Follow the Maple House instagram page to learn about events, progress and updates
https://www.instagram.com/maplehousevr/

Everyone has a story in them to tell. If a house could speak, what story would it reveal? Set in the Maritimes of Canada, this Tom Waits-inspired tale invites you into the sanctum of a family seaside home, allowing you to experience the memories and lives inside, as your presence ultimately becomes integral to the story of Maple House.

Immersion is key to experiencing the story Maple House wants to tell you. A cinematic Virtual Reality game was chosen as the medium to tell this tale in order to invite the audience to explore and interact with moments at their leisure while still being gently guided through.

The player begins at the front of a seaside wooden home as the day is nearing its end. You are guided through the home and are able to explore and interact with household objects and family memorabilia as you make your way through. Once the sun sets the environment falls to black and you reappear at the beginning of the house, though this time everything seems a bit older, more worn and overgrown. The player is then guided to a different activity in the same property, with the days’ activities concluding once the sun sets again. Each new day you can interact with more objects and an older woman who lives in the house. Through these interactions you get to know the woman, her past and eventually interact with her in subtle and playful ways. The interactions becoming increasingly familiar and telling as your role in this tale is eventually revealed, your unfinished business completed.

Once completed, the game will reveal what percentage you completed and how many hidden features you discovered along the way.

You will be rewarded for completing the game in its 100% entirety.

password: mapleHouse

In order to give a sense of the mood and gameplay it became apparent to build upfront as much as I could. I saved personal funds for a year so I could then take a few months off to teach myself the gaming software Unreal Engine, then built the assets, the world and the proposed gameplay, eventually paying two artists to help me complete the remaining assets. I then built the world in Unreal Engine using these assets and marketplace items, laying the foundation for my next steps.

WRITER / DIRECTOR: STEPHANIE POCKLINGTON

(LOVE AND MONSTERS, STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE, AVATAR 2, A MONSTER CALLS)

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5424880/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

CONCEPT ARTIST : DANE LAROCQUE

(STAR WARS: FORCE AWAKENS, JURASSIC WORLD, WARCRAFT)

CHARACTER ARTIST: JAKE HEMPSON

(MORTAL KOMBAT, GAME OF THRONES, ALIEN VS. PREDATOR)

ENVIRONMENT ARTIST: MICHAEL NORBAK

(SKYSCRAPER, DORA, CATS)

PRODUCER: SCOTT WALKER

(PRINCESS AND I, LIFE AS A DOG, TRIPLE X, ONE WAY HOME)

COMPOSER: MIKE ST. JEAN

(STEVE VAI, TESSERACT, JOHN CARPENTER LIVE)
 

MUSICIAN: CHE AIMEE DORVAL

(CHE AIMEE DORVAL SOLO, CASUALTIES OF COOL, DEVIN TOWNSEND)

I want to ensure the product is built professionally garuntee the gameplay itself is as seamless as possible, optimised and free of bugs. I took what I built and brought it to a local game production company in Sydney named Epiphany Games. They quoted a total of 30,000 Australian Dollars in order to complete the game. This cost includes hiring an art department to ensure the style of the game is clear going forward, as well as design any custom items key to the story within this style. From there, the costs cover the creation and coding work needed to create the game itself, and finally bug testing and ensuring the product is compatible with being released onto PC and Oculus Quest 2. Since the time of quotation there have been updates to the software in which it was built, so some extra funds are required to edit the assets to be compatible and optimised with newer versions. It is also important to me release this game free of cost on these platforms to encourage inclusion in this tale.

Other costs will go toward funding a Canadian composer for the ambient gameplay music (Mike St. Jean), a Canadian folk musician for an original track to be played in the game (Che Aimee Dorval), foley costs, a voice actor to play the role of the older woman in the house, and additional costs for promotional and distribution costs.

A wishlist fundraising goal, should I be lucky enough, is to pay a representative to approach Tom Waits giving him awareness of the project, a choice to support it in any way, as well as ask permission to use one of his songs in the game as homage to the song that inspired the project ‘The House Where Nobody Lives’.

I sincerely hope you join me in bringing this experience to life.

Any support is most welcome and vastly appreciated.

Follow our instagram page to learn about events, progress and updates!
https://www.instagram.com/maplehousevr/