Earthdiver is a spirimotional physics based game in development by Edwon. The game combines liquid based action and exploration with an emotional aesthetic.

THE VIBE
Earthdiver will use associations from mythology as well as universal human experiences such as childhood, mother, and father to create an emotional bond with the events, characters, and world of the game. While there is a story, it is not the main focus. There will be no cut scenes and no dialogue. Everything will be experienced by the player as true "life experience". You will have to make decisions that cannot be undone. These decisions have a meaningful effect on the game play. While much of the game focuses on action, exploration, and decision making, one question will always be present. What do we owe the planet and the parents that gave us life?

THE MYTHOLIQUID
The mytholiquid is simultaneously your environment, aesthetic, enemy and friend. It's almost an extra character in the game with a personality and moods all it's own. The mytholiquid can do just about anything you can imagine a simulated liquid doing. It can be thick and slow like honey, fast and wavy like water, or floaty and bulbous like being inside a lava lamp. Huge overpowering waves, low-g water, underwater currents. The gameplay possibilities are endless.

TECHNOLOGY
Real time liquid simulation and dynamic, physics based character animation. Both are essential to the design of this game. Without the mytholiquid and a character believably running and diving, the game and indeed the prototype will not work. Currently the game is being developed in Unity using C# with a targeted Xbox Live and/or PSN release. We have received some interest from Sony. Edwon will be pitching the game to them at GDC in March.

FLUID SIMULATION REQUIREMENTS

• the fluid must be able to react to objects in the world, in other words it's not just a fluid simulation that runs in a cube. It must be affected by characters, objects, and environments, and the fluid should effect them as well

• just like the nVidia demo it should be able to be very deep water, with a tall cell optimization where most of the processing is at or near the surface where the water is "interesting"

• another optimization is that any water that's off screen past a certain distance will disappear, while water that your about to encounter is constantly generated in front of you.

• waves/currents should be "scriptable" so to speak, or controllable in some way

• there should be controllable variables like viscosity, mass, time-scale, etc....

THE JOB
Edwon is looking for someone who is not only at the top of his/her math and programming game, but has a great imagination. I'm looking for a collaborator, not just a programmer. As you can see, the vision and plan for the game are laid out, but there's still a huge amount of room for creativity when it comes to the details of each level. In essence, we get to make the game together. I'll take care of the art and business side of things, you get to focus on development and design. I don't know if you can make this as cool as I see it in my head, but I dare you to try.

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