Developer Diary 106

I've made decent progress over the last month:

- I created an additional 64 SFX
- I bought a new PC with a massive 32 core processor and an additional screen to work with UE4
- I read up on NDEs over the last month and finished an important part of the plot

Jonah is caught between the red army and a german batallion after his escape out of the orphanage. He decides to take his own life by jumping off a cliff out of fear and perceives what he believes is his own death. The player sees it like this as well. In the beginning of the game, Jonah sees his own body lying on the ground and then travels through a tunnel, enters a luminous light, with energies and stars in all colors surrounding him. He finally arrives in a meadow and explores Lakini's Woods, fights the dharmapalas (symbolizing his own strengths and weaknesses) and discovers his own shadow and consequently his own light. In the end he is confronted with a choice: Return to earth and help the remaining children escape the battle and the psychopathic hunter "Silver", or remain and find peace.

It is strongly hinted at throughout the game, that saving those children is of incredible importance. The singing souls inside Lakini's Woods teach Jonah the story of the universe, how the first consciousness split itself into smaller parts, that enter their own dream and then return back to the great one. But due to this first split, light and darkness came into the world. The great consciousness' curiosity created duality and with it independent beings living in a dual world of light and darkness (which is basically the world human beings perceive). Now parts of the great consciousness are in danger of forgetting who they actually are. Darkness will prevail if humanity is not set on a path of self-realization and eventually the great consciousness will split over and over and over again and finally forget itself. The children Jonah saves, play an important role in this.

Jonah died at a crucial moment in time, and saving those children would bring the world back onto a path of self-realization and with this, the great consciousness would be able to perceive itself again, to remember who and what it actually is. But the shadows fight with all their might against it, as the dissolution of duality will also mean the end of darkness, the end of their existence as they know it. They fight for their eternal survival, as they do not wish to return to be part of the great consciousness. Jonah is a mortal threat to their existence.

The goddess Lakini is an acolyte of the great consciousness. Lakini lights a fire in the hearts of men, for their shadows to manifest in front of them. It is the ultimate force that hopes to reunite the great consciousness with the sum of its parts. But in order to give light and realization to Jonah, it will inevitably have to give life and identity to Jonah's darkness as well. Ironically in order to create a realization of non-duality in mankind, Lakini has to push a man's consciousness into a world of extreme dual separation. His fears, his anger, his imbalance, his helplessness, his suffering... The shadows inside the forest embody those qualities, the dharmapalas however embody personal qualities that Jonah can conquer and use to his advantage.

Silver's shadow (dominant and affecting his behavior) and Jonah's shadow (subservient until awoken by Lakini) are the ultimate acolytes of the darkness. They wish to manifest in their own form, they strive for independence, power, pride, control. They are predators and wish to secure their own survival, their own independent identity. There is no antagonist to the great consciousness, only former parts of it, that have lost their way and wish to remain separate. These shadows are an integral part of human existence and they live in all of us. While pursuing that goal, in their ignorance they appear to be almost as powerful, if not more powerful than the great consciousness itself, since the foundation of all conscious unity is free will. No conscious entity can be forced to act a certain way. Just as the great consciousness is free, so are its dissociated parts: Human identities, animals, demons, spirits, shadows, gods ....


Right now there are a lot of things going on in my life. Unfortunately my Mom is very sick, and the reality is that she will not make it. The prognosis in her case is, that she will die with an 80% probability in the next month. I can't even begin to describe the effect this has on me. But reading up on many NDEs (Near-Death-Experiences) has helped me deal with this experience. I sincerely hope that once Lakini's Woods is done, it will give many players a new perspective on life, death and depression.

To some extent I do believe, that there is " a great consciousness" and that all of us have split from it for one reason or another. I also firmly believe that self-realization is a massively important part of human existence. I experienced this "great consciousness" at least once during meditation when I was 24 years old and it left a deep impression on me. I cannot put this experience into words, but I felt tremendously grateful at that moment and the experience moved me to tears. I hope that someday I will be able to transmit this experience to other people. Lakini's Woods will be a first step on that path.