Gemini is a graceful, gorgeous game project

New York University thesis project Gemini looks more like a painting than a video game.

Deemed a "poetic game" by designers Nick Zhang and Atlas Chen, Gemini tells the story of two stars flying through the heavens. It began as a Game Jam entry where the theme was constellations; because Zhang's sign is Gemini, the team decided to make a game about two stars.

Guiding twin stars through the air is your sole purpose in Gemini. A hands-on session with the game gave us no instruction, but instead allowed us to find our own path. Although we could only directly control one star, we were able to guide the direction of the second by crossing over it. Our star gained power from the second, and if we strayed too far, we began to drift downwards.

Moving up, up, up was our focus during the demo, but to do so, we had to light the way. Small, gray circles could be lit up by moving over them with our dust trail. Once lit, they acted as a beacon to further points.

Gemini is still a work in progress as part of NYU's game development incubator program. Zhang and Chen are working on the game under the guidance of NYU Game Center director Frank Lantz, scholar and game developer Clara Fernández-Vara, thatgamecompany co-founder Jenova Chen and QWOP creator Bennett Foddy.

According to Zhang and Chen, the goal is to have a completed demo to then pitch to companies. The team is already talking with "several publishers," and they hope to release Gemini next year. Specific platforms are still up in the air.