ICE

«Ice» is a  storytelling computer game-quest that explores the complex subject of mental trauma. The game plunges you into a dreamlike world where every detail counts. As you explore the pool’s space, you uncover a story that’s never fully told, piecing it together through barely visible details, inscriptions and video. The «Ice» is built on the principle of unfolding metaphor, where micro-changes can lead to a reconfiguration of the entire scene. You become an active reader of memory, searching for the signifier in the noise of trauma, all while exploring the mechanics of the interior and the deeper layers of the psyche.

---

Game settings

• The setting of the game Ice consist of locations constructed by the mind of a female survivor of violence
• The space of the game has 3 levels, each of which reflects the state of the heroine’s psyche at different stages of her traumatic experience
• First-Person game;
  A player sees the character’s hands. Depending on the level, the hands look either human or mermaid’s (monstrous).
  

Levels:

• 1 level: Double bottom pool
• 2 level: House «Party»
  
• 3 level: Fabrique

---

LEVEL 1: DOBLE BOTTOM POOL

• The character here has human female hands
• Consists of 2 locations
  

LEVEL’S LOCATION:

1.THE ALMOST NORMAL POOL

The game begins here. The pool location is done in a realistic style with some gaps in the normality - magenta stained glass windows, a pink fluorescent lamp on the wall, photos of an ivy-covered mansion and a photo of a sculpture of St. Francis on the pool walls. There are three strange objects in the pool space, and the fans on the pillars (they are Mechanisms). All this could make you a question about the reality of what’s going on. Each of the three strange objects is marked by a large black fingerprint, disproportionate to the character’s hands. One object has a pink static trace beam, coming from it.


Gameplay & mechanics of the location:

1. The character goes under a strange object’s pink beam and triggers it and then a giant pink ribbon with an inscription unfolds over the pool. As the ribbon unfolds, the synthesised voice voices the inscription.
   
   
2. A beam appears from the second strange object. A character closes in on it, triggers the beam, and then a second ribbon falls.
   
   
3. Similarly with the last object and the third ribbon.
   
   
4. From a pink fluorescent lamp on the wall appears a screen, playing a video with a voice-over.
   
   
5. When the video ends, the pool space is transformed: the water level in the pool has risen, all the Mechanisms have started working, a large button with the inscription “Cool down” has appeared on the wall.
   
   
6. Character approaches the button, presses the interaction button «B» (for example).
   
   
7. The bottom of the pool disappears. When the player notices this or simply decides to jump into the pool, the character falls under the water, into The second bottom space.
   

LEVEL’S LOCATION:

2.THE SECOND BOTTOM SPACE︎︎︎

The player finds himself at the second, deep, bottom of the pool. The walls of the pool are covered with drawings depicting places, objects and comments on them. In the recess of the end wall, behind a transparent  wall, covered with frost, a transparent human figure can be made out, with a heartbeating inside it.

Gameplay & mechanics of the location:

1. When the character falls into a location, an interface element, a timer with physical limitations, appears on the screen to indicate the time limit for being underwater. The timer is needed to emphasise that the character is in a human state.There is enough time, but if the time ends, the game is restartes from the top location near the button «Cool Down».

_{Please note that all interface elements are missing from the illustrations and letsplay video}

2. There is a paint can on the floor and the character has to kick it.  

3. The screen  then shows «0/15», indicating the need to collect something. One of the drawings on the wall lights up slightly.

4. Character walks up to the wall, points to the illuminated picture, presses the interaction button.----->He is given a picture card.

5. A player examines the drawings on the walls and thus collects all the cards. The collecting interface indicats 15/15.

6. When the cards are collected, a tile rises in the bottom of the pool, under it is a well filled with magenta liquid.

7. Need to jump into the well. Deep down there is a inscription «Enter the House «Party». A player presses the «interaction button» and transition to the level 2 starts.

---

LEVEL 2: HOUSE “PARTY”

• The character has here monstrous Mermaid’s hands
  
• Consist of 5 locations with NPCs

The house «Party» level is a space сonstructed by the heroine’s consciousness and connected with her traumatic experience. The level is divided into conditional zones - related locations, each with its own  Keeper NPC.

The character, when moving to the Level 2, transforms from a woman into a mermaid, whose monstrous hands can be seen by the player. This transformation into a mermaid is, on the one hand, a metaphor for the state of a person with PTSD, on the other hand, the only opportunity to enter the «house of trauma» again to neutralize it.

Locations of the Level 2 and Keepers (NPCs):

1. loc. Basement     ︎︎︎    Moth
   
2. loc. Сampus    ︎︎︎     St. Francis
   
3. loc. Baths    ︎︎︎     Blind tiger
   
4. loc. Memory cage    ︎︎︎     Pompon
   
5. loc. Lighthouse    ︎︎︎     Flamingo

As the level is large, I will not describe here the whole letsplay. It can be seen in the letsplay video. Please, note that mechanics 2 and 3 are missing in the video.


Mechanics of the level 2:

1). The character interacts with the objects in the level using the «interact» button, to changing the location’s state. For example, puts a flower in a vase, scatters chairs. It is important to change something in the Trauma’s space.

         ^{She puts a flower in a vase                      She needs to sweep the vial off the chair}

2). Dialogues with Keepers (NPC) with a choice of replicas for an answer. Each NPC has a role to play, and their dialogue has a psychotherapeutic effect. Their content is based on the existing verbal practices of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.

3). The passage between the zones of the level is “frozen”, To melt it and go further, the player needs:

• a). make a change to the previous location’s state (see point 1); 
• b). сhoose from the cards received at the Double bottom pool level, a card corresponding to the сurrent location and place it in the space.

        

4. In several places on the level there is an object called the «Oxygen Mask». It must also be interacted with by an «E» in order to move on. The oxygen mask tells us that the mermaid has not yet lost her humanity, which means there is still a chance for salvation.

     _{After using the Oxygen mask, the curtain lets jump down / The Baths location}


5. One of the rooms in the Baths location is filled with audio replicas that play when crossed with a character’s collision. The player walks around the room and activates the audio memories.         

   

The story of the Character and the space of the «trauma house» on this level is revealed through: videos, text labels of the objects, dialogues with NPCs, audio, photos.

The next, third level is reached by a horizontal elevator, which is located at the top of the Lighthouse location.
            

---

LEVEL 3: FABRIQUE

• The last level of the game
  A place of catharsis and getting free with two potential ways
  
• Consist of 3 locations with NPCs

Locations of the Level 2 and Keepers (NPCs):

1. loc. Workshop     ︎︎︎    Mandrake
   
2. Activation’s square    ︎︎︎     Unicorn
3. Shard lake    ︎︎︎     Curtain

Gameplay & mechanics
1. Dialogs with NPCs

2.There are many «Mechanisms» in the Activation’s Square location. When a character comes to each one, a text appears, an audio fragment is played and the mechanism starts rotating.

2. After a dialog with the NPC and activating the Mechanisms, a passage in the fence around the square opens. The player passes over the fence and finds himself on the edge of the location. Ahead of him there is a new location. You as a player need to take a chance and go to it «on the air». As the player walks a video screen appears in the sky. This video is the last one and has a cathartic mood. When video ends, player have to go through the screen and reach the «Shard Lake» location.

3). Shard Lake is the last location of the game, there is quiet and somewhere snowing. On the far shore there are two trees, between them there is a curtain.

The player approaches the curtain and the question «Return to the surface?» appears. The player can choose the answer «inhale» (meaning a return to life) or «exhale» (meaning the death). After the answer is chosen, the curtain rises, inviting the character to enter the space behind it. If the player chooses the answer «inhale» the curtain has a white glowing its way, if «exhale» it is black. The player enters the space behind the curtain and the game ends.
   

               

https://youtu.be/LHYQ6xvcg7o?t=4
letsplay (not all mechanics are implemented)

^{Here is more text about the project}

---

Texts on the ribbons:
1. The endless articulation of your tail elements makes sharks circle in blind catharsis.

2. The endless meltdown of your hand thoughts let you think yourself a mermaid.

3. The endless ebb of your liquid Flesh urges me to leap.


^{Video №1}
The whole video (from all locations): https://youtu.be/dJ8PD7BVp_s


 
^{“Cool down” button}

---

^{Inside the well}  

---

<sup>Entrance to the 2nd lev. | “Identify
yourself”











































                                     
Oxygen mask in the Basement location</sup>

---

Activation’s square and Unicorn. Mechanisms are activated.

Screen with video