Sunlight analysis

To meditate, it is not always necessary to leave the mind blank, the really important thing is to let us take us. If we can not apagar the brain nor concentrate only on the sensations of our body, the ideal is to observe the flow of thoughts from the distance, explore where they go and why paths can take us, without facing them directly or opposing them to situ in a central place. The objective is to occupy within ourselves a passive role, an observer role, which allows us to see everything with a great prospect much more generous and detached from the ego. Look inside our heads as if we were another. One more kindly and much less accusing.

Sunlight begins with a question like any good guided meditation session:

Imagine you have a baby. A son or a daughter totally healthy but blind birth. For this reason, his perspective and understanding of the world is totally different from yours. How would you explain the sunlight?

With this question, and accompanied by orchestral music from Tchaikovsky, Sunlight immerses us on a virtual walk through an impressionist forest, drawn directly in a 3D environment. Without apparent aim beyond collecting some flowers, and without the need to follow any path traced, the game marks our progress thanks to a story told by dozens of voices that in this virtual environment work as a flow of semi-abstract thoughts produced by the whispers of nature. The story we hear, however, does not follow a traditional narrative, but is based on sensations, being designed to induce the player to have an extracorporeal experience. With the always changing voices of her, Sunlight invites us to identify us with a protagonist who, in the consultation of a doctor, is able to abstract to observe herself from outside the body of her and in the doctor's position. These images invite us to us, players, to recognize ourselves in one of the most common situations to experience a projection of consciousness. Far from staying there, the title presses us, as we walked virtually, to imagine the lives of people we observe or feel that we are one with this imaginary protagonist who, at the same time, are us.

The value of Sunlight and Krillbite Studio is found in the way in which embraces experimentality in each and every one of the elements that make up the game. The visual section, which has been created with Quill, a tool that allows us to create a digital environment in which we painted as if it were a giant canvas, does not seek realism but to recreate the claroscurs of a forest that transmits calm and serenity. The voice of the narrator, which only appears during the initial instants, helps us to blur the line between real world and virtual forest in an experience that is not structured through a story or a character with which we can identify. He does so thanks to a series of questions that have the goal of placing the player in an introspective concrete tone, fundamental to enjoy the proposal. However, the less conventional element of the title is its gameplay, which incorporates elements that we practice both inside and off the screen. In the forest in which Sunlight framed, our goal is to walk at our rhythm and pick up a series of flowers. Outside the game, in our mind, the intention of developers is that we listen to the different voices and be able to form the images that suggest accurately, so that we can quickly achieve the meditative state that gives meaning to its end. The proposal of Krillbite Studio wants to expand the possibilities of the environment a little more and, for that reason, it is not for every1. Nor does it work at any moment. However, it is a strange piece of craft that aims at the existence of another type of virtual environment.

Sunlight can be found at the Bundle for Ukrania available in Itch.IO.