- After clicking on the "enter Nemo’s Mind" icon: there are no splash screens. This will encourage use sporadically thru out any day. Screen goes black, fade in of water and bubbles going by - then splashing - then ambient beach sounds - then the graphics fade in - first person visual laying on side at surf edge then picks up to standing height.
- Nemo: "What you see is the island that is my mind. For many decades I have rejected all that is the domain of men. My mental terrain still shows this, but after some time in reclusion, with out my instruments of war, my mind is now a product of misgivings and my late appreciation of what is good on the earth above the water's surface."
- A dolphin splashes and twists in the surf and calls out. I look inland and then back at the dolphin. I am afraid I will miss some kind of opportunity with this creature, if I leave the waves. I see if I can get in to the surf. The dolphin takes me out beyond the waves and does some jumps and pirouettes about and over me. Beauty.
- The Dolphin is classically a messenger from another place and time - there are many reasons why the Dolphin is as popular a creature as the unicorn - symbolically here as if the participant were rescued from the water and put in another place and time.
- The current pushes me back toward the beach and makes the land slide rightward. I turn away from the beach and swim outward. It only keeps me out of the surf but the land slides by as I drift West down the beach. A large rock juts out into the surf and I am swept around to see nothing but cliff beyond it. The current swirls me into the rock and pins me. I move along the rock to get back to the beach but the current seems to stop me.
- Cant go straight West by ground (cliffs) or by sea (current) - current of ocean flows from the West and then back eddies around a great rock to keep any swimmers from going beyond it .
- I try the other way and come to a spot where I can get out of the water. It is a path up and over the great rock. I can't go upward beyond a certain extent. I can't get on top. I can see down into the water! I see corals and colorful fish that must promise its beauty for more exploration later on.
- At the crest of the trail I can see down the beach and it appears the cliff I face at the top of the rock runs back behind the beach jungle and then curves round the far edge of the island.
- I make my way back down to the beach and decide to follow the cliff. I move off the beach and into jungle. Then I decide to leave the cliff and wander. I end up at the beach.
- I walk further down the beach away from the great rock. I move to the water line so I can see over the palm trees and keep an eye on the contours of the cliff to see if there is a gap.
- A beautiful shell catches my attention. I pick it up and a leather bag apears and I drop it into the bag.
- I find my own footprints where I began! I do a 360 to take it all in. Looking inland i see the faint white of a high waterfall coming down the cliff. I think to see if the dolphin is around and I see it surfacing. I walk further and check if the dolphin is still pacing. It is. Beautiful.
- I decide to strike toward the waterfall knowing I may have a hard time making a bee line as it is to far away to hear and the jungle is dense.
- hear a thunderous waterfall from a distance - should be a factor of the length of drop versus the volume of water since not that much water in this island logically and hard to render a huge one - might even see it from another ridge before hearing it.
- The lay of the land is disorienting and soon I do my best to go straight even with numerous barriers. Finally I can see the cliff again and find a high spot enough to see the waterfall. From this distance I can see it dissipates before reaching the bottom of the cliff. At the base of the fall I find a lush bowl with a hole leading downward through short caves to salt water (reachable later by Mini-Sub Dolphin and this is when the explorer can find skeletal sea life dead from the radiation that spews from the inland poison lake - this is juxtaposed by the condensation sphere at the beginning of the underground sequence).
- Nemo: "I think of this as Genesis Beach for it was the beginning of my love of the sea. As a boy of India, I had never seen such splendor and it was in a time when I needed it most. All the ugliness of my youth put a fervor into those visions of sand and water. I delved the nature of the water's surface. Its ability to separate and clarify. I wanted to see under the water and copied its effects by the use of a glass. And the truth of the world was revealed. My only solace became the dominion of nature and the complete rejection of society."
- Slaver shipwreck is one of 2 furthest points of human interest to the Eastern side of island - memory physically (and chronologically explored) encompasses all by placing the surreal light house and the cabin retreat to the East and West most points of the island's human elements.
- Nemo: "This wreck does not make me anguish if I was able to rescue the slaves before sinking her. It is my memory of the wreck I found as a child. It was to become my fascination, an abyss of imagination and future plans.
- Highly detailed underwater and life right off the beach when rummaging through wreck - see through windows to underwater and while swimming - this is a strategic spot to have all the extra detail just for this small part to hook the player - but will be used to extreme later on in the lagoon reef of INMO island and lakes and ponds with underwater plants and frogs etc. - another cool spot is if they try to swim out past the western cliffs and see lots of sea life trying to give up against current
- Nemo: "I keep this carcass to mind, and remind, why I brought the ugliness of war underwater. The loss of my family is my only excuse. It has taken me a lifetime to understand my fervor was outside of nature's beauty and I never succeeded in escaping the tyrannous side of society or my self. Now I enjoy the beauty under the waves simply in the way I wish i had as a child"
- Water - waterfalls, tidal pools, reflective pools,
- Weather - fogging effects in morning on the jungle coastal regions - specially the shadowed southern side
- False jungle floor (vegetation in very thick terrain such as the tropics) extending over cliffs would make a sudden drop in view - cool - unexpected - don't see the drop until last of vegetation is out of way
- For realistic terrain do things like a string of springs (tickling out) down slope from each other - so it is obvious from flora and terrain that it is holding a lot of water that keeps soaking back into ground as it goes down slope
- Need scenic spots above the morning mist (make a flatter step of land just at and above the morning mist line of jungle line
- Paths in forest or jungle where you would expect leading to water or through a ravine saddle over a ridge etc. - paths should be a rut into the slopes etc. with natural molding rounded effects -add rocks for sitting that orient you to look at something you normally wouldn’t notice - reward observation at every chance to make the observer begin to see more than is even there - now is that Zen or what?
- 3 huge (20 feet/7 meters) sphere rocks in middle of jungle (these actually exist in S America - just barely within visual distance of each other and set in triangular pattern (really hits home when seen from the air later on - they relate later to the spheres in the Underground Sequence.
- Waves on beach as dictated by slant of current unless current comes straight on at that beach - biggest crashing waves on west side of island (up current side of island) thundering cliffs on rift cliff where current hits cliffs - and when if a high wind adding to it.
- Sunrise Beach extends out into the sea on the NE corner - the theme of genesis beach - beginning of adventure is about beginnings - same reason memory forest is on the sun-rise side of island.
- All beach that has inland access to the High Plateaus is visually given steep slopes to enhance views on way up and slopes invite the explorer to leave the beach
- If the explorer continues to the end of the beach, past Sunrise Beach they will run into the first Dream Set
Keep following the trail...