Mehrauli is a game set on a fictional isolated island, where a mysterious man has decided to create a theme park using monuments that he has stolen from the original Mehrauli.

The player accidentally stumbles upon the island and finds cassette tapes scattered all across the island. As he hears the recordings of the mysterious man, a story comes to light about his obsession with the monuments, and how it ultimately results in his embarrassment.

Development

The steps I took in the creation of the game were:

1. Visiting the landmarks in real life to understand their look and feel
2. Reading about those landmarks from credible sources
3. Recreating those monuments in 3D on Blender
4. Creating a basic first-person mechanic for the player
5. Arranging the monuments in the game
6. Writing a story based on the collected information
7. Recording the sound for the audio logs
8. Designing the level to give all sound recordings ample time
9. Adding the UI
10. Exporting the game on various platforms

Gameplay and Core Loop

The game is a walking simulator. This means there are no obstacles, no concept of life and no timer or score. The player is meant to walk from one point to another while hearing the story.

The player moves from a first-person perspective, controlled by the arrow and WASD keys. The spacebar can be used to jump. Although the jumping mechanism is not important in the game, it can come in handy in certain situations if the player is stuck.

The path to be walked on has been covered in brown dirt so that the player knows which order to go in. The reward for completing the game the way it is meant to be is to learn the whole story.

World Building

The game is surrealist. It takes a lot of suspension of disbelief regarding how the monuments can be stolen, how the cassettes are playing and where the narrator is.

The player is a foreigner to this island, and the only person present there. The player walks around the island, which is covered in grass and trees, and has clouds floating above certain places. As the player walks, the objects appear before the camera.

Content

The player has to collect the 19 cassette tapes to know the full story behind the man who stole the landmarks. The story begins with him greeting the player to the island, and then slowly revealing how he will use these stolen monuments to decorate this island.

As time progresses, it is revealed that the narrator himself gets too tired of doing all this work alone, so he can no longer continue doing this work. What finally happens to the narrator is left ambiguous.

Credits

Typeface used: Noto Serif Display

Background music: 【No Copyright】1 Hour Sad and Emotional Piano Music Collection with quotes by My Music Playlist

Everything else has been made by me.

Creating the game	Godot 3.5
Programming	GDScript
Creating the models	Blender 3.3
Recording audio logs	Audacity