Project Introduction

Creation of this game is the evolutionary stage of the multidisciplinary universe developed by me since 2014. From the very beginning my intention was to expand Sanatorium project constantly, and to see it’s reflection and continuation in various cross medial fields. It began with blue ballpoint pen drawings in the notebook, and later transformed into the gamelike metaphysical narrative. 

At the present moment two analog versions of Sanatorium novel exist, one printed using risography methods as an artist’s zine in amount of 50 copies (2019, supported by Moscow organisation Ground Zine Fest), and another released as a book in 1000 copies (2021, in collaboration with Zangavar publishing house). For the deeper experience I’ve also produced 46 minutes meditative soundtrack, recorded together with the singer Celebrine and Lunarescapesystem, electronic duo from Israel. During the promotion of the book, there also happened a wonderful collaboration with a virtual clothing designer who created 4 digital outfits for the heroine, which I turned into a paper doll, and a niche perfumer from St.Petersburg with whom we developed a woody perfume in antique medicine bottles - an object distilled from alternated realm.

The mission of the game as I see it is to reflect the structure and mechanics of reality through the prism of alchemy, mythology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, dreams and the sacral meaning of colors. Game design will be based on the core principles of the alchemical tradition that help the player in the processes of self-knowledge and self-awarness. 4 levels of the game correlate with the 4 phases of the Opus Magnum, ancient art of the adepts - Nigredo, Albedo, Citrinitas and Rubedo. 

The game starts on the blue level of total amnesia, similar to Nigredo, where the heroine suffers from depression and an unknown disease. Motivated by the search for an answers, she begins her spiritual journey leaving her loop and realizing that she is a playable character in the artificially created dreamy universe, endowed by the player. With the transition to the Albedo, the heroine experiences recovery, mind transformation and expansion of her consciousness. As the heroine gradually awakens, the player sees how the magic of inner alchemy is reflected in the changing landscape of the Sanatorium.

Sanatorium cosmogony is built on the principle of horizontal worlds connected by an elevator. An elevator symbolizes the Tree of Life, and moving from it’s deepest roots to the crown is a metaphor of an ascending. The higher the level, the more opportunities the player gets to interact with the world and its linear laws. If the energies of the lower levels seek to destroy the heroine and erase her memory, then in the floors above the world already obeys her will and is able to change under her creative intention. On Citrinitas the player discovers reality, created on other physical laws, and can make changes to its architecture, climate, colors and the structure of objects. Rubedo is the highest retrospective stage at which the heroine recognizes herself as a character in the Sanatorium game - and leaves the playing field to enter our reality.  

The story takes place in the redeveloped post-Soviet naturopathy sanatorium hidden by cypresses in the mountainous area. The heroine finds herself as a patient, surrounded by medical staff and involved in a series of cycled meaningless procedures. The nurse helps the heroine and the player get in on the action. The day is scheduled for procedures and free time, during which you can get acquainted with local activities. Each cycle the heroine visits 7 locations, including healing shower, dietic dining room, treatment cabins and available entertainment (herbarium collages club, the archive of recorded dreams, read-aloude circle).  Some places may be inaccessible due to quartzing or halotherapy. Gradually, the heroine realizes that the treatment in the Sanatorium does not bring the proper result - it’s clouding her mind and causes oblivion. Her dream-diary seem to be the only key to self-remembering. Each night she has a dream about a boy, the son of the chief doctor, seeking help. It makes her feel compassion and motivates her to explore the dark riddle hidden undearneath the Sanatorium world, breaking her day routine. Each procedure since then appears as a point on an existential labyrinth to be passed, freeing the heroine and the player from repeating the same ritual. 

There are no enemies and fighting in the game, the main confrontation takes place between the heroine and the space of the Sanatorium itself. Each level assumes the presence of a rolling force, as the main property of the terrain, which the player must resist. On the blue layer, this is a dream, which is expressed through the distorted energies of space, which washes out the strength from the heroine to fight the disease. The turning points on the blue layer are the reverse side of the negative sanatorium ritual of the heroine: dining room / greenhouse, treatment rooms / solar station, fountain / mineral water source. Each of the locations is a symbolic analogue of the stage of alchemical work (cooking, filtering, burning, circulation, etc.). The stages that open on the pink layer (crystallization, dissolution and fixation, connection, animation) reflect the properties of a cleaner and calmer space. Crystallization means the presence of a greater number of facets and dimensions of the world, dissolution gives the experience of transforming any matter into a state of vapor, animation involves the multiplication of power and the creation of various copies of everything.

In the approach to the gameplay, we have combined several ideologies.

Walking sim. Controlling the heroine from a third person perspective, the player navigates a compact map (the buildings of the sanatorium, the garden and the recreational area), follows the instructions of the nurses, and goes through the procedures. The narrative is led through the environment (diagrams, posters, conversations of staff and patients, music from loudspeakers), and the player is smoothly led to key points.

Exploration game. While the game can be "played" simply by following the Sanatorium's directions and tips from above, the player is encouraged to deviate from the main route, break the rules, and explore the world freely. In addition to key points on the territory of the Sanatorium, there are many strange zones of unclear purpose and several surreal mini-games.

Immersive sim/Emergent gameplay. What happens if you shoot at a star instead of a target? Can the statue move? Can a vase talk? Behind the casual façade, which makes the game accessible to a wide audience, is a complex multifaceted world, a universal system. Game events can be divided into two types: special unique cases and cases arising from the properties of the objects themselves.
The first type involves a solution in the spirit of quests, and such a solution has a single character.
The second type is based on the fact that game objects have properties (for example, the fragility and transparency of a glass vase) and by understanding them, the heroine can achieve side goals by combining and using properties like in puzzles. In addition, these properties make the world believable, opening up different paths to achieve goals, which contributes to immersion in the game environment.
In order to get the most intense experience and penetrate all the secrets, the player must look for these properties (many of which are not spoken to him at all), look for the chain of signs and analogies built into the game, pay attention to the synchronicity of phenomena, to the common sides and colors of different objects, to correlate events in the Sanatorium with the internal changes of the heroine.

Sandbox. From a certain moment, the heroine reaches a level where she can work with the properties of reality directly and engage in free creativity. On this layer, the game is a puzzle sandbox with several abstract architectural challenges that need to be solved using various physical properties of the world and the heroine's gradually unlocking talents. The tasks are structured in such a way that they can be solved by different methods and come up with new activities for yourself.

About Developer

My practical experience in creating alternative realms began with a work in the cinema, where I did production design and was responsible for the visual part of the film, including sсenery and character design. Despite the fact that none of the projects I made really resonated with my inner world, I learned quite well how script schemes work, how a high-budget project is constructed, how to produce an idea and to assemble a team of professionals that will organically expand my vision. In addition, I discovered a real passion and talent for finding filming locations, which quickly developed my character's communicative skills.

Due to various projects, I visited secret political facilities, embassies, large ship factories, oligarchs' mansions, children's camps, abandoned hospitals, lighthouses and many other strange spots which formed my perception of the world as a large playground where I can play everywhere I want.

After a few years of struggling with the corruption in this industry I burned bridges and decided to create a world of my own, free from any limitations. I left cinema to became an independent artist and started working on the visual novel. Drawing has been my major magical force since childhood, and writing was the forgotten dream of my teenage self that began to take shape when I stopped convincing myself that these are just fantasies. I decided to start from my deep anthropological interest in the 30-50s of USSR, studying especially the invisible, transcendental sence that I had of that period.

One of the most important motives for writing was my growing desire to say things that have never been said by anyone. Things that no one explained to me, the rock bottom, the foundation of the system in which I existed. Searching for the hidden truth and reflecting on my existentional journey I began to form mythological universe, fulfilled with cultural references to fairytales, films and games that always seemed to be open windows to other worlds.

Many years later, by the time we prepared a book for print, I was already thinking about adapting the novel into the game format. I had no connections with this industry, and the only thread leading there was the "House of the Lost Games" community on the social network. This public contains very rare collectible games that look like someone's half-forgotten memories, and I spent many hours in it digging for the artists niche projects. To my surprise, one day there appeared a huge article about the G String from a player, who studied it inside and out, ‘became an obscur’ and very carefully analyzed every detail from the perspective of detached and at the same time deeply involved viewer. It was obvious that the person who wrote the text has the widest vision, reads cultural codes at once, and sees game plots as global reflections of world processes. I read half of the article diagonally, because the text itself gave a feeling of extraordinary clarity of thought and a high level of intellect, filling me with joy, and then I found myself writing a message to it’s author. That’s how we met with Nikita. 

Our first meeting in real life, fortunately we both are based in St.Petersburg, happened at the former Optical Institute, where I had a workshop. Some of the buildings were abandoned, and we walked through the remains of the scientific base of the Soviet era in search of flasks and lenses, Nikita said that he likes to take souvenirs from such places. I guess that was his habit of perceiving each place as a game location where something useful can be found. 

Nikita tells about himself that he spent over more than 20 years of close observation of the gaming industry, and later of cultural life and the movement of thought in general, and came to an understanding of how and what he can add to the current state of the world to make it more interesting and richer.  Games seem to him to be the most convenient medium, especially since he understands quite well how they work. Although he approaches the creation of the game in many respects from the side of modern art and spend a lot of time exploring this direction. Working as a programmer promotes systems thinking, so for him creating a game system as a game designer is also an interesting task, also a kind of game. The love of deconstruction, which resulted in his experience in a few short peer review essays that he wrote, and posts in the HLG community, also pushed him to go further and collect these elements back into the Game+.

Nikita came into direct contact with game development a few years ago, when he helped a friend create a mobile puzzle game. It even went on release, but the difference in their approaches did not allow them to fully reveal the game potential.  Thanks to that experience he focused on programming, joining it from a different technical direction.

From my perspective, our experience and our skills and that ease of understanding between us comes from many years of non-stop deep internal analysis that happened to us both. I did not need to further explain to him what I mean by the art of alchemy, because it is a metaphor for the strong inner changes that we both faced. It is also enough for Nikita to say a few words to me so that I understand the whole layer of meanings that he puts by this. Thanks to our visual erudition and somewhat similar tastes, we end up with the same thoughts about gameplay. 

At the very beginning, I explained that I wanted to make a game about self-discovery. But the general idea is not to tell a private story, but to show the player through symbolic allegories and archetypes the path of inner transformation, to explain spiritual trials along this way and inspire him to overcome himself. Some games that seem close to me and tell the same things with its unique language are Sublustrum, Atlantis II, Journey.