Between the break from school and the new year, Hayley & I have been consistently chatting over the holidays about the narrative, environment design, and art, so we are confident when Semester 2 starts. Most of our work in the past two weeks has been for the Project Proposal, so here are some of our recent Discord chat discussions:
- ^ Deciding on the environment.
- ^ Looking at the craft objects we can put in the environment.
- ^ How can we make the project proposal better & some suggestions
- ^ What is our audience?
- ^ How can we market with our logo (putting game mechanics in the logo, etc)
- ^ Ideas for what the third and final doll could look like, we decided to do a Chinese doll, as Hayley can incorporate some of her culture, both the modern and traditional styles.
- ^ Brainstorming for the steam page, how will it look?
Final Reflection on Semester 1
I feel like the game is going in the right direction. At first, I was worried this idea had too much going on, as some people didn’t understand it. However, as I work with Hayley, I see it getting clearer by the day. I’ve demonstrated communication, compromise and negotiation when Hayley & I were not on the same page, and I’m gaining more soft skills that will be valuable to me in the industry. I can see us lowering the scope as we’ve done some narrative defining and art, but not much coding yet. However, I am confident we can still deliver a good product with an interesting perspective. I also think our work ethic is off to a good start, as we meet up at least once every week or two weeks, and every meeting has new ideas come from it. Hayley’s work with the characters will hopefully make them appealing and interesting to our target audience. I’ve also been able to utilise the skills I already have, such as Art, 3D Modelling and Music making, while Hayley handles the main character art and environment art, helping me to focus on my strengths.
The game title has been decided as “Karimah’s Paracosm” (decided here), which I think is a really cute and simple way of describing the game’s main function. While I worry that the game could be boring, Hayley and I have been talking about this, and will try to evaluate the “fun” and “appeal” of the game as we playtest. A few people have said the idea was interesting and novel, so it’s up to us to take it from there!
I’m really excited to be working on a game with someone with similar interests to me, and though it’s been hard at times, like any game ideation is, we hope to keep on ideating and polishing to kick off semester 2.
- If you want to see how I’ve shown the Learning Outcomes in my work throughout this semester, click here.
- If you want to see our final project proposal, click here.
Thanks for reading the blog so far! ⭐