Now that ilomilo for XBLA is out, let’s talk a little about the ideas and concepts for ilomilo and the inspiration behind them. Simon Flesser who was lead artist on ilomilo, now part of Simogo, shares some fun facts about the ilomilo world.
Something about the story and universe of ilomilo:
I don’t want to dig too deep into the story of ilomilo and point out absolutely everything that happens and what is real or not, but there is some stuff that I do want to share.
Please only read this if you’ve already played the game, as it’s probably more interesting to dive into the game with a fresh mind set.
If you do not want anything spoiled in the story, do not read this!
The themes of ilomilo is first of all memories and to some extent dreams. There’s also of course a very strong theme of friendship and love.
The ilomilo universe consists of different realities.
The first one is the physical reality, in which you as the player exists.
When watching the storybook sequences, you are still in this reality.
When playing the game and solving puzzles, the second reality presents itself – this is the world of memories and dreams, a reality which is not physical.
The letters you are able to read after collecting memory fragments exists in the same reality as the player.
Sebastian and his story exists within and parallel to both realities. He’s kind of the link between the worlds, but one could also argue that his reality is the third one. Is he human?
His story is something that I would love to dig a lot deeper into in future games as he’s my favorite character in the game. The Huntsman & The Fox would make a very interesting game.
There are a lot of secrets and hints in the letter pictures. Look out for them.
Last – Ilona was a painter and Milton was a writer.
Here is a very interesting interpretation of the story in ilomilo (spoilers!):
http://afroryan.blogspot.com/2010/12/analyzing-ilomilo.html
Safkas got their name from the artist Melanie Safka.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Safka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIFknAdVvNM
Milton Foley’s name is borrowed from the most underrated artists of all time:
Blaze Foley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaze_Foley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69YCXgVdyR4
and Milton Chesley Carrol.
Sadly, there’s absolutely NO info on Milton Chesley Carrol on the internet. A country artist who released two albums (I think – one of them seem to be extremely rare.) in the 70′s. His self titled album is brilliant.
Milton Chesley Carrol
Ilonas surname, Zevon, is taken from the artist Warren Zevon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Zevon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44Rwu5yPUrc
Photographs was for a long time the only pick-ups in the game. Photographs fits the memory theme very well as photographs are like small memories on pieces of papers.
That concludes part 1. Stay put for part 2 folks!
Now that we finally got this blog up, we figured that it might be a good idea to tell you a little bit about what ilomilo is.