Mirus – Axel Bauer

Abstract

Have you ever wondered if you really have control over your mind? Yes? Well, then this game is for you! With Mirus, I wrote the story and composed the soundtrack for a whole study semester.

Story
The Idea
The lost scenes
Soundtrack
Trailer

Story (Spoilers!)

The story is about a girl being played by her higher consciousness after a medical incident. The goal of the story was to only give slight hints to the player on what actually happened up until the last scene.

Starting by having a walk with her friend Alyssa in the woods, both decide to play “catch-me-if-you-can” in which at the end, Tanea stumbles and hits her head on the ground. Just like the player, she finds herself confused as she wakes up in her room but something gives her strange feeling as door shuts itself and she doesn’t find the key. After an event of realization where she starts to remember her fall, she finds the key but finds out that she just got in a mirrored version of her room after passing the door. More and more, things get more abstract and more unrealistic as she has to pass a room full of nebula – guided by the voice of her friend to not get into the fog. At the end, she meets her higher consciousness which reveals that she is now taking over because of the player being full of flaws but when the player defeats the enemies which the consciousness spawns and gets back to reality, he*she finds out that the fight also took place in reality – leading to the accidental death of Alyssa.

The idea

It all started out with the thought of humans being led by their emotions and feelings and the follow-up question if those action actually just are a result of said emotions and that there isn’t actually something as “control of the own mind”. I kinda liked the idea of fighting against the own consciousness – being the perfect entity not being led by emotions but really knowing every detail of your past and of what defines you. For me, it looked like the ultimate battle as I think humans really want to have control over their mind but have not the ability to cross that line as they do not know how to world looks like without the “sunglass of emotions”.

This is why the games has this tragic ending with the conclusion that even though the player tried to fight the consciousness, it still was misguided by it as the consciousness made her friend look like one of the enemies and the player not having clue about it. At the end, you might take over but still don’t have complete control.

The lost scenes

Unfortunately, not everything could be implemented. Most of the time, the gameplay not really resembles tasks that acutally need to be completed but it most likely feels like an upgraded walking simulator. From a storytelling perspective, it was also planned to give the player additional information that he*she is fighting in reality as well – accidentally killing Alyssa – by breaking the black dome of the fighting area piece by piece every time the player takes down another monster.

Also, initially, the story contained even more scenes and environments that slowly depicted different aspects of her life (e. g. childhood memories which should show that the consciousness even has access to those) but had to be removed because of time reasons.

Soundtrack

Even though I hadn’t planned on doing it, this was the first time, I started actually writing songs. My initial thought was to find soundtracks in the Internet or just play with some Apple Loops if needed, mostly focusing on Cutscenes. However, when approached (I actually don’t recollect anymore who it exactly was), I started just trying something out, putting all of the beauty and emotions I had for music into it and ended up with the Menu soundtrack. From that point, I was hooked and started with the other pieces as well.

The menu soundtrack really gives the feeling of laying on the ground of a forest looking up to the top of the trees – combined with some sort of beauty, emptyness and sadness which should underline the story.

(Soundtrack to be added)

The beginning soundtrack was created more or less with a sun rise in mind. It starts with the same notes as the main menu and introduces the main characters while doing so

(Soundtrack to be added)

I forgot the exact reason but I kinda had the feeling of fast repeating notes just perfectly resemble the feeling you get whilst running. This time, I tried to write the piece to be loop-able inside the game engine having a part where the pace gets faster and another, where the melody focuses more on the beautiful feeling on running through the forest.

(Soundtrack to be added)

With the ending soundtrack, I wanted to start with orchestral sounds and turn those into synthetic ones when the fight begins. However, during the creation process, I figured that the synthetic sounds (tremolo) perfectly fit for creating the effect of chaos – the feeling of loosing control – while the e-guitar and the piano (at least in this part) would serve as an emergancy sound perfectly actuated and planned, resembling the carefully planned takeover of the consciousness. I also couldn’t resist but add a choir that gets pitch shifted, additionally underlining the severe situation and chaos.

(Soundtrack to be added)