The gameplay and the story
The game will be split in many ways: Days and nights and seasons. Each season will have its own tasks to do because of the progression of the story. Storyline-Dialogue-Persona
Season 1
- You move things out of the way to get on with your commissions. The space is set up as though the workshop is an attic. Clearly grandpa isn’t a fan of the space himself.
- As you progress the day, additional tasks like moving boxes and pc scraps and such will be a task
Season 2
- The space is clean and how it should be. You work at a good pace because of that and nothing is in the way.
- After confrontation, grandpa will limit how much he’ll order for you.
Season 3
- Grandpa starts putting his scraps and unused parts in your way again.
- In the second half of the season, grandpa stops responding because of the season 3 argument – you can’t order anything.
- There will be a day or two where you close down the shop. Those days you’ll be helping grandpa. The game will make you figure out his lifestyle and eventually wake him up
Season 4
- Back mostly to normal. You continue doing commissions without anything in your way Greg and Sammie apply their new perspectives of each other. The game will allow you to slowly work and reap the rewards of getting over the story climax.
- Perhaps there could be a way to play the game infinitely, if repairing people’s commissions becomes something relaxing.
- You and grandpa Greg are at a stable state with mutual respect
Loop
DAY
Minute to minute:
You check off each task that is needed to complete the commission. You follow instructions on you clipboard and slowly check them off.
You also need to keep track of the supply of things and write down what is needed for the next day. This information will be told for grandpa who will get the orders in.
Goals
- Short
- Complete as much as you can for the day.
- Medium
- Complete a season to then adjust your buying for the next season ahead.
- Long – To complete a year of commission work.
- You can play and create your own things in your own time however you like a bit like a sandbox
Progression
- You can play and create your own things in your own time however you like a bit like a sandbox
- Complete commissions to pay for rent, food, supplies and make a profit too.
NIGHT
Minute to minute (Night)
- Reflect in your journal
- Talk to Grandpa to progress the story
- Talk to grandpa about the supplies needed for tomorrow
- Find which materials you’re running out of when the shop is closed.
- Tidy the unclean workshop (season 1)
Goals - Short
- Relax
- Reflect
- Play around with little things
- Buy materials and tools
- Understand grandpa and try to make him understand you too (season 2-3-4)
Progression - Voluntarily continue when the player is ready.
Keeping engagement
Games usually keep engagement by having multiple goals, as well as a clear pathway of what happens next.
Games also use visual indicators so players understand their progression towards a goal.
During the day, players can understand their progress by using a checklist from a popup clipboard (UI and Environment design). This is to mimic the traditional feel whilst still having a sense of progress. Also, each day would be a reflection on the narrative and things will happen according to the narrative. Players may look forward to the next part of the story and
At night, players will look
In my game there will be two clear stages: day and night. At day you take commissions and repair your things. At night you figure out what to resupply and continue your narrative with grandpa.
By splitting the game into Day and Night, players will have two distinct parts of the game to look forward too. Switching from one thing to another thing keeps more fresh than just doing one thing over and over. This has been used in so many ways, personal examples include: “Kafka on the shore” and “1Q84” by Haruki Murakami switch characters per chapter. “Cult of the Lamb” lets you both fight in a rogue-like and then tend to your cult. Artist 58MW (RIP) works on illustrations for 5-10 hours + at a time because he switches through multiple of them.
I think it taps into our paradoxical wishes: When its summer, we want winter, when it’s winter we want summer. We get bored of things and see the negatives of them and look at what we could have positively. If my game can switch from one stage of the game to the other before they get bored, they may be more engaged.
How the environment changes
To further keep engagement, each season has a new stage in the story and therefore the environment will change too. UI and Environment design
Because it changes, players will now anticipate the day, night and the seasonal development of the game. This allows players to anticipate and visualise several stages of the game, which hopefully is novel enough for them to continue engaging with the story.