Trailer
The Story
Once, this forest was but barren and empty. One species lived in this land tasked with the
caretaking of the valley.
Their care lead the valley to grow. Seed turned into plants, plants turned into trees, and so
the valley slowly became a forest.
The species evolved into two beings: one for the shade, to take care of the plants and the
trunks, and one for the trees, to help grow the branches and leaves.
But as time went on, the shade grew darker and darker. Light started fading completely in some
areas of the forest, leading life down below to die.
The Luma kept on working, as they were never able to see the destruction brought to the shade.
The Umbra only had one option: show the light people the death and destruction that their
carelessness brought upon the shade.
The Project
This is a project we made in collaboration with OXFAM.
Our goal was to shed light on the invisible worker. These are workers that cannot let their
voice be heard because they are afraid of being replaced. We wanted to make the game enjoyable
in its own right and not make it too preachy,
so we decided to work with metaphors.
The shadow is a metaphor for invisibility and the light for visibility. When the player stands
in the light, the characters becomes brighter as well, signaling that he's become visible. While
you need this visibility to solve puzzles in the game,
the Luma or the "light people" do not appreciate you becoming visible and start to chase you on
sight. When they catch you, you are replaced and you must chooce a new name for your character.
I was the developer on this project and created all the gameplay code.
You can play the game here:
https://stephanholding.itch.io/umbra