MONDAY
Today we were introduced to the document we’d have to write up for our final chosen prototype. I and whoever else I potentially work with will have to fill this out as a kind of G.D.D. to show our plans.
Project Proposal Scaffolding Structure:
- Your Goals
- Project Name
- Abstract
- Game Title
- Genre
- Your Hook
- Your Anchor
- The Appeal
- The Fun
- Based on what came before:
- User Experience (UX)
- The Mechanics
- The Experiennce
- Win/Fail State
- Audience
- Competitors
- Critical Analysis
- Content
- Componants
- Functional Space
- Project Structure
- Schedule
Example
- 3 Game Proposals
- Game Idea One (Moodboard)
- Magical Showdown Overview
- Gameplay Loop
- Pros and Cons
- Game Idea Two (visuals)
- Witch exam overview
- Gameplay Loop
- Pros and Cons
- Game Idea One (Moodboard)
I also outlined the things I would need to do for my third prototype, which was by and away the one I’d thought of least. I knew I wanted it to be a parkour game where you play as a monster, because a non-conventional player design would allow for interesting parkour techniques. However, the design of the monster and level were not terribly thought out.
TUESDAY
On Tuesday I did a lot of thinking about the monster character, as that would define much of the parkour, and therefore much of the level. I wanted it to have a unique design for interesting parkour possibilities, such as long tentacles to swing with, or claws to grip, or even being able to fly for short periods of time. I ended up looking at a lot of monster designs on Pinterest and ArtStation, and came up with a few rough ideas of my own!
THURSDAY
See my notes for our guest lecturer, Megan Matthews, here.
Now I had a good idea of what I wanted the creature to look like and their reasonable abilities, I could design the parkour around that.
Having recently read Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, I wanted the place my monster was escaping from to be the rings of Hell, with each ring bringing a higher difficulty level and new enemies/parkour elements – akin to how Celeste’s chapters have a new feature every chapter.
I also coded a short parkour segment. Unfortunately I ran out of time toward the end of the day, so my grander ideas for the overall level design weren’t very realised, but at the very least I had a working prototype for movement and a greybox demonstrating the spiral level design.
FRIDAY
Friday I dedicated to putting together the presentation for my 3 prototypes on PowerPoint. I made it as visual as possible to really sell people on it, and to show the effort I’d put in over the past few weeks, as well as the specific specs for going forwards.
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