Ripping it apart April 2025!

NOTE that this is currently a half baked incoherent babble to myself while I figure stuff out.
It is nowhere near a public document but making it public will shame me into working harder.

This document introduces a general plan for an immersive project temporarily titled I like Snakes. It acknowledges that the Luna project is proving too big to develop in one pass and that a more playful ‘sketch’ is needed first. Assets created in Snakes will then be reused in the larger Luna planning. This is a very different, less defined environment with inspirations from Meow Wolf – Yume Nikki – Tomb Raider – Hondo 5am – LSD – The Wonka Chocolate Factory – Dante’s Inferno etc.

  • Some design guidelines:
  • Follows the standard structure: Park (world) – Gates – Lands (themed areas) – Attractions (interactions) – Photo Ops (places to stop and rest). The first Land is the hub, with other lands as spokes (but there is a problem – below).
  • Use Disney style “Wienies” or Mountains in each Land – goals to reach off in the distance. This requires Gates through which the Mountains will be framed and approached, with a unmarked pathway.
  • Implied pathways within Lands only such that the player is not required to random search – Portals, Doorways – some hidden but generally guidance. Deeply hidden discoveries / Easter eggs for the very motivated player. Focus Photo Ops to stop and rest. Meditative in parts. Save game? Instagram-able? Finding and sharing with others.
  • Each Lands’ colour gamut as part of separate identity, magic, threat etc. (Example: Meow Wolf staff have stressed the use of vibrant colour in their works as opposing ‘polite’ or ‘tasteful’ schemes – I tend to disagree but appreciate that play can be encouraged and allowed by ‘childish’ palettes). Sounds, music and style for each realm, with a general style guide for all.
  • No win or lose ending to a narrative. Adventure with implied threat not punishment. Generally a low level of threat and anxiety (except perhaps in the Human Roulette Land). A sense of delving deeper into narrative driven by curiosity – the promise of scenery just around the corner. Replay.

Park, gates, lands.

Currently there is only one gate behind the animatronic dinosaur.

Park entry: An early version of Luna began in the River Caves. I have come back to that idea for Snakes. Riding on a boat through the River Caves tempts the player to climb inward onto shore (as opposed to outside to the rest of the park). Adventure comes by refusing a command DO NOT GET OUT OF THE BOAT. The Sydney Luna Park River Caves layout allows 7 shores to explore. Not all of these might be populated at first iteration.

Problem – only one Gate is in the first draft, as multiple gates don’t seem to offer a better experience. The Lands are better approached one after the other as a single journey. This contradicts the traditional hub and spokes layout in favour of a linear experience.

A GATE leads to a LAND that can have multiple ATTRACTIONS with local coherence, details (zoom in).

Fish Tank Land – a Land based on domestic decorative fish tanks and some of the stranger ornaments that can be bought for them.
APPEAL: There is oddness in being underwater amid all these familiar but imposingly sized objects. Fish swim above the player. They may be used as rides?
START GAME: At the bottom of the tank at the front with the layout made apparent. The Mountain is to the back of the tank. There may be multiple photo ops.
MOUNTAIN: A large rock formation. A Treasure Chest up the top?
NOTES: There is a design clash in that the main River Caves are also aquatic.

At this stage the plan is to climb up onto a prop to be able to catch a fish that will reach the next gate.

Fabrik Land – including The Cardboard Disco. All things bespoke. Real world textures. Thinking about Meow Wolf there is a lot of texture beyond CGI that I need to create to give a rough warmth to this and Luna.
APPEAL: ROOMS based on the texture of painted bits of cardboard which assemble to represent an old warehouse party. Make your way through this scenario. Nostalgia.
START GAME: In the kitchen, of course. Lots of people? Made of Cardboard.
MOUNTAIN: Be able to exit the party out the front door?
NOTES: Based on parts from a different artwork that’s happening in the house at the moment.

The Large Glass, Uneven Land – Essentially it’s a menagerie of Severed Heads objects brought into a playground. The Dancing Bats and Arm Machine and Shoe Guys. Puppet made from TVs that self destructs – “New Fold”. Spiral stairs around a thing. The Globe from HH? That would be a link that no one would get!
APPEAL: Maybe little unless you know the material. But it helps present all these ideas as a coherent body. The idea here is to move elements of video into the game world. They are not monuments in the general sense but personal monuments nevertheless. The Dancing Bat machine was always a piss take of The Large Glass.
START GAME: A gallery?
MOUNTAIN:
NOTES:

Twittering Machine – A forest with ‘birds’. Draw upon the original artwork. Delve into JG Ballard’s Aircraft/Sex fetishes. Airports and mechanical birds.
APPEAL: Fantasy of flight, animatronic animals, airports.
START GAME:
MOUNTAIN: Enter an aircraft. Take off?!
NOTES: Once developed, to be moved over to both the Dark and Light sides of Luna.

Musical Hell Land – It’s the dopamine hit of the toy shop, taken to a toxic extreme that would please Bosch. His musical hell was at odds with mainstream Christian beliefs. All music is sinful and punished – including psalms and religious songs of praise. I recently tried AI to re-image Bosch’s Musical Hell with Toys and ended up with a completely crap-tastic unexpected image which I rather like. I’m now building a space that looks much like that.

MOUNTAIN: is that you find the Fisher Price record player which has been making music box sounds that resemble spy recordings from the radio.

  • Human Roulette Land – including City Tidal Wave. Suicidal portals to other realms? Risk and Change and Progress. There will be a lot of physical simulation that will be needed in Luna and this will help to research how that can be conveyed.
    APPEAL: Surprise tricks and treats.
    START GAME: You are in a city. There is a tidal wave that will cover everything. You die. You eventually learn how not to die that way, by entering certain buildings where there are other physical events which kill you in other ways.
    MOUNTAIN: You find the right way of dying to get back to the boat.
    NOTES: Touches on the traps and dangers that have been put into Game Engine hacks such as Hondo 5am. There needs to be an area of traps and the sort of rides that lived in Steeplechase.
  • The End – what more can you say? Well actually it’s a place holder for now. I don’t think this should have an end. Maybe something just called THE END.

Why is it called I Like Snakes? This was a website I made back in 2009. Sometimes I like to make things that remain completely obscure and this was one of them. Along with the number codes that I put in albums for years.