Story Design - Scene Breakdown
Prologue: The First Light
Five years ago, Earth was invaded by the space hunter Alien Muzan, who unleashed a swarm of monstrous bio-beasts upon cities, wreaking massive destruction after growing to gigantic proportions. In this first encounter with an alien invasion, fear rapidly spread among the population, weakening humanity's defenses and amplifying the creatures’ devastating force. Armed resistance forces struggled to hold their lines, and civilians already within partial shelter zones were forced to relocate further away from the battlegrounds.
In a relatively secure underground shelter, Ryo’s mother clung to her son’s hand, attempting to convince Ryo’s father—who had just received orders to return above ground to oversee the evacuation—to stay. After reassuring his wife and son, however, Ryo’s father resolutely returned to his post. Shortly after, news reached the shelter of a mysterious Giant of Light appearing on the surface. This giant’s intervention quickly turned the tide of battle; after defeating the rampaging creatures and releasing a massive energy field, the Giant of Light vanished.
Scene 1:
As the cosmic bird kaiju Flying Raidron and her child soar through space, the young creature is drawn to Earth’s sparkling lights from a distance (a light show) and leaves its mother to investigate. While descending into Earth’s atmosphere, it loses control and tumbles toward the ground.
Meanwhile, young Ryo, who is late returning from school again, gets into a heated argument with his mother at home. Feeling misunderstood, he storms out in frustration. Hiding in a tree outside, the young bird kaiju watches this unfold, captivated. Out of curiosity, it approaches Ryo, leading to an unexpected encounter between the two runaway youngsters.
Scene 2:
After a moment of surprise, Ryo quickly warms up to his new alien friend. The two explore the city together, playing and laughing along the way. Ryo treats the little kaiju to various local snacks, drawing curious glances from passersby. Later, the kaiju takes Ryo for a flight through the night sky, allowing them to experience the city from above. At one point, they even become part of a dazzling drone and light show. When they encounter Ryo’s school bullies, the duo takes the chance to team up for a little playful payback. Unbeknownst to them, however, their fun is attracting the attention of lurking eyes.
Scene 3:
After an eventful night, Ryo and his alien friend return to the rooftop of Ryo’s apartment building to rest. Gazing up at the stars, Ryo opens up about his family story, sharing memories with the curious kaiju. As they chat, Ryo’s mother, who has been frantically searching for him, spots them on the rooftop. Caught between his mother's worry and his desire to stay with his new friend, Ryo hesitates but ultimately decides to fly away with the kaiju.
Now out on the streets with nowhere to go, the two are unsure of their next steps when the sinister Alien Muzan, who had been lurking in the shadows, finally reveals himself and strikes. Caught off guard, Ryo and his friend have no choice but to flee in a desperate attempt to escape the relentless hunter.
Scene 4:
The relentless pursuit by Alien Muzan causes a stir around the city as he closes in on Ryo and the little kaiju, eventually cornering them with no escape. Just as things look dire, Ryo’s mother and Uncle Hiro arrive in a car, rushing to the rescue. Despite the adults' intervention, the situation remains precarious. In the ensuing chaos, they manage to rescue Ryo, but Alien Muzan succeeds in capturing the young kaiju and retreats, leaving Ryo and his family shaken.
Scene 5:
After successfully capturing the little kaiju, Alien Muzan reveals his massive true form, marking the return of an alien invasion in the city after five years. He attempts to exploit the life of the little kaiju, Raidron, to pass through the energy field left by Ultraman. In this moment of crisis, Raidron's mother descends from the sky, engaging in a fierce battle with Alien Muzan. Meanwhile, Ryo and his mother have a heated argument in front of Uncle Hiro, as years of mutual misunderstanding between them explode into confrontation.
Scene 6:
In the fierce battle between Raidron's mother and Alien Muzan, she successfully rescues the trapped little kaiju but begins to struggle against the overwhelming force. Meanwhile, Ryo comes to understand his mother’s hardships and the depth of her care for him. At the same time, his mother hears her son's true feelings for the first time, recognizing the courage and determination to protect others that he inherited from his father. When the little kaiju calls for help, Ryo's mother chooses not to intervene this time; instead, she decides to trust Ryo in his quest to help.
Scene 7:
Ryo and the little kaiju work together, darting through the city in an attempt to distract Alien Muzan and assist Raidron's mother. Despite their efforts, they find themselves struggling to stay safe. Just as the situation becomes dire, a warm light envelops the two children, heralding the arrival of the mysterious Giant of Light once again.
Scene 8:
After a hard-fought victory, the silhouette of the Giant of Light dissipates completely under the watchful eyes of the city. Raidron and her child soar back into space amid the farewell of the crowd, while Ryo, having reconciled with his mother, returns home.
Years later, as the energy field left by the Giant of Light fades, Earth experiences frequent visits from extraterrestrial beings, some of whom arrive with malicious intent. Ryo, now following in his father's footsteps, calmly and expertly directs people to safety. Just after rescuing a child and ensuring everyone reaches a secure area, Ryo ventures alone to a corner of the city.
In that instant, a mysterious light flickers once more.
Idea behind Scenes
Codename Soup project would finally be released in the summer of 2025, meeting players offline in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu and Beijing, China.
I had reached a cooperation with Shenzhen Mobis Technology Company, which was responsible for technical production and product launch. I helped them obtain the cooperation copyright granted by Tsuburaya Company and managed to finish the entire story with respective level design.
After the project was completed, I roughly sorted out some design thoughts other than the project content. I hope the following paragraphs may offer you some extra bonus if you are interested in this project.
I am always interested in the setting of transformation in Tokusatsu series. In my opinion, this element has a paradoxical charm in the expression of Tokusatsu’s heroism. The protagonist or other characters in the play transform into the hero in story, which can be regarded as the character turning to the embodiment of the superego after completing the processing of id and ego (through struggle, confrontation, or unity). Audiences who love Tokusatsu series will be attracted by this paradigm treatment to some extent and will involuntarily put themselves into the characters and even heroes in the play.
But in fact, whether it is Ultraman or other Tokusatsu series, the audience always witnesses the whole story as a bystander. It does not allow the audience to participate in it but allows them to empathize with the characters in the plot. I think it is a quality that excellent Tokusatsu works must have to properly handle the balance of the story arrangement to achieve such an effect. So, I naturally thought of VR as a medium, and I hope to complete a story with the theme of Ultraman in VR.
Having decided on the medium for the story, I began to develop the narrative's core content. I firmly believe that the Ultraman series’ explorations of humanity resonate universally, particularly within the cultural framework shared by Japan and China. Focusing on the primary target audience of children aged 5-12, the traditional East Asian family structure and its educational dynamics are highly relatable to kids growing up in such environments. Typically, fathers serve as the primary earners and authority figures but often miss out on meaningful interactions with their children, leading to limited communication. Conversely, mothers often exert significant control over their children's lives, resulting in potential overprotection.
For East Asian children raised in such familial environments, reconciling their identities and relationships with their parents becomes a lifelong challenge. Thus, I established family bonds and communication as the story’s main themes, making Generation Z children from East Asian backgrounds the central protagonists.
Finally, I decided that the absolute protagonist of this story would be a human child, and the image of Ultraman would be closely linked to the image symbol of father. The core of the protagonist's actions is the influence of his father. Therefore, the protagonist's efforts to pursue his father can also be seen as the process of him gaining the power of light. In this way, the discussion of "the power of light" also adds "inheritance" that is very consistent with East Asian values. Therefore, I determined the prototypes of Ultraman and Kaijus that the project finally adopted.
As the other party in the conflict in the hidden storyline within scenes, another vital character is the mother of the protagonist. The prototype of this character actually comes from a real case I saw in reality, which is the mother of a junior who attended the same middle school as me. His father was a respectable policeman. When he was still young, his father was seriously injured in a rescue operation and unfortunately died after being sent to the hospital. What impressed me very much was that after the doctor had announced that they failed to save his father back, his mother called him out of the ward and cried on his father's body, crying and shouting her husband's name while repeating "You finally became a hero."
Personally, I don't believe the words the mother shouted at that time were a kind of praise for her husband's heroic behavior. From the perspective of a wife and a mother in the family, it was more of a helpless accusation - you became a hero but passed away, leaving me and my children, then how can we move forward? Similarly, returning to the special effects with the core of "heroes", I think we cannot ignore the shadow under the image of heroes when discussing "heroic power". And what this mother (who is also the mother of the protagonist in the story) faces is the lingering shadow of reality that shrouds their family life under the light. Such mothers often show a stronger desire for control than other mothers in East Asian families based on their love for their children, which means that the conflicts between parents and children in such families will be more intense and frequent. I believe that when such a mother meets a child who also strongly desires to prove himself, the two will burst out with a very wonderful conflict of ideas. The protagonist of our story was finally able to complete in such a conflict and reconcile himself and his family.
Therefore, I chose a special intention as the MacGuffin in the story - soup. This is an intention that appears many times in the script. The mother was cooking soup before the protagonist ran away from home, the two runaway teenagers drank a bowl of soup together after playing, and the protagonist mentioned that he wanted to go home and drink soup after reconciling with his mother.
"Soup" is a popular food culture in Guangdong Province, China, where I was born. Mothers in Guangdong will cook all kinds of delicious soups as an indispensable part of the daily family table. Therefore, the family gathering together to drink soup has become a very vivid expression of the family atmosphere in Guangdong. While waiting for the boiling hot soup to gradually cool down, everyone at the table will start chatting at this time - and communication is the best way to reconcile with the family members in reality. Everyone holds a bowl of soup and speaks out their thoughts, even if tears fall into the soup bowl during the process. It is in this heart-to-heart communication that the conflicts between each other are truly resolved.
For the protagonist and his mother in the story, this wonderful experience with the participation of aliens, Ultraman and Kaijus can also be regarded as a bowl of bizarre but extremely healing old-fashioned soup.
