Hey there! We’re ARDSKAPE.

Two artists with no coding skills, but deep ambitions and insightful writing.

This was our first LD JAM. No preparations at all, just a total dive in (however, at some point the theme felt quite predicted).

We’re here to share our process and tell a bit more about the story behind our entry, the 7 DEEPS game.

Do try to get it, at least click through, be our Player.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/7-deeps

So, it’s Day_1 of our Ludum Dare banging. I woke up early, 30 mins before the theme’s announced. Mentally I was prepared for the jam, had a go at LD40 as a narrative designer, photoshop-er and composer. But since it’s been a long time I manned Unity deep, wet and nasty, a shiver down my spine was born as if for the first time.

We are two newly designed developers with vast background in gaming and analysis, some gamedev courses and fine practice, who decided to transform their skills in art, music and writing into interactive visual experiences (mind scrying, as we call it).

There’s an active project in development, and we encourage you to watch the teaser.

https://youtu.be/-fwsbEM1zYw

However, it’s another story...

So, I researched different engines and visual programming software and almost had a go at Game Maker, when found out about Fungus (tried Playmaker before). This is when I realised, here, Unity, come once again.

The theme’s announced. I scribble some ideas. It’s just paper and Trello for now (to manage the tasks). Personally, I prefer Nuclino for writing scripts and lore, but not this time, no time for a bestseller.

A few hours later we brainstorm with my partner, Ra Storm, a talented painter, who’s getting into digital now, too. She’s quite a singer and a storyteller, also, but I’ll save it for later.

Since I spent many years working in advertising, brainstorming is fast and harsh, we’re crossing out ideas and getting loaded with visual references that may get our mind boiling into the right direction.

This is when the idea of “getting deeper” may actually become the quest of saving some lost souls through analyzing that eventually you’d have to sacrifice yourself to save them all; but only being able to come to peace with that would actually save not just them all, but yourself. Otherwise, well, different endings, loops, fish count, circumstances.

Basically, I could see the whole picture already, but we haven’t got time or enough skills, yet. So, we stuck to our best: music/sfx, visuals/art, lore. There’s plenty of lore behind our jam game. Which is why it has to be further developed (it will be).

For now, 7 DEEPS is more of a teaser/tutorial to what you might face when there’s more art, mechanics and animations (and music, of course, with main vocal theme). Still, it represents the art-house minimalistic loop of the core idea with 3 endings, all being actually the puzzle pieces for our lore.

Day_1. I wrote the music while she drew the fishes.

Unity, not yet. But thence, the night…

[it goes deeper]