"Project Search" is a visual novel game based on Chinese science fiction and cultivation novels. The story takes place in the old town of Linhai. The collapse of two ancient pagodas on Jinzi Mountain reveals the exploration of parallel dimensions and the underground grotto-heaven.

Qian Jiangmin, a young scholar who has just recovered from a serious illness, traveled through Dunhuang and Chongqing to Linhai to look for his brother. With the help of various scholars and Dao cultivators, he enters the underground grotto-heaven in Linhai old town. As he explores further, the space-time of the ancient city shifts... Qian Jiangmin also realizes why he has double vision...

About

“Project Search” (继续追寻) is an online multiplayer visual novel game based on Mozilla Hubs. The game was made and based in Linhai, a county-level city in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, situated on the banks of the Ling River in South-eastern China. “Project Search” is a practice-based research output of an art residency initiated by With in/out Linhai, a cultural group supported by the local government and China Academy of Art. From site analysis, cultivation novel writing, 3D scans, to 3D object design, I created a cultivation gamespace in the context of Linhai to allow local people, tourists, students, and researchers to reconsider the Daoist culture of cultivation and potential re-materializations of physical and virtual space.

As a typical fantasy genre within Chinese web novels, cultivation is often known as Xiu Xian or Xiu Zhen in Chinese. Xiu, by itself, means to repair, study, and cultivate. Xian refers to the immortal, which is a divine being who will not only live forever but also equips with supernatural powers, whereas Zhen, on the other hand, means authenticity and truth.

The narrative of “Project Search” was rooted in the analysis of the feng shui of Linhai. Feng shui in cultivation novels is mainly only mentioned in passing to indicate a form of traditional Chinese divination. In actual urban space, feng shui (wind-water) means positioning objects, and arranging spaces in order to keep balance with the natural world. In cultivation novels and games, harnessing energy forces and establishing harmony between an individual and their environment are common plots. To better understand the feng shui in Linhai old district, a map of Linhai from the local chronicles in the Southern Song dynasty needs to be examined.

Image 1 demonstrates a map tangling feng shui imaginations with the cultivation world and real-life urban space. Linhai with the irregular city wall is situated in the center of the map. Within the city wall, the north and south are surrounded by Dagu Mountain and Jinzi Mountain respectively. Outside the city wall, East Lake next to the city wall is connected to the Ling River. If zoom out, Linhai’s south, west, and north sides are all facing the mountains, only seeing the far east with the unknown depth of cloud and sea. Linhai’s idiosyncratic spatial arrangement among the mountains, lake, river, cloud, and sea has provided various ontological and epistemological inspirations for traditional Chinese literati.

The process of writing the cultivation novel, “Project Search”, was often intersected with architectural and religious site visits, continuous searching for historical and cultural references, and meetings with Daoist cultivators. The core idea structuring the cultivation narrative is Dongtian, which was brought from the discussion with a few Daoist cultivators. Dongtian (grotto-heaven), is an essential idea in conventional cultivation narrative; it is a type of hidden earthly paradise that usually contains caves, grottoes, mountain hollows, or other underground spaces.

Based on the narrative of Dongtian, I made a black and white painting (which can be seen in Image 2) to reinterpret the map of Linhai from the chronicles, which was then scanned and imported into the gamespace. In the painting, there are various triggers activating paths to the subsurface of Linhai old district. This painting of the surface and subsurface of Linhai provokes a creative rethinking of the relationship between the Daoist cultivation and advanced technological devices (Image 3) featured in the novel.

“Project Search” is deliberately designed in a completely open space without boundaries and collision. The player is encouraged to penetrate multiple game objects regardless of visual-spatial conventions. By intentionally keeping collision bugs and mesh errors in the gamespace, the resulting navigation approach can indicate a notion of “the nascent soul”, which is often referenced in cultivation novels. “The nascent soul” resembles an infant residing in the elixir field (Dantian), sitting in a meditative position. “The nascent soul” can travel outside the body and can be seen as a second life for cultivators. In “Project Search”, players are encouraged to intuitively navigate the gamespace without any preoccupied knowledge and experience of bugs and errors (Image 4). Traveling outside the body is key to uncovering the Dongtian beneath the surface of Linhai old district.

“Project Search” with fifteen game scenes presents a ghostly and uncanny affect on local audiences (Image 5). For non-local audiences, the 3D scanned game environments within the Chinese cultivation narrative located in a traditional Chinese southern city could trigger various alternative affects of urban phantasmagoria and spatiotemporal displacement. The gamespace has formed an alternate universe of Linhai. From text, audio, to 3D scans, the spectral gamespace offers alternative imaginations of real-life Linhai old district. Such a cultivation-technology-based 3D visual novel game is estranged and raw, simple yet unique, and user-friendly to both gamers and non-gamers in and beyond Linhai.

With a particular re-materialization of the real-life urban context, “Project Search” can establish a unique online/offline community to re-materialize cultivation, technology, and affect.

Works in the Exhibition

Video

Project Search, 0.3, Gameplay on Mozilla Hubs, Linhai, Zhejiang, China, 2022, Courtesy of the artist and With in/out Linhai

Installation Views

Game Download

NFT

Game objects collection

Easter eggs collection

Exhibition Support

I thank Fengyuan Tian, Ziyi Xu, Yurui Dong, and Jianguo Hao for their encouragement, support, and constructive suggestions during the With in/out Linhai Art Residency and Exhibition in Linhai.