World Building: Environment Art Direction and VR Game Experience Pitch.

**art/photos, unless noted, are not my own and only serves to point in a general direction** This is a pitch for a VR game experience, with a focus on the environment Art Direction. Below is a block-in for the narrative experience to hang the visual ideas on.

Deadwood: Eclipse
The story that laid the foundation for the Environment direction

Introduction
All the reports of strange happenings and unexplained disappearances involve the long-abandoned Malveaux estate. City dwellers
write off the rumors as tall tales, but with reports increasing, the authorities must now take the threat seriously. The players step into the
shoes of the detectives/special forces units tasked to investigate grounds for either dealing with the threat or putting the rumors to rest.
Soon after arriving, to their dismay, your team uncovers signs of death, sacrifice, and witchcraft. Within the bones of the once beautiful
Malveaux estate, a coven has established its headquarters.

Phase 1: Uncover clues
Your team is prompted to search the area for clues (storytelling moments and VR acclimation phase). There you find corpses, a large
central Idol adorned with a stag skull (where their sacrifices are performed), whickermen, cult artifacts, vials of potion (or is it blood?),
skulls, a bubbling caldron with bones and twigs protruding from it, and a tannery rack hung with human skin. Archaic symbols are
scrawled into what little remains of the walls of the house. You can make out some of the words, painted large above a mantle: "Long
live Thustra" (introducing the cult leader) and “When the Earth swallows the moon, this marks his return.” Soon a rustling in the brush
announces the First Threat, a living one in the form of a giant alligator. Your team takes care of the alligator, but now you hear even
more rustling from the swamp that encircles the estate. The sound comes from all angles, including in the trees above your head. The
darkness is now speckled with red eyes.

Phase 2: Their presence known
The cultists have been alerted to the infiltration of their base. They appear from the swamp, mostly keeping their distance
behind the cover of the branches of the trees. For weapons they have primitive projectiles: poison arrows and exploding
glass vials.
At one point, one of the cultist is seen to be summoning something…

Phase 3: Waves of undead
From the swamp and around the enclave dead bodies begin to rise. The undead swarm the players’
position. Cultists periodically appear for balance.This section is the meat and potatoes of the experience
before the late phases.

Phase 4: Animated idol boss battle.
After some time spent fighting off the cultists and the undead, the scene turns surreal: The seated idol is animated to life, a giant
crow-like figure with a stag skull atop its neck. The team is forced to take down the beast; he is a formidable and agile foe, leaping from
branch to ground with ease. At some point during the fight, the beast stops in its tracks and looks to the sky with urgency, prompting the
players to do the same.
They see a full lunar eclipse. The creature howls an insidious, elated laugh and flees into the night. This activates the next stage.

The eclipse, the otherworldly, and the coming of Thustra
The players realize they are standing dead in the middle of a summoning circle, which begins to glow and slowly spin. They must avoid
the glowing glyphs or be damaged (a throwback to the original Deadwood). After enduring this for some time, another phase is
triggered … even more surreal.
The summoning circle disappears, the wildlife go silent, the torches go out, and the red eyes fade. The only light emits from the thin
shimmering ring of the lingering eclipse. Time stands still for a silent moment, and then an eerie droning sound begins, gradually
growing louder. The players, uncertain of what to do, can only listen and watch as spirit-like lanterns come on sequentially in the
swamp, each a soft green illumination suspended, it seems, from nothing. They are surrounded once again. The players are helpless
as the droning grows louder and louder, until, suddenly, the lanterns disappear and the droning stops.
All is darkness and quiet. This second silence is broken by the sound of snapping branches and the crunch of leaves underfoot. Slow,
heavy footsteps that reverberate through the swamp. A quiet, guttural groan becomes audible.

Final phase: Night Vision
At this moment, the players are prompted to use their night vision goggles. Once activated, the players can see a giant beast looming
in the distance swamp, advancing toward them. Thustra has been summoned, and the players are his offering.