2017 was the year of the next revival of Virtual Reality. A huge number of different VR halls, playgrounds, VR attractions were opened all over the world. In November 2017, commissioned by the Gallery of Contemporary Art and Technology, the concept of a VR project based on Japanese urban legends was created. The name of the project was "Japan City's Legends". The project remained unrealized, but it was obvious that it had great potential.
In January 2018, a group of investors ordered the development of a virtual reality pavilion, which includes a package of five original VR games.
During this project, the concepts of four VR games were developed - action, underwater and space adventures, and historical slasher.
The fifth game was the VR horror “Keep Silent". It received the most attention.
In June 2018, the development of the game script was completed and a preliminary version of the game design document was created.
A fragment from the description of the game:
“The player finds himself in the role of a magical Guardian — a mystical entity that keeps order in a mysterious abandoned city. He protects the people lost in the city from the monsters inhabiting one and helps them get out of this terrible place.”
The story of saving a little girl from terrible monsters was worked out in sufficient detail, but the analysis of market trends and the forecast presented by the analysts of the investor company, which turned out to be quite correct, did not allow the project to move into the implementation stage.
3 years have passed.
Blockchain and NFT have captured the minds of ordinary people. Thanks to the appearance of Oculus Quest 2 in December 2020, the VR market has experienced its next revival. VR gaming projects have become relevant again and in March 2021, an offer for the implementation of the “Shtai Coory” project was made to an investment company. Name of the project can be translated from Japanese as “Corpses at retail”.
In the summer of the same year, in Hong Kong, the company “MAD DIVISION LIMITED” was registered and on December 21 work on a mobile VR prototype for the Oculus Quest 2 helmet was already completed. Also a package of game documentation was prepared for the subsequent transition to the production stage. But the market has made its own adjustments again…
Mark Zuckerberg's speech on October 28, 2021 with the announcement of the metaverse concept and all subsequent events in the technology and gaming markets forced a radical revision of the Project concept, which required several months of in-depth analysis of the situation and detailed forecasting of possible scenarios for the development of the situation in the gaming market.
Work on the project was resumed in March 2022. This time, it was decided to create a gaming product that carries essential prerequisites for further development in the form of a media franchise, which includes at the first stage a single-player game with possible PC and VR modes and in the future a multiplayer VR city as an independent product or part of a large metaverse. In the future, the project can transform into a multi-part streaming series or a feature length film.
The current task is a single-player horror adventure with action elements. It was decided to completely abandon the mobile version of the game. The concept of the project, its narrative and gameplay parts were redesigned. In addition to all this, the project has acquired a new name - “Morganica".
The developments of previous projects were used in the work on the Morganica, but the conceptual and narrative parts were completely changed.
Currently, work is underway on a demo version aimed at potential co-investors and the publisher. We are finishing on game documentation, negotiations are underway with potential candidates for the position of project manager, options for the subsequent organization of the production stage are being worked out.