Creation Of Enkidu

CONTROLS:

W,A,S,D or Arrow Keys for movement
Space Bar for grabbing/removing clay
Escape to pause game

ARTIST STATEMENT:

This game is an interpretation of the oldest text preserved in human history by using one of today's most modern forms of story telling: video games. To be more specific, this game is inspired by the very beginning of The Epic of Gilgamesh, a text that is more than 4000 years old. The passage in question used for this vignette is the following:

‘No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all; and is this the king, the shepherd of his people? [...] When Anu had heard their lamentation the gods cried to Aruru, the goddess of creation, ‘You made him, O Aruru, now create his equal. [...] She dipped her hands in water and pinched off clay, she let it fall in the wilderness, and noble Enkidu was created.’

This passage is reminiscent to a matching mini game you would find in today's day and age. These classic game genres require you to recreate an item (character, drawing, pattern, etc.) to match a template or blueprint. In this game, Gilgamesh would be the template and Enkidu would be the character you need to match. Because Enkidu is made of clay, I thought it would be interesting to implement a way for the player to be able to mold the character into matching Gilgamesh. Programming moldable clay is somewhat of a challenge and could result into a very complex game, so maybe something more metaphorical would be more appropriate to represent the "equality" between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. This is where the balance (or weighing scale) came into play. Not only is a balance a symbol of equality, it is also an instrument that is often represented in mythology and it is an interesting approach to the typical "matching game". Additionally, the idea of Aruru, the godesse of creation, "pinching the clay" to create Enkidu reminded me of a claw machine, which is another classic genre of arcade game. For this reason, the main mechanic controls itself like a claw machine, which is a perfect way to represent an ancient story with a modern twist.

In the game, the narration is Anu speaking to Aruru and the arm belongs to Aruru. On the right of the scale is Gilgamesh, and on the left is Enkidu. Your goal is to grab the clay balls with the hand and place them onto the left side of the scale to slowly mold Enkidu into shape. However, you have to make sure both sides are equal, so if you add too much clay, you will have to remove it from Enkidu's body and try again.

What I enjoyed from this project:
I loved using "blend shapes" to create the effect of modeling clay. It was something I had only learned about a day or 2 before starting the project and was one of the main drivers of inspiration that resulted in the game you have before you, I relearned the basic of audio editing thanks to this project because I had to do the narration and godly voice effects myself in order to avoid texts (I don't like reading).

What challenges I faced:
Programming the hand was very difficult because the physics for the clay balls was not cooperative with the hand/claw machine. Programming the weight changes in the balance and the blend shapes was very mathematical and caused a few headaches. I lost progress accidentally a few times because I either wasted a day trying to make something, only for it to cause more harm than good to the game, or I accidentally reset my changes on github.

All assets were made by me except the sound effects for the "stars" and the "wind", as well as the texture for the cracked rocks you see on the pillars.

On a final note for this project. For the overall aesthetic, I tried getting inspiration from old babylonian/sumerian architecture to be as accurate as possible to the environment I assume the characters in the story must have been living in. I added buildings on Gilgamesh's side of the balance because he represented civilization, and bare mountains on Enkidu's side because he lives on his own outside of civilization. This is maybe not obvious, but I thought this subtle touch would be interesting to mention.

I hope you enjoy the game! It is very simple, but I believe this is the purpose of a vignette!