NaissanceE is a first person exploration PC game developed on UDK by Limasse Five with the participation of Pauline Oliveros, Patricia Dallio and Thierry Zaboitzeff.
NaissanceE is available for free on Steam.
NaissanceE is an adventure taking place in a primitive mysterious structure. The game mainly consists to explore and feel the deep and strong ambiance of this atemporal world but platforming and puzzles areas will also enrich the experience.
Game mechanics and imagination
NaissanceE is a game, a philosophical trip and an artistic experience.
The game is constructed along a linear path punctuated by more open areas to freely explore, some puzzles to solves and some more experimental sequences.
Going deeper and deeper in a primitive zone from “Naissance” world, the player will meet entities or mechanical systems. Whether those entities are life forms or pure machines, they react to player presence, to light and shadow and they may open access to the following.
If most parts of the journey will require only curiosity and logic, a good control and coordination on running, breathing and jumping actions will help to go through rare but exigent sequences, as an homage to old school die an retry games.
The main idea behind the game is to make the player appreciate the loneliness, the feeling to be lost in a gigantic unknown universe and to be marvelled by the beauty of this world. A world which seems to be alive, leading the player, manipulating him and playing with him for any reason.
Imagination is an important key to enjoy and understand NaissanceE. Walking in an undiscovered abstract structure brings questions about the nature of this world, about the meaning of this trip. Evocating and symbolic, the architecture and events will lead player’s imagination to find an answer, if it only matters.
Naissance project began at the end 2006 with the idea to create an initiatic trip in a metaphoric world. Using the video game tool appeared as the best way to gather several artistic influences, from music to architecture, into one virtual object. The project really started when I watched Building by Belgian artist Anouk De Clerq which gave me the idea to use light and shadow interacting on abstract architectures not only as an artistic graphic tool but also as a game mechanic.
So Jeux d’Ombres was born, an experimental game in which perceptions and movement rhythm are altered by shadows and lights, creating a disturbing space, enhanced by a strong musical identity. Released in January 2007 as a FarCry mod, Jeux d’Ombres was supposed to be the first chapter of Naissance but the project development stopped.
However, the concept continued to evolve, fed by new influences like Portal games or Tsutomu Nihei‘s manga Blame!. Growing, it became a vast game concept, too complex and ambitious to be an independent developer’s first game. The idea to make a spin-off adventure, with only some gameplay systems from the big project and an important attention accorded to the atmosphere seemed to be wiser. So in September 2010 NaissanceE development started.