NARRATIVE DESIGN OF THE “MIND TOWER” ON THE SANDBOX
In 2022, Bianca Carague, a Futuring Creative and Digital Artist, led a collaboration to design a Mental Health-themed game as part of Sandbox’s efforts to engage creators on the Metaverse. She had conceptualized “Mind Tower” as a single-player mental health-themed virtual escape room where players solve puzzles and complete quests while building self-compassion and empathy. The player later discovers that the goal of the game is to escape not the tower but the confines of one’s mind.
the challenge
Talking to Bianca about her intentions and our thoughts on the subject of fake news, raging polarities, the distortions to truth and self perceptions that social media feeds, reflections on mental health and meditation served as fertile ground for designing a narrative around Vera, the character at the center of the “Mind Tower.” This began with an exploration of storytelling around cognitive biases and how they can result in irrationality, blur interpretations and blunt judgement. A review of Psychology subjects from university days (!) added dimension to the narrative. 10 characters were envisioned - Sentinels and Hazards - around these ideas and developed their own stories. As each would reside within their own room in the Mind Tower, worlds and the artefacts that surrounded them were co-designed, working with Bianca and another digital creator who brought these to life on the Sandbox Metaverse.
the work
the outcomes
Narrative
Vera is part of a tribe of Truth Seekers on Bump Galaxy. From her Father, she has heard about a planet called Aternia where people view radical transparency and understanding as a means to navigating complex reality and uncertainty, rather than as an end in itself.
Bump Galaxy is comprised of small tribes who have lived in harmony for centuries but the introduction of new technologies and ideas have led to dispute among the tribes. For 3 years, they have been at war with each other - not so much a war of weapons but of opinions and words.
Vera’s Father - the Sage, has tried to bring peace but the noise is too loud and no one is listening to each other. He believes the only way to restore unity is to seek wisdom from the Enlightened. He has heard they reside in Aternia but he knows that the journey there is not an easy one. Out in the ether, forces are volatile, treacherous and can lead to unexpected detours. Nonetheless, he decides he will take Bump Galaxy’s only voyager ship, the Ship Empathy and risk the journey. He believes it is the only way for his home to regain peace.
This fills Vera with feelings of loss and grief as there is no guarantee her father would return home safely. Instead of expressing what she feels about the situation, she decides to go on the mission herself. In the middle of the night, she stealthily takes off alone on Empathy. After some mishaps in handling the ship’s autopilot controls, she crash lands in the middle of an unknown place.
She wakes up in a strange place that looks like the bottom of a tower with no memory of how she got there or why, other than the feeling of being on a mission. She is greeted by some citizens of what she learns is the Planet Aternia. They tell her that the only way out of the tower is to regain understanding and head up towards the light; only by finding herself will she find her way out.
They tell her that they don’t have the answers but they are willing to help. As foreign as they are, she realizes that she must learn how to collaborate with them to remember how she got there, what she needs to do and where she needs to go next . A series of puzzles and missions start to line up for Vera, who, upon completing them, regains bits and pieces of her memory through text panels and dialogues with NPCs that reveal as much about her as it does about them.
Along the way, on her Escape to Enlightenment, Vera meets the Mind Tower Sentinels - guardians and guides who take her on a quest of empathy and self-understanding to find her way out. They warn her that as she makes progress, she might enter some Rooms of Hazards. These Hazards are the antithesis of Empathy and Enlightenment and may present puzzles that throw her off course. She must learn to trust herself and her instincts, drawing from the wisdom she gains from the Sentinels in order to overcome these Silent Hazards. Ultimately, upon reaching the top of the Mind Tower, Vera finds herself drawn into a portal that returns her - and the assets she has collected - to Bump Galaxy.
Mind Tower is an escape room game about escaping the confines of one's mind.
Bump Galaxy is a social hub where players can meet up, attend events, and engage in game world therapy.