Hello internet. Want to hear a story? Yes? Great! Here is the story of the game idea: Book of Eri. Book of Eri was a mixed 3D/2D fantasy/sci-fi game emphasizing exploration, combat and puzzle solving. The main goal here was to create a rich single player experience. The gods have arrived and split the world in two.
Here the Dream World is a physical place. You play as Eri, our protagonist chosen by the gods (known as the Acherai) to walk between the worlds. She is a gun for hire, stealing information from people dreams or inserting false memories. Ever wanted to give your arch nemesis an everlasting nightmare?
We wanted to do away with classic damage types such as fire and lightning and wanted something more spiritual. We worked with his Virtue/Vice idea and ways to incorporate it into NPC interactions and combat.
The Dream World was to be represented as a low-poly 3D dungeon crawl in the spirit of Lands of Lore, Eye of the Beholder and Legend of Grimrock. We planned to use assets from Synty Studios as the base and add to that as needed.
Puzzles, while never implemented in game, were paper prototyped. We might re-use some of those for a future project.
If Zelda taught us anything it’s that people love pushing around blocks. Pushing the block into specific action squares rotates it so the power node connects up with the lines.
In the initial concept of Book of Eri, we were planning on combining a 3D world with 2D elements such as enemies. The Dream world would be 3D platforms forming a maze in front of the player, snaking into the distance with large surreal backdrops all around. The Real world be claustrophobic hallways with shadows and light creating a spooky mood.
The dungeon view from the prototype
Since the players view would always be in fixed perspective, there would be fun opportunities to create a visually interesting game world. Long dark hallways. Light creating interesting shapes. Carpet forming a visual path forward. Spooky horror ambient music. Something appears from the darkness and leaps at you. Death.
Dark dark dark hallways, filled with dangers and darkness.
The World of Eri would draw inspiration from various artists such as fantasy illustrator Sean Murray and Mike Mignola. The formula would be something like this: 50% Medieval influence + 20% Steampunk style + 30% Surreal Dream Reality = Book of Eri.
Eri, herself, would draw visual inspiration from strong female characters such as, Jean Grey from X-men, Red from Transistor and Elizabeth Sherman from Hellboy. No fantasy bikini armor or large balloon boobs. She would be a worn out character, burdened by her past and her profession. She would wear a Dream Mask while on the job. To mask her identity and mind.
Design work for Eri, the main protagonist
NPC theme concepts
Ultimately Eri was shelved after about 3 months of work. Main reason was basically a change of direction for the company away from 3D to full 2D. This happened after we created Gundawn, a furious arena battle game, as a GameJam project.
So that’s the story of Book of Eri. An interesting (We like to think so!) little game idea we had a few years ago. Never know if we will revisit it in the future.