PITCH: City of Pearls: My Bahraini-inspired game pitch
Inspiration
After traveling to my home country, Bahrain, for a month during Winter Break, I was inspired to create a game inspired by the pearl diving history! 2 years ago, we had our first “Muharraq Nights” event where my home city celebrates its heritage and arts culture in its historic “Pearling Path”, the part of the city where pearl divers used to depart from for their journeys out to sea. Bahrain’s economy, culture, and traditions are built around pearl diving, with the epic of Gilgamesh even having him travel there to find the “Flower of Youth” in its ocean, described exactly like how pearl divers used to retrieve their treasured stone. After the Oil industry took over in the 1930’s much of this traditional activity has disappeared, so I thought, “What would a fantasy world where pearl diving persisted look like”? I set about creating a pitch and project plan for a demo that I could create within the span of 3 months…
Project Proposal
This project is titled “City of Pearls”, a third person action adventure game that follows a pearl diver trying to find a “Pearl of Immortality” in the island nation of Bahrain. The game is set in the city of Muharraq in Bahrain in a fictional version of the 1970s where the main economy is still centered around pearl diving and the island’s shores are home to mythical creatures. The game’s main mechanics will include combat and exploration with the player being able to level up their character. For this program, the aim is to create a playable demo of a section of this game, including a full-length level (Play time of roughly 5 minutes) which showcases 1-2 instances of each mechanic: Combat encounters; 1 explorable area; 2 skills the player can level up to acquire, and sections where the player has to swim underwater. The aesthetic of the game will be cell shaded with painterly rendering, giving it a handmade look in 3d space. The story elements, gameplay and visuals are all inspired by stories I grew up reading such as Layla and Majnun, the Arabian Nights, and the Persian Book of Kings, all containing fantastical elements and interwoven characters all rooted in real world human traits, allowing you to grow with them on their journeys.
Cultural Significance
The game takes place in my hometown of Muharraq, the former capital of the island country of Bahrain. As someone who was born and raised there, I wanted to use this program as a platform to make a game that celebrates the heritage of where I am from, which is pearls and diving culture. Bahrain’s economy was built around pearls and diving for around 4,000 years, with the local culture, architecture, and marketplaces all celebrating this rich tradition. The coral stone buildings, the way the neighborhoods all connected to the seashore, and folk dances all reflecting the rhythms sang by sailors during the diving season are all still present to this day in Muharraq, called the “Pearling City” during this era. The country was so well known for this economy that even the “Epic of Gilgamesh” followed the Sumerian king making his journey to “Dilmun” to find the flower of immortality, the old name for Bahrain. The pearling era ended with the discovery of oil reserves in the 1930s and the introduction of cultured pearls, thus shifting the capital from Muharraq to the current island of Manama, the financial capital of the country. Growing up hearing the stories of these beautiful stones and how the people came together to celebrate these traditions always made me wonder what it would be like if pearling stayed the main economy of Bahrain and how a “City of Pearls” would look like if it was given the chance to keep evolving. This project is a way to realize that design while also getting a chance to incorporate cultural aesthetics, narrative values, and mythology to create a new take on a place with so much inspiration to draw from.
sketches for various characters in the world of “City of Pearls”