The game type structure of this project is survival+exploration, instead of video-based combat experience. Players will not advance the game by defeating the enemy to gain numerical growth, but will judge and screen the environmental risks from the perspective of small and weak creatures and find the appropriate path to move on.
Players need to judge, including how to merge the dangers, how to plan the path, and whether to enter a high-risk area. The characteristics are that the threat in the environment of this game does not come from the so-called “enemy” in the general sense, but the survival pressure naturally brought by the environment of the city to small creatures. For them, even pet cats, dogs or pigeons, or even humans themselves, will interfere with it, even affecting safety and survival.
The exploration in this game is not limited to free roaming, but is bound to risks and benefits at the same time. Different regions have different resource density, exposure and suitable time to stay. Players need to choose the forward strategy according to their personal situation and the characteristics of their operating roles, but the common point is that if they stop, they will only evolve into a state of in-situ consumption.
Structurally, this project avoids the pure linear process and completely free open sandbox games, but is somewhere in between. Players can explore freely in the current area, but the risks and resources in the area will always make players have to go to the next stop.
Overall, the players’ operations and goals are simple.
In the process of designing this project, I mainly verify and correct my design judgment through the analysis of existing game works, rather than conducting theoretical or documentary research.
The focus of my selection of reference works is not on the theme or artistic style, but on their gameplay and how they guide players to make the desired behavior, especially on the relationship between exploration and promotion.
Reference
PEAK
In PEAK, players are given a high degree of freedom to explore inside the level, but the environment itself does not support long-term stay. Resource consumption and path structure will naturally push players to move on, rather than relying on clear mission guidance.
From this game, I realized that there is no need to force players to follow the established route, and exploration itself does not mean stagnation. It is actually very simple to let players move forward, as long as they do not provide continuous positive feedback for staying and exploring.
Rain World
Rain World provides me with another important reference on the basis of PEAK. In this game, players can barely survive in a single area, but risks always exist, and the plot and world state will not be promoted by staying.
This design makes players “can” stop, but usually they don’t choose long-term stagnation. I realize that the pressure of progress can come from both survival system and narrative and structural stagnation.
Reverse reference
Zelda: The Breath of the Wilderness & Grounded
As a reverse reference, Zelda: The Breath of the Wilderness and Grounded show a highly open exploration structure. In these works, the world itself and mechanism are enough to support long-term play, and even if the core goal is not promoted, players can still get a complete experience.
Although this design is very successful, it has clearly become the direction that this project avoids: this kind of stagnation is not needed by me.
“I am fish” & “It Takes Two”
“I am fish” and “It Takes Two” represent highly linear process design. Players can hardly go back to the previous area to explore, and the experience is strictly limited to the advancement of the level.
This kind of design is very effective in rhythm control, but it will compress the exploration space, which is not conducive to the first-person perspective of observing and judging small and weak creatures in the ecosystem, so it is also not adopted.