Day 5: A Retroactive Step
Sadly, there was very little progress today as I decided instead to work on my other project and go to the eye-doctor. When you're not actively prototyping it's a bit difficult to figure out things to discuss on a daily basis! But somehow I will manage! Regardless, I still have something I can post in here. It's a pretty raw look at how I explain/explore a concept (
and it's from my blog). I do it best when I have to explain an idea to someone on the fly. The following excerpts are probably even better at describing Voyage's core feel than my premise was!
Additionally, I'm currently out of concept art. Very sad.
Blog Excerpt
This here is me rationalizing (to some extent) why basic combat should be included in the game; I also kind of touch on some aspects of gameplay elements. Something interesting that I've noticed about having these conversations with Jacques is that about 90% of the time, I haven't actually considered the ideas that pop up (and then pitch to him) while I'm rationalizing things. Almost every single one of my games has been fleshed out in this way at some point or another. Even City Across the Sky went through this process! The issue with that game was just the botched production phase. The design I think was fairly solid. Anyway. Here is Part 1 of 2 (and some music to go with it [
vertical re-orchestration]).
For the music, imagine just wandering around. Then you enter a slightly more wooded area. Suddenly, you're in a battle with a crab. KILL IT! You survive. Phew! Now you're walking again. You find a little town. It's quaint. There's a cool thing to inspect? What is thi--WAIT ANOTHER CRAB! KILL IT. Okay. You're safe. Let's get back to this thing. Wow, that was really interesting. EXPLORING.
I think that players will want to be able to like see a crab and let it scurry away, or murder and eat it though
Nothing serious
Maybe there's a dude on a bigger raft
or like a legit pirate ship
that one day you want to overthrow and take the crew
Or you just avoid them
and explore the world
the message bottles say something that peaks your interest
They're out of order and you piece together a little mystery
relaxing, nothing dire
you find a shipwreck and a skeleton
You wonder where such a big boat came from
since you just have a raft you can't go far
you're like, "That'll be me one day, just not dead. Hopefully."
The first night, it's cold. Your character shivers while he sleeps. You're like, "Oh, that's sad. He needs somewhere warm".
Etc
That's what I want. A game with little to no words.
at least spoken words
Just player thoughts. A player making connections with the world.
The music soothing them. The gameplay enticing them to explore more of the world.
The early game has to be filled with the character making a bunch of small discoveries that have actual meaning.
So the player knows that, in this world, things matter
You're not going to find a crashed ship for no reason.
I hope I'm explaining the idea/feels well enough
After this, I go on to try and clarify some of the problems that Jacques brought up with some of the concepts. Nothing serious, but this is a much more structured idea being explained. It also, in my opinion, almost completely describes the type of game I'm trying to create. This response was directly related to Jacques heckling me about liking science fiction as a way to describe things "different". Haha.
Part 2 of 2What I imagine is a dude who, for whatever reason, decides to abandon his life in society and explore the seven seas. He gets as far away from society as possible, builds a raft, and just goes. He ends up somewhere and yeah, you play the game. The sci-fi aspect was just a way to say, it doesn't happen on a planet where society has taken over everything.
Anyway. As you're playing the game, you explore, you find some message bottles, you uncover like, let's say, a stereotypical treasure map. In the context of the game, that's fun, but only if you establish a desirable atmosphere or something that you can be. Think megaman X, you're megaman, you're cool, but Zero, Zero is a fucking baller. You wanna be just like that guy.
Zero (as a concept) is like some benevolent, elderly pirate that maybe teaches you something at the very beginning of the game or just drops you off at your destination and sails away.
He looks cool, he acts cool, he is cool. (He says nothing)
But whatever, you want to explore and shit
You've got your raft.
So this treasure map leads you to a cool hat or something. You put on the hat. Now you're an explorer. That wasn't so hard, but it's a pretty shitty hat.
I don't want this crappy hat
The old seafarer had a dope hat
You want a hat like that
But you only have this hat
What do?
This happened the night that you realize that your character was shivering at night or something pressing, but subtle.
Now what's important is making a life for yourself, but this island is shitty
You want to go somewhere else
You travel to the end of this small island where you saw on the map that there might be something, there's nothing there, but there's nothing anywhere else. You've got to explore.
You set sail
Now the aesthetic is very important.
You're sailing and eventually you find another island
It doesn't matter which of the nearby islands it is, but it's an island
You mark it down on your map
This exploration positive cycle happens for a little while with a bunch of other cool, soothing things and then one day, while you are sailing you see another boat. It has a flag. Then suddenly, you realize, wait." I don't even have a boat..or a flag. I'm really sad aren't I." Those pirates see you floating around and they sail right past you. You don't even matter. The dude on that boat wasn't as cool as the elderly guy, but he was still cooler than you. It's like, maybe...maybe I can get cool like them, etc.
You see this whole pirate thing
is just a metaphor for growth.
When these bigger boats pass by, you see your character like, just stare at them.
You want to make him/her that cool so you explore, you discover things, maybe you even discover things that haven't been discovered before.
You're not trying to change the world. You're just trying to understand it.
You're having fun and relaxing as the player and hopefully, if done correctly, unlocking that feeling that children have
Just like the wonder of discovering something you maybe can't explain.
Imagine a game where you are the fucking dude who like discovers magic
But you don't know it
Yeah
So, if you read that
I wonder if that explains anything other than my vision for the game. haha
There aren't pirates necessarily
There are like
other people seafaring
Maybe while you are sleeping one of them steals your hat
You don't have a hat anymore
you're exploring and you see this fucker with your hat
So you follow him, but he gets away
you keep sailing in the general direction and you end up at a new island
behold
a new land
Then you find a new hat
and suddenly your old hat doesn't matter as much? Or maybe it still matters
and you get (steal) it back
and then you feel like, "Yeah fuckface, don't steal my hat"
And then you're on your merry way
Whether or not I'm going to allow the player to actually "lose" things like with the stolen hat (this is a negative experience and I'm advocating the positive), I'm unure. However, if you think about it, setting up the player with loss, and then having a quick positive reinforcement (finding the new hat or something else cool) might be even more uplifting if the loss comes first. There might be severely scripted events like this in the game, but I may try to avoid that as best as possible.
I have to look at the goals of my game--my theme, per say--and determine what kind of gameplay, or "everything in the game" as Joe says, should compliment that idea.
For now, that idea is this: "Trying to convey the feeling of discovery that you feel as a child, but lose as an adult because of science and shit." I don't think it gets much better than that!
Not Blog Excerpt
Hopefully, I can get back on track with the design of this ASAP. Having a teen social life sucks in this regard! Lots of stuff to do tomorrow. Haha.
For the rest of tonight, I think I'll be taking a look at what, where, when, and how I want to design this game now that the initial concept is pretty fleshed out. I'll discuss this in more detail tomorrow or Saturday!
