019, ahmedabadmirror.indiatimes.com/ahmedabad/ others/helpline-flooded-with-water-scarcity-complaints/ articleshow/69152269.cms. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Weston, Phoebe. “One of India’s Biggest Cities Has Almost Run out of Water.” The Independent, 23 June 2019, www.independent.co.uk/environment/india-chennaiwater-reserve-lake-puzhal-drying-up-monsoon-a8971211. html. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“Why India Needs to Change the Way It Manages Water Resources.” Downtoearth.Org.In, 2017, www. downtoearth.org.in/blog/water/challenges-in-themanagement-of-water-in-india-58275. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Background image: “Dry Land 4K HD Desktop Wallpapers for Dual Monitor Desktops.” Wallpapercave.Com, 2014, wallpapercave.com/w/wp4012961. ‌

“Antariksha Sanchar- Transmissions in Space.”

Antariksha.In, 2019, www.antariksha.in/. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Block by Block. “Block by Block.” Block by Block, 2019, www.blockbyblock.org. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Casberg, Chris. “‘That Dragon, Cancer’: A Video Game on Death, Grief, and Our Living Hope.” The Gospel Coalition, The Gospel Coalition, 21 Jan. 2016, www. thegospelcoalition.org/article/that-dragon-cancer/.

Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Christophe da Silva. “Phallaina, on the Making of a Graphic Novel App.” Medium, Medium, 7 July 2019, medium.com/@christophe_slv/phallaina-on-themaking-of-a-graphic-novel-app-58a1fca802c7.

Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

4e62de86ef30. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“The Plan.” Giant Bomb, Giant Bomb, 10 Feb. 2013, www. giantbomb.com/the-plan/3030-41636/. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“The Escapist : Forums : Gaming Discussion : GameplayDriven vs Story-Driven Games.” The Escapist, The Escapist, 2019, v1.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ read/9.1056640-Gameplay-Driven-vs-Story-DrivenGames. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

US EPA,OW. “Our Water US EPA.” US EPA, 22 Aug. 2016, www.epa.gov/watersense/our-water. ‌ “Beyond Video Games for Social Change I ACM Interactions.” Acm.Org, 2014, interactions.acm.org/ archive/view/march-april-2014/beyond-video-gamesfor-social-change. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“Darfur Is Dying - Games For Change.” Games For Change, 2018, www.gamesforchange.org/game/darfuris-dying/. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Bycer, Josh. “Level Design vs. Environment Design.”

Medium, Super Jump Magazine, 16 Apr. 2018, medium. com/super-jump/level-design-vs-environmentaldesign-b8d19992924e. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“Heritage in Motion - Europeana Father and Son.” Heritageinmotion.Eu, 2019, heritageinmotion.eu/ himentry/slug-1b6636423c159aa9db02f7d6e24b00a8.

Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Campbell, Colin. “How to Write a Video Game Story.”

Polygon, Polygon, 10 Jan. 2019, www.polygon.com/ features/2019/1/10/18165611/how-to-write-a-videogame-story-narrative-building-tips.

Nodding Heads Games. “Raji: An Ancient Epic.”

Rajithegame, 2018, www.rajithegame.com/. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Fischer, Fabian. “Games as Experiential Narrative.”

Medium, Medium, 3 June 2019, medium.com/@ fischerdesign/games-as-experiential-narrative17be10caf77f. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Ohannessian, Kevin. “Game Designer Jenova Chen On The Art Behind His ‘Journey.’” Fast Company, Fast Company, 12 Mar. 2012, www.fastcompany. com/1680062/game-designer-jenova-chen-on-theart-behind-his-journey. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Muna I Graduation Project I Britto N

“The Lead Designer of Monument Valley Deconstructs His Latest Game, Florence The Work Behind The Work.” Milanote, 2019, milanote.com/the-work/leaddesigner-of-monument-valley-deconstructs-his-latestgame-florence. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Britto N I Graduation Project I Muna

McGonigal, Jane. “You Found Me.” You Found Me., you found me., 2013, janemcgonigal.com. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“Ultimate List of Different Types of Video Games I 49 Genres & Subcategories.” ID Tech, 2019, www.idtech. com/blog/different-types-of-video-game-genres.

“What Makes a Game?” Gamasutra.Com, 2019, www. gamasutra.com/view/feature/167418/what_makes_a_ game.php. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

“What to Consider When Writing Stories for Children I British Council.” Britishcouncil.Org, 2016, www. britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/what-considerwhen-writing-stories-children. Accessed 31 Dec. 2019.

Jones, Simon K. “3 Approaches to Storytelling in Games.” Medium, Medium, 23 July 2018, medium.com/@ Tarnimus/3-approaches-to-storytelling-in-games-

217

Till this page, this document talk about my work and can give an impression of the work being the only thing on mind overlast 9 Months. We often tend to intertwine ourselves and our work so much that we forget to acknowledge how we are feeling, its not always easy to focus on work, it’s not always possible to give our best, its not always easy to keep moving, and that’s okay.

It’s okay to be not okay.

Although not visible through this project, but therewere moments I was not okay, and that’s an equally important part of this document as the inquiry. I am grateful for all my friends, colleagues, my family and my sponsor for listening and supporting me through difficult times. If you are reading this and you feel, you or someone you know are not okay, give yourself time, speak to someone, or seek help from a friend or trusted one.

If you need to talk to someone or just someone to just listen, feel free to contact me at +91 91590 12017 Thank you and All the best :)

218