This week focused on translating my emerging game idea into emotional tone, atmosphere, and player experience. Building on the foundational research and early world concepts from Weeks 1–3, the emphasis shifted toward how the game should feel to play, not just how it functions. Through moodboards, narrative exercises, mechanical questioning, and real-world inspiration, I began tightening the identity of the game world and its core emotional hook.
A key activity this week was creating and analysing moodboards to explore emotional direction, atmosphere, and visual language. The imagery I worked with consistently explored contrasts between:
- Hope vs fear
- Comfort vs danger
- Isolation vs curiosity
These themes directly align with my game’s core idea: a world that appears gentle and familiar on the surface, but gradually reveals underlying tension and uncertainty. This helped clarify that the game’s tone should feel quietly unsettling rather than overtly hostile, encouraging the player to remain observant and emotionally engaged.
The black-and-white illustrations and surreal imagery particularly influenced my thinking about negative space, silence, and restraint, which I intend to reflect in the game’s level design, sound design, and pacing.
Using the world-building worksheets, I began defining the rules, logic, and emotional structure of the game world. This included considering:
- How do magic or unusual elements exist within the world
- Whether danger is constant or conditional
- How everyday life contrasts with moments of threat
Rather than creating a world where danger is everywhere, I leaned toward a setting where danger is situational and discovered over time. This supports a slower, more reflective gameplay experience and reinforces the idea that the player learns about the world by paying attention rather than through exposition.
This approach directly informs the GDD by establishing consistent internal logic and a clear emotional framework for future mechanics and narrative beats.
Another focus this week was on refining the adventure hook from the player’s perspective. Instead of relying on traditional combat-driven motivation, the hook is built around:
- Exploration
- Discovery
- Emotional curiosity
The player is encouraged to move forward not because they are told to, but because the world subtly invites them to do so. This aligns strongly with the design intention of creating an experience that feels personal and introspective, rather than purely goal-oriented.
This player-centric hook will later translate into mechanics that prioritise movement, observation, and environmental storytelling over explicit objectives.
The mechanical worksheets pushed me to think critically about what the player can do, and more importantly, why those actions exist. Rather than locking into final mechanics too early, this process helped me identify guiding principles:
- Mechanics should reinforce emotion, not distract from it
- Simplicity is more effective than complexity at this stage
- Player actions should feel intentional and meaningful
This reflection ensures that future mechanics introduced into the GDD are not arbitrary but serve the game’s emotional and narrative goals.
Visiting Comic Con this week provided valuable real-world inspiration. Observing concept art, character design, environments, and student showcases reinforced the importance of strong visual identity and clear thematic focus.
Seeing how other creators communicate tone and world-building through visuals helped me reflect on my own project and reaffirm the direction I am taking. It also highlighted the importance of presentation and clarity, which will be crucial when developing the final GDD and portfolio.
Rather than being a distraction, this experience strengthened my understanding of how games and visual worlds communicate meaning beyond mechanics alone.
Week 4 marked a turning point from broad ideation into intentional design. The work completed this week helped tighten my game’s emotional identity and ensured that future development remains coherent and focused.
Moving forward into Week 5, I aim to:
- Translate mood and tone into early-level ideas
- Begin connecting emotional intent with spatial design
- Further refine the core mechanics introduced conceptually this week
This ensures that each stage of development continues to build logically toward the final Game Design Document.