Designing a Speculative Port for All Will Rise

Visualizing a city like ‘Muziris’ requires more than just architecture. Like I established in the last post, the ideas need to be grounded in a reality that immerses players into believing that they should care about the world and its future.

By the way, from the start I have known that All Will Rise is going to be one of the most interesting design challenges I have faced. The ‘extra’ bright minds writing and thinking this world have really put in the nuances on the page. And it really requires me to catch up to match up.

Starting out with a little overwhelming panoramic shot of a port where you can see a distant glimpse of a river on fire, but the world is still moves on.

How like life!

Starting notes

Now. The idea here is to construct a coastal environment that feels dense, political, lived-in, and layered with history. To us this is about coexistence. Myriad systems and histories compressed into a single frame.

The brief reminded me of a visit to Kanchivaram. Standing there, I had felt, this immense feeling of wonder. The more-then-a-thousand-years-old architecture was very alive. And there were enough stories on those walls to fill my spiritual practice all the way to nirvana. Though, as you might notice, I decided to indulge in the side quest of being an artist and delay that eventuality.

My loss.

But the place has stayed with me. It was evident that it had witnessed mythologies and cultures come and go, kingdoms glory and wither, and witness a gazillion dreams perish on its stone floor. While the temple just stood their patiently. Witnessing. There is something calming about such an experience.

When I was walking around the sanctum that summer, barefoot with blisters, I came across a pigment of orangish-red. A colour I had never seen before, or since. I think it was a pigment that had escaped the fingers of ASI technicians (Archaeological survey of India), and had remained pure and true to its original colour from centuries.

Once I had the sketches, I used those as modular pieces to put together a rough layout. This is not literal, because we were not creating modular assets, but only to assess how things relate to each other. Honestly, at this stage, I’m not even thinking about aesthetics. We can always make things look ‘pretty’. I’m thinking more about the presence of the harbour. What needs to exist in this space for it to feel like a real place.

And While the previous sketch feels more flat like a side scroller, based on some feedback, I also explored a more dynamic depth. And added a slight angle toward the right, as if the buildings were getting closer to camera and you could look inside the shops. But scale and perspective are demons of a different nature.

This part is to check if the image reads fine, and if the layers are visible.

As you will see later, in this case, I also had a brief encounter with a fantastical pink tone over this world (A vision of the wonderful, Joost) But we decided to pull back from there because the world needed to feel grounded I suppose. (I loved that vibe though.)

Now that the rough colours are in place. Somewhat. I started thinking about more details and more speculative elements. To me the above versions felt a little barren. A little more like a village rather then a city with history.

It felt like a place. But not a story.

So to bring in some more elements of interest into the picture I added a tidal energy generator on the right and more local details. While leaving the rest of the port intact. Going back to the brief; along with being a port/harbour, this is also a place that is constantly in transition. This is where the fisher folk earn their livelihood from, this is where the jetty runs from, et cetera.