FOLD is an attempt at expressing the inexpressible. By harnessing the power of virtual reality, it makes a stab at creating a visible, audible and tangible experience out of something that cannot be seen, heard or touched: space in more than three dimensions.
This is an experimental VR exploration project made during November–December 2017 at Aalto University MediaLab Game Design and Production.
Valtteri Bade – Art, Design, Programming
Matias Harju – Sound, Music, Design
Helena Sorva – Story, Design, Programming
Ville Talonpoika – Design, Programming
Entering FOLD, you find yourself in a landscape of abstract fractal forms: slivers of multidimensional structures that shift in and out of our three-dimensional world. You move through this world by pulling yourself into motion, a mode of movement that is at once intuitive and dreamlike. Sometimes a shape or a structure looks like something you almost recognize; then it shifts again and is alien once more.
The theme of trying to grasp and comprehend something just beyond reach persists throughout the game. Audio cues guide you towards portals leading to parallel landscapes, with different visual and musical atmospheres. A non-linear, fragmented narrative explores the problem of otherness: how can we ever know what it is to be someone or something other than ourselves?
Further development goals include: using different gestures to move through and manipulate the game world; more varied and complex fractal structures to explore; and procedurally generated auditive and narrative elements.
Special thanks:
Felix Bade – for getting us started with raymarching and kaleidoscopic iterative function systems
Inigo Quilez – for distance field math and his helpful website iquilezles.org
Laura Horton and Caleb Rugg – for their voice talent
Zuzanna Buchowska – for playing the game for this video
