KUKU:
The Curse of Shah
Duration : 3 days
Platform : Game Boy
Arjun Dev
Game Design
Developer
Rujul S
Game Design
Artist
Jonathan Guite
Game Design
Artist, Manager
INTRODUCTION
PROCESS
KUKU is king of a kingdom of monkeys.
One day, he falls to his gluttony and starts eating his own subjects.
SHAH arrives on the scene to put a curse on KUKU that puts him asleep for 3 months.
During these 3 months he will have the choice whether to give in to his gluttony or resist the urge of new found addiction.
His subjects painstakingly await the end of the 3 months. Will they see the noble loving king they adored or the monster cursed to months of hibernation!
Under the guidance of Prof Douglas Edric Stanley from Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) for this project, We build a game prototype with an equal balance of mechanic and narrative.
IDEATION
The Keywords or topics to brainstorm around was enabled by drawing a card randomly, each from the color coded deck with category of Myth, Motivation, Platform, Mechanics and Artist.
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Our team ended up on Kumbhakarna, Shame, GameBoy and Paul Klee.
Myth: Kumbhakarna
Narrative of kumbhakarna's curse.
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Motivation: Shame
This card was traded to another team
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Platform: GameBoy
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Artist: Paul Klee
The surreal Paintings Paul Klee helped to narrow down the world of play to a dream.
Due to limitations of the platform , the essence of his paintings were the source of inspiration.
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Mechanics: Time
The sense of time is different in a mental process as dream than in reality and reinforces the narrative that he is in a cursed slumber.
THE GAME NARRATIVE
KUKU
The king of a kingdom of monkeys. He has recently succumbed to his secret desire to consume his monkey subjects.
MONKEYS
The loving subjects of King KUKU who unfortunately picked a ruler with the wrong type of appetite. Nevertheless they love him and wish to see him overcome his taste for monkeys to a fault in that they don’t mind dying for the cause.
SHAH
A kind, sympathetic sorceress specialised in wisdom and learning— the perfect combination to teach gluttonous kings a thing or two about restraint. She secretly thinks that people have called her too many times to do this.
This pathway represents the maze in his mind where his object of desire are the monkeys, Kuku grows in size as he eats monkeys. The players tendency to interact with any moving object helped to make the monkeys seem like a pick up where actually its an obstacle.
IMPLEMENTATION
Due to limitations of the platform , the resulting game was designed around the constraints such as resolution of GAMEBOY console, maximum 5 collision detection units, and the basic 2 frame animations for each angle (down, top, forward).
The start screen is the representation of the story where kumbhakarna's tongue was tied by goddess Saraswati when he is asking for a boon from the lord Brahma. He intended to ask for Nirdevatvam (annihilation of Devas) and instead asked for Nidravatvam (sleep). His request was granted.
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Players immediately press start they see a partial information of objective of the game unless they wait then complete information is revealed. The intended task was to treat monkeys kindly instead they end up eating monkeys.
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"TREAT MONKEYS KINDLY"
