Project revamp

The initial idea for the project wasn’t working for me. There a lot of problems with the idea. For one I really wanted to avoid cliché horror but was not confident we had the skill to deliver a more subtle and lingering horror that I wanted. Also we had not fleshed out any mechanics or Gameplay other than simply being “scary”. Although we had not started on development yet I was unsure if the team would accept the large change in the project, but all were on board and happy with the changes. I changed the game to more a of narrative based exploration game. I kept the idea of looping and unique rooms but focused the purpose and Gameplay of the game and created a narrative that would fit within the mechanics we had created. Overall this seems like a much better project and a eager to begin work on it.

Project start

This week we started putting together our project for the semester. We came up with the idea for a first person horror experience for the oculus rift. I was really happy the group came up with the idea for a VR experience without me suggesting it. The oculus rift lends itself very well to horror and have tried many horror games on the rift. Although I didn’t want to be cliché with the horror and we’re trying hard to avoid it. We have adopted a more psychological horror theme to this game. Also, to help facilitate working in a group I came up with he idea to have multiple unique rooms for each member of the group to work on. I drew inspiration from P.T and Gone Home for the idea for this game. Both are first person exploration games with a heavy atmosphere, I also borrowed the looping mechanic from P.T.

Playmaker

This week I used playmaker for unity. Being a designer this tool should be an attractive alternative to coding but I prefer writing my own scripts. I definitely see the value of such a tool and I should learn how to use it, but I like having complete control and understanding of any code I am working with. As frustrating as coding can get there is an extreme satisfaction found in writing working code. I also want learn as much as I can about coding so I don’t have to ask programmers I work with, “Can you do this? Is this possible? How hard would it be too..?”

I have been the rubber duck to a programmer friend and enjoy learning more about code and enjoy it even more when I can understand it. I want to be able to work well with people from different disciplines, and also be able to fully appreciate their work as well.

Character workshop

This week we had to design an NPC for an existing game to improve it in some way. I chose Dark Souls as an obvious choice, not only do I love the game but in that game all NPCs are important and valuable in some way. In Dark Souls, and all ‘souls’ games you are free to kill whoever you want for whatever reason you see fit, even harmless NPCs who may be of great help to you, even merchants. In most games the game dictates who is friendly and who is an adversary, if you try to harm or kill a friendly character the game simply wont let you. How many have you raised your gun to an ally character and had your trigger locked when your cross hairs are aiming at them, or had your bullets not affect them in any way? I have seen countless people do this and take this system for granted. I have also seen many people attack and kill NPCs in ‘souls’ games just to see if they can. I have also seen the resulting dismay after they realise they were important in some way and now gone from the game forever.

In a game so bleak and depressing as Dark Souls it manages to make each life precious in some way and every NPC memorable. There are few games where I can remember each of my interactions with NPC characters.