Making a game is a daunting experience, and I think it takes a bit of madness to commit years of your life to building something that has no practical use and that probably only few people will ever see. In order to actually make it, you need something to push you through the moments when giving up seems like the only sensible choice. For me, that thing—that anchor—was the image of an astral ark.
Now, listen, I’m not saying the astral ark is real, okay? But I also didn’t make it up. Let me explain.
Actually, before I do, I want to ask you this: do you know what an astral ark is? Can you sense the shimmering edges of its shape even before I tell you anything about it? Because I think you already know what it is and why I decided to make a game about it. You already know it exists, in some form or shape, out there, like a mesmerizing shadow on that clichéd wall inside that clichéd cave.
How I learned about the astral ark was: I went for coffee with this guy I worked with. I was working at one of those unbearably suffocating start-ups where the stench of desperation filled the open-plan offices and seeped into the skin of the free fruit so eagerly advertised as a perk in their job offers. Part of the company’s culture was the custom of employees randomly inviting each other for coffee to get to know each other better. And as start-up ‘rituals’ go, that one was not bad at all.
So this guy’s name was Jay. He was a programmer from India, and as we sat down in a gentrified coffee shop next to our office, I asked him where in India he was from. He said he was from Ahmedabad, a large city in the west of the country. He had lived there all his life, gone to school and completed his degree there, and it was during that degree that he got the chance to intern at a game studio in the UK. After finishing his degree, he got a job at the same company and moved to Europe. Years later, he moved to Berlin and was hired by the start-up where we both worked.
I shared the story of how I had lived in India for a year when I was five, which excited him. He asked me a lot of questions about my time there, but all I can ever remember are disjointed impressions and images that don’t coalesce into a coherent narrative. I remember, for example, dozens of vultures perched on a knee-high wall right outside the compound we were living in. They formed a very long row of black silhouettes stretching far into the distance. I have no context for this image, though. Why were they there? Was it a common occurrence, or did it happen just once? As a child, I simply took it at face value—as one more bizarre manifestation of this infinitely large world I was only just beginning to know.
As if to compensate for the ineffable nature of my memories, I mentioned that I did yoga and was fascinated by how practices such as yoga and meditation took hold in the West.
‘Yeah, where I’m from, people don’t really do that stuff,’ he said. ‘Honestly, it was only after coming here that I started meeting people who actually do yoga and talk about it. Back in India, that just wasn’t a thing.’
‘But you know what? I just remembered this—there was this Austrian guy in my neighborhood. He was kind of crazy and was into all that spiritual stuff. I think he came there to follow a guru, but by the time I met him, he was just a local weirdo, always high and getting in everybody’s way. Anyway, when I was in high school, I remember him telling me the weirdest story.’
This was shaping up to be the most interesting coffee with a co-worker so far. I was ready to encourage Jay to continue, but it looked as though he had been drawn so deeply into the memory that he didn’t need any encouragement to pull it out into the open.
‘We were hanging around at the edge of a marketplace, doing whatever—I don’t remember—and he sort of appeared out of nowhere. He just sat on a table at an empty stall and asked, “Have you heard about the Astral Ark?” We looked at each other like, “Oh no, what is this weirdo on about?” And he said he had just read a book about it. He said the book had been written by some kind of disgraced scientist from Canada and that, in it, the scientist had collected all the evidence for the existence of the astral ark on Earth. Or rather, above the Earth, because…’
Here, Jay looked at me and grinned.
‘Because, hear me out, an astral ark is a spaceship sent by an ancient, advanced civilization as a gift to the people of Earth. It contains all the technology of that civilization, its philosophy and wisdom, and sources of power so incredible that they could power a hundred planets. And it hovers above Earth, waiting for humanity to be ready to receive it.’
Jay laughed and shook his head.
‘This Austrian guy! He seemed to really believe it. He said there were accounts of it in many cultures around the world. Then he went on to tell us how the myth of Atlantis is actually about the astral ark. How there are mentions of these arks in Sumerian texts. All that crazy shit.’
‘Did he ever show you the book?’ I asked.
‘No, that was the only time he talked about it. I mean, this guy had theories about everything, and you couldn’t take them seriously. I don’t know why I just remembered this particular one.’ He paused. ‘I wonder what happened to him. I’ll have to ask my family. Maybe he’s still around?’
Soon after that, I quit that job, and we never spoke again. But the story of the Astral Ark stayed with me, and I found myself thinking about it every once in a while. It stirred something in me. The image of a utopian vessel took hold of me—a vault containing all that is good and useful, given freely and without restrictions to people its makers would never meet. Whether or not it makes complete sense, something about it, like those disjointed memories I have of India, fascinates me enough to make a game about it.
The Cloudvale Protocol is a story-rich, tabletop-inspired game about hope for a better future, the power to shape it, and the hard choices that follow. Save a wounded utopia built to benefit all, while trying to keep a stranded boy alive. As the stakes rise, your choices will decide the fate of more than one world.
WISHLIST: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4683620/The_Cloudvale_Protocol/