Myall Lakes

Myall Lakes is a virtual representation of the Myall Lakes area in Seal Rocks, New South Wales. The player experiences a campsite environment through the lens of a child, a wondrous environment full of playful - exaggerated interactions. The environment isn’t a formal simulation but rather a simulation of my childhood experiences attached to the site; waking up before my parents and freely exploring the space.

The visuals of the environment are heavily influenced by the likes of Campo Santo’s Firewatch and Jonathan Blow’s The Witness, both games employ low-polygon modelling and have a big focus on light and how it inter-plays with each respective game’s natural settings. Borrowing from these games aesthetics’ and the conventions of Romanticism helped give me a clear sense of how to design an environment that felt immersive and holistic without using realistic aesthetics.

The sounds and environmental ambience has been recorded from the Newport Lakes nature reserve in West Melbourne which is sonically the most similar to the Myall Lakes area as I had available. The music in the environment was composed in collaboration with sound designer Siobhan O’Toole, the composition is deliberately minimal to allow space for the environmental sounds to play through. The music is influenced by the in-house composers of Studio Ghibli whose compositions marry their painterly animations beautifully. Siobhan also helped oversee my sound design as a whole in regards to the mixing and leveling of different elements and balancing the music with the sound design.