The Abandoned Cinema
The abandoned theater is an interactive experience that tells the story of a banished fairy that conjured themself friends from movie universes during their banishment. The fairy asks the player for help to send their friends back home using magic portals they created before their death. To accomplish this the player has to explore the abandoned movie theater, find the movie props and bring them to their individual movie posters.
By bringing the collectables to their posters, these posters will incorporate the object that was brought back home, completing the universe, and poster, again. By finishing the posters and thus illuminating a letter from the movie lights, the player can see the progress they are making within the experience.
The Story:
Once upon a time, there was a fairy named Evie. They lived in a world far from ours, between forests and seas, in a tiny house made from flower petals and leaves. Evie shared their home with Wilbur, a mystical creature, that Evie loved dearly. So when one sudden day, Evie found Wilbur lifeless in their home, they were devastated. Their grief was so enormous and their pain so deep, that they could not live without Wilbur, so they decided to resurrect them. Resurrection however was a grave crime in the fairy world, as it invites evil spirits from the afterlife. When it became known that Evie resurrected a being, their spell was reversed and they were banished into the human world. Forever to be alone and trapped in an abandoned theater. Evie could not live with the pain of Wilbur death and the burden of solitude, so they conjured themselves friends from the movies around them. With these friends, they lived a less lonely life, even though their pain and love for Wilbur never ceased to exist. When Evie’s death grew closer, they were not strong enough anymore to send their friends back home to their universes and families/ they took it upon them to send their friends back to their homes. With Evie’s last strength they created portals for each of their friends that will send them back home. This weakened Evie so much, that they were not able to finish bringing them home, so now they are stuck in the theater. But because of Evie’s love for their friends that kept them company for many years, they couldn’t burden knowing their friends had to endure the same fate as them, even in death. So their spirit was trapped inside the building of the old theater, unable to rest until they know their friends are back home safely.
Evie’s spirit that lives in the building still has the power to help their friends rescue, by entrapping anyone that has a heart pure enough to help them travel through the portals and find their way home.
The environment
The experience takes place in an abandoned movie theater, which is the place of banishment. In the theater are a lot of different objects typical for movie theaters like a stage, popcorn machine, and movie projectors. All of the used objects and buildings were made in maya by ourselves. No assets were used, except for the sound design and materials. For the sounds of the experience, creative commons 0 sounds from freesounds.com were used, most of which were then altered and layered by ourselves to fit the individual needs of our experience. The materials were used for the different objects in the theater like the walls, floor, or ticket booth. All used materials were creative commons 0 from ambientcg.com. For some of the used models, we made the materials ourselves. For example, the face including the eyes from our character was drawn by us or the pufferfish-snitch was painted using substance painter.
The Lobby
The Cinema
The Technical Room:
The Poster
All of the posters that function as portals, as well as indicators of the objects that need to be found are hand-drawn as well.
Character Design:
The collectables:
Contributions:
This Project was done in collaboration with one other person from my study. I was responsible for the programming, some of the modelling, drawing the posters and designing the cinema room. The other person was responsible for the sounds, modelling and character animation. Together we developed the story, idea and poster ideas.