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Diluvium

a worldbuilding project by Barbara and Max.
might become a game.

07.10.2024 emergence.

Started reading Staying with the Trouble by Donna Haraway, which has been sitting unread in my bookcase for a year. Her essay A Cyborg Manifesto served as a huge inspiration for my previous projects, and I

I haven't read much of it yet as Haraway's writing style takes some effort to untangle (which I think is beautiful! It's like academic poetry) but the book's introduction guided me to Ursula K. Le Guin's The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. In this essay,

25.09.2024 new beginnings.

Diluvium started during my second year of university as a puzzle adventure game my friends and I made in 8 weeks. At the time, I felt a desire to envision a hopeful future set in a world completely altered by climate change. Diluvium 1.0 takes place on a floating island built by humans after a dramatic rise in sea level flooded the original land their ancestors lived on.
Over 2 years later, I spent a majority of that time working on projects set in much more dystopian worlds and futures. Now that I've graduated, I'm feeling that itch again to work on something that gives me hope, even in the face of rising crises around the globe.

This summer my friends and I visited one of the Frisian islands north of the Netherlands. The background photo was taken there by me! My goal is to build a world that evokes the same sense of community, history, and peacefulness that I experienced there. Max and I are planning on returning to that island for another week soon, to gather more inspiration and soak up more of that energy that inspires us, especially now autumn is fast approaching.

Starting a new project now that I don't have any school or work obligations has been a rough process. I struggle to find the self discipline in me to work on it, especially as my life has been so chaotic outside of creative work. It was nice to take the summer off though, I feel way more recharged.
It feels very freeing that this project is not connected to my schoolwork in any way.. everything I did for art school always felt like I couldn't fully take myself seriously as a creative, as I was "still just a student". This feels like the beginning of a new chapter, one which I can define completely myself.

So far this log entry feels so formal.. I'd like to loosen up a little more in the future. I'm excited to take you along on this journey! Can't wait to see how this page will evolve along with the project.

to do: