Overview
Game Title:
Untitled
Genre:
Point-and-click, fantasy, adventure game
Logline:
You play as The Fool through phase 1 of The Fool’s Journey. They begin their story with nothing but curiosity and unwavering potential, taking a leap of faith off a cliff into a new world. The Fool wakes with no memory of a name, place, or community, and so begins their path to self-discovery. During their journey to enlightenment, they meet 9 different characters, each with their own lessons.
Story Overview/Gameplay:
Point-and-click game focused on puzzle-solving and exploration. You play as The Fool, the first card in the Major Arcana, assigned the number zero. After taking a leap of faith off a cliff into a new world, the Fool wakes with no memory of a name, place, or community, and so begins their path to self-discovery.
As you explore the world, you come across 9 different characters in the first phase of The Fool’s Journey to enlightenment. The Fool can meet these characters in any order, but will always start with The Magician and end with The Chariot. Each character will have a puzzle or quest for the player to complete that will aid in their journey.
Inspiration:
- Fran Bow
- Little Misfortune
- Machinarium
Why this idea:
I wanted this game to be a more accessible form for people who aren’t familiar with tarot, to possibly familiarise themselves with the themes and concepts in the cards. I understood that it could be slightly off-putting to play a game where you know nothing about the main theme. To combat this, rather than focusing on telling players meanings or giving them info dumps, I wanted them to be able to decode meanings through symbolism and their own interpretations of the game.
Art Direction
Very much subject to change, these are the first moodboards and concept art drafts for the look of this game idea.
Environments
- Colour palettes are saturated and bright
- Each environment follows the core colour scheme but has different accent colours to fit each character
- Whimsical
Characters
- Paper dolls or collage look
- Whimsical
- Vintage
On the right is a photo bash I made for the potential design of the Fool character. It includes the main elements and symbolism from The Fool tarot card.
Prototype
Using these images as references from my Pinterest moodboard, I made the first draft of concept art for the Empress and her environment. The environment includes symbolism from her card (e.g. pomegranate trees, water, etc.). My main aim for her environment was for it to be mystical and utopian, with lush plants and foliage.
The video below shows experimentation with the narrative and choices in my game idea. Instead of using Twine for my prototype, I was recommended Inky as it can be integrated into Unity. I had no prior experience using Inky, but it was quite easy to understand when making simple narrative branches and choices.
The beginning stages of trying to write the correct code, as well as understand it, were quite confusing. It came down to finding the right tutorials for what I was trying to make. I found a thread on GitHub that linked a playlist for making dialogue systems in Unity 2D.
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