Zellige: The Tilemaker of Granada

Mosaic-making in 14th century al-Andalus

Zellige: The Tilemaker of Granada is an expansion of an earlier project, now renamed Zellige: Prototype.

This is a relaxing, meditative mosaic-making game, set in medieval al-Andalus. Explore an Andalusian palace, create intricate mosaics, and leave your mark on the world around you!

I am currently working on this project with a team which includes Mathilde Koechlin (music), Samuel Morris (sound design), Afnan Linjawi (scriptwriting and marketing), Jean de Wilde d'Estmael (production), Sharleen Ramos (environment modelling), Sophie Artemigi (UI/UX design), Jo-Dee Longstaff (character design), Owein Pourre (art), and Rizky Soraya (poster and marketing art).
This game is the final year project for my master's course, and I wanted to bring into it as much as I could from the things I had learned over the previous year.

The game doesn't just expand on the first Zellige's design interface, it also places it in the context of an actual narrative and of a physical space, as opposed to its predecessor's pared down "virtual toy" approach.

The design interface in this iteration is much more refined, giving players greater freedom and guiding them closer to the traditional techniques for common designs in Islamic geometric art.

Framing this design mechanic is a gentle story of a merchant family in 14th century al-Andalus, preparing for their's daughter's wedding by hiring a tilemaker to design the mosaics for their palace.

Their palace is heavily inspired by a real Granadan palace from that era, the Palace of Dar al-Horra, and was designed to be a sort of "best-of" of that specific time and place's architecture and interior design.