[TLDR; 1. I researched a lot, including using AI and decided to make an exploration game on an outlying area to Heaven Eternal, a Heavenly island 2. Jesus the son, God the Father, along with the Holy Spirit is the essence of Heaven- anything depicting Heaven without this is simply a concept that is without God and assumes a place opposite of Heaven!]
Hey all you jammers and others with interest!!
I've been brainstorming over past couple of days and just started setting up the Itch page for this project: Empyrean Gateway - Passage to Eternity by sbjerk (itch.io)
My first thoughts about this idea were, "How is it going to be possible to create a game about such a peaceful and perfect world where nothing is wrong - where there isn't much to resolve?" and also, "This topic is too broad and the jam far to open to style, subject, and interpretation to have any quality comparison for what counts towards a best-of award", and also "What is Heaven even really like?".
That last question though is what brought me on board with the idea. It won't matter what we create - the act of creating, at least for me, will be a much more thoughtful exploration of the ideas and teachings on Heaven than I had perhaps ever given it. I searched for some video sermons and teachings about heaven and found many of them don't have much specific to say. Sure there are the golden streets, the river of life flowing through it, the crystal sea, the Gates of the New Jerusalem etc., things I had heard in the past. I found that several of these sermons would remark on the need to be in Heaven as that is where our eternal fellowship with Jesus resides. Also revisiting the Chapters of the bible that would attempt description didn't really give me a fantastic sense of how it would be portrayed.
I also took up searching for how A.I has done in interpreting scripture - saved myself some hassle just by finding videos where this had already been attempted - and for a lot of it I'd shrug my shoulders and think.... that's kind of the commonplace portrayal I suppose, but not quite how my understanding would have it if we understand it to be a real place with world attributes - some were clearly more fanciful than others. I might also note that I went down a rabbit hole of looking at how these image generators depicted futuristic cities which also led me down some of the concepts for actual future cities for our-world cities in development such as 'The Line' in Saudi Arabia.
Of all this my favorite depiction of Heaven was this one, (which also had what looked like a strangely distorted watermark for 'Futureye'... so I'm not so sure this was AI... or more accurately wondering what it was trained on to create this and how much of that original is here!)
So.... with some ideas in my head of Heaven as a real place... with cities, kingdoms, rivers, light shining through and through .... I begin to contemplate how I might go about creating that world - and how would I 'gamify' such a place.
As a game developer I get a special bonus that comes with my past-time of being a gamer - I get to count some those many hours as "research". At first I'd say that is just wishful thinking, but the truth of the matter is, that knowing what size a 2 km虏 fortnite map feels like gives me insight to how big feels small enough to manage but big enough to explore, and puzzling through the Talos Principal shows me how one might go about a largely 'non-confrontational' beautiful world to explore and a story line that ponders over what life even is.
However even with that.... I struggled to consider how I would approach this - Ahhhh but we are living on the brink of a new technology. Love it or hate it - as I already alluded to, I'm not one to turn away from the likes of generative content (I'm not such a fan of calling it AI, but that's another topic). So I turned to ChatGPT and prompted it for some ideas on what you might do in a utopia where all your cares, wants and needs are met.... There were some ideas there. I prompted for a game idea - and there again, much of an exploration activity based game as I was already leaning towards, but with bullet points and many considerations that I hadn't even dreamt of. I will say that I don't intend to include a 'multi-player mode where you can explore heaven with friends to earn virtue points' .
As this research was transpiring, I would also be having thoughts of my strengths as a developer... what tools do I have? What assets will I use? What might I invest into this - there is afterall a nice White Castle that could be used for adorning the kingdom. I have some things and notion on how to bring about the vision. I may spend some time documenting for myself more of the project before jumping in to create.
With the idea of a main river running though it, I went on Google Earth and found that in fact Venice would be the inspiration for a bounded area with one main bridge leading away from it to the mainland.... my thoughts turned to an idea that perhaps this would be where an experience into Heaven begins and in using the idea of a bridge to the mainland - in game this region will become a Gateway to Heaven Eternal.
In making this a bit of paradise, but not quite Heaven I also realized this little concept could in turn be an explainer point for Abraham's Bosom or other notions of seeing Paradise but not being fully committed to being there. (Granted the Theology on that comes up with different viewpoints but in this Game it can be just its fantasy lore and its artistic liberties). Afterall, if the goal is to ponder over the concept of Heaven as it actually is, well it certainly has done that for me - and this game will never be and can never reproduce that.
Somewhere in the midst of all this research I landed on the term Empyrean which has been used to describe the Highest of heavens, a place of pure fire and light.... I liked the term and having placed my world at the edge of its borders - named the game accordingly.
What I've got now is the seeds of an Adventure Exploration game set on the outskirts of heaven.
One final note, and perhaps this should have been my first and foremost note. Of all the research this hit me most: Heaven is only Heaven because Jesus Christ is there. For all our thoughts, ideas, or imaginings, Heaven could be truly anything at all - except for one thing, it can never be absent of the God head - Father God, Christ Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
(note: I may decide to move and continue this devlog on the game's page now that I have created it).
