The Mural

a mystery

Matthew McGowan

Jeremy White

Maria J Saint Martin

Allen Yu

Story premise

An art conservator, Miranda, is hired to clean and preserve a mural painted by an uncle whom, prior to his death, she hadn’t seen in over twenty years. Miranda’s employer is a secretive science institute on the verge solving nuclear fusion--and for whom her uncle once served as Chief Scientist.

Once she begins her work, Miranda quickly realizes that the mural is more than what it appears at first sight. She feels something suspicious is going on, and so she decides to dig into it a little bit deeper, unraveling a huge mystery.

Setting

Characters

Miranda Butler: The main character, driven by curiosity and passion.

Agenda: To solve the mystery of the mural and to learn more about her late uncle.

Characters

Dr. Margaret White: Current President of the Ceir Institute.

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Agenda: To see what Miranda knows or finds out about the mural--and then to contain her.

Characters

Frederik Jessup: The Ceir Institute’s oldest employee and a cryptic curmudgeon.

Agenda: To find out more about the painting--and to help Miranda learn the truth.

Core Mechanic

Largely traditional point-and-click adventure games:

The player gathers certain items into an inventory and combines these items to produce various results.

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The player acquires these items and learns how to combine them by discovering and interpreting (mildly puzzling) clues in a handful of books left in an old library.

What makes it cool?

The world.

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A mysterious institute; a mad scientist-painter; a conspiracy; glimpses of the future; and expressive art, setting and dialogue--all wrapped up into a coherent world colored by us, the designers.

What makes it cool?

The puzzles...

are decidedly reality-based. For example, the steps the player follows to create a homemade black light are something you could with everyday items! This makes for a more interesting puzzle in that the player can actually come away with a bit of real-world, potentially practical information. In other words...

Science is cool!

Challenges / Risks

Over-scoping: We had to remove several puzzles due to time constraints.

Puzzle design: We want the game to be accessible and enjoyable. We reduced the difficulty.

Technical: None of us is a trained programmer so it is more challenging to implement new features.

Current state - General

The game is steadily progressing towards completion. We managed to�cut away enough features to be able to finish the whole product and focus more on polishing the writing and story.

Current state - Art / Audio Assets

The art assets are mostly complete and many are already implemented into the game. NPCs animations are done and items and their icons are also in.

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Audio is in progress. We are working mostly in sound effects.

Current state - Writing

The story is complete, from beginning to end. Most dialogues are finished, as are most items’ descriptions and prompts. However, all text continues to be looked at for potential paring-down and polish.

Current state - Design

The puzzle design is fully defined and currently in implementation. More playtesting and feedback is needed to iterate and polish more. The design objective is to make the player feel that they are engaged with more “science-y” and challenging topics.

Thanks!