On Monday, we had a presentation from an indie studio known as Canteen. They come from Brighton and have recently shipped their game Corponation: The sorting process and are working on their newest game, Remote Control. I found their presentation very useful as it went over many different production tips that they learned through the six years since beginning their indie studio. One thing stood out to me the most was the iterative aspect.

Iteration was a very important thing to emphasise. In my spare time I like to study art and research fine art. Through this study, I recently watched a video that discussed the iteration that went into many great, classic paintings. Here it is. Using John William Waterhouse as an example, he reveals the initial sketches the artist creates, starting from small, rough ideas to refining it into beautiful paintings. This requires truely studying their subjects in order to work out what their final result will look like. It might seem very simple but it has really flipped my perspective on the importance of iterating and a solid foundation for any project. For our game, while we don’t have enough time to do a huge amount of iteration, we have narrowed down on our concept by exploring different ideas and not just sticking to the first one that came to our mind. 

We have decided our vertical slice will consist of one level and one fleshed out puzzle. Initially, Harry suggested we try and recreate multiple levels but I felt very strongly we should do one as I knew we would struggle with just the one due to the scope and complexity of the game. Our slice will invoke the puzzle mechanics that Cindy outlined in her GDD and we’ll try and adapt it as best as possible. Currently I am trying to work out these pre-production details and discussing with Kamilla and Jeremy with what our inspirations for the level design will look like. The level we are adapting is the pool room as I think it contains the strongest sense of identity in the GDD’s proposed levels. Pool rooms is a pre-existing aesthetic, born out of the liminal space trend that started around the late 2010s. It uses simple shapes to create an uncanny feeling. To avoid the uncanniness, we can utilise pleasant lighting instead of the harsher white lights.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5Wzmmg

For example I believe this is a nice fit for our vision, I like how the blue lighting makes the background hazy and undefined, this would work well in our dreamscape. As the play test is in two weeks, and a presentation is this week, I’ve offered to work on the presentation to show off our project to the rest of the class.

Below are the slides I worked on. I included our roles in the first slide so we could properly introduce ourselves and give an idea to the inner dynamics of the team. On the second slide is where I revealed our idea for the vertical slice as I explained earlier. Thirdly, our progress check and what our possible risks could be. Then last was the timeline for our project.

It was essential working on this powerpoint as it helped our team focus on the foundation before moving onto our pre-production and production work. Next week we aim to work on more solid things.