The Temple of Mother is a main area inside the Oneira that I made. The original description made by the writer is very ominous and should express the very controlling behavior of the mother.
“Tracing a path through the canyon, Edmund appears multiple times, overcome with doubt, begging the Dreamwalker to stop, as they force him to move forwards. The temple rises out of the water at the canyon’s end, taking the shape of a woman with an unreadable expression.”
From the original version of the game we had a concept art of how the entrance should be looking like and when I arrived we already had the model of the temple.
During the rework of the Mushroom Forest that was one of the first vistas that I wanted to plan, I knew that I wanted to make a natural movement from the village for the depth where this temple should be located.
In a way this area reminds me a lot of Week 09 + 10 - Assignment, which is a piece that I enjoyed the result and the process. Which made me want to add some waterfalls in the area and replicate the some of the concepts from there.
During the very early stage of blockout from this area we already decided that we wanted to have to have more a Gothic Architecture Style, more specific a High Gothic Architecture that should be carried over to inside of the building. I started a conversation with our concept artist:
I delivered her after some research this image, so we could work and help us with her own additions of the this exterior
We had a selection of mushrooms already made for this area that we wanted to use. I also noticed that one of them, had a very beautiful laced pattern that was very feminine and I wanted to bring in this area.
The concept artist did her magic and we got an amazing art from her that helped a lot to expand the level design:
With the new models from the art team and this concept art, I did an update on that area:
After finishing tidying up this area I moved to make the Temple of Mother (Interior Area) - New Version].