I recently attended a game design session in which my classmates and I each delivered a presentation of our game design projects. It was great to see such a wide range of interpretations of the Impulse brief and I enjoyed seeing the different directions people went in with their projects. In this post I will show and discuss the presentation I delivered, along with what I learned from the experience, and how that will shape the project going forward, as we near the end of the module.
1. As you can see by this first slide, I have finally named my game. I decided on Moral Vice as the title as it is an interesting double entendre. By default, one would presume the title refers to the Aristotelian notion of a moral vice, meaning that which is not virtuous. Another interpretation of the title however could be "a vice, which is moral". This is reflective of the game's core themes and mechanics, as during our story, our protagonists use their impulsive vices for moral good. I think the ambiguity of this title, caused by the juxtaposition of the two interpretations of it, fits the themes of the game well. I wanted to convey the game's eerie vibe through my presentation and so opted for a simple, greyscale colour scheme and chose this very ominous piece of artwork for the opening slide. The vast, Lovecraftian entity passing through the mist, seemingly disinterested in the comparatively tiny person looking up at it, perfectly encapsulates the primary theme in cosmic horror, fear of the unknown.
2. In this slide I very quickly summarised the key elements of the game. This way, everybody had a good understanding of the game's overarching premise from the start. I also included images of similar games to illustrate the genre I am aiming for.
3. Here I gave some background into the literary inspiration behind the game's story and laid out the overarching narrative that the game would feature if developed fully.
4. I went on to explain my plan for the overworld portion of the game. Although the turn-based combat is the game's focus, it was important that the audience understood that the game's world and narrative would also be delivered through exploration and dialogue.
5. Now it was made clear that this was not a purely mechanical game, I was free to dive into the nuances of the combat system. I quickly and concisely explained the core mechanics, taking extra care to clearly convey my USP, the Impulse system.
6-10. Now that everyone had a grasp of how the combat system worked, I showed off each of my character concepts and explained their abilities. This demonstrated the wide variety of ways in which the Impulse system can be implemented to create interesting gameplay possibilities.
7. Since I had shown off the player characters, it seemed pertinent to discuss the enemies they would be facing. I have yet to design any enemy ability sets, so I opted to simply describe the types of enemies our protagonists would be facing as they progress through the game. This helped to convey the progression of the game's narrative.
8. I then showed a video of some gameplay from my latest prototype. This displayed my UI and demonstrated the systems, abilities and AI working well. To give the game some polish, I added character models to the enemies before recording the video and set the characters up in positions that would make the combat clearer to the audience.
9. In my penultimate slide, I laid out my plans regarding the game's future development. I explained that I intended to implement the rest of the characters and abilities I had shown previously and that I would then add animations and sounds effects to improve the clarity of the combat. I also assured the audience that before hand-in, I would implement a small overworld segment to demonstrate that side of the game. Although I doubt I will find the time prior to this module's deadline, I also expressed that, if able, I would like to go on to write the game's story in full, along with dialog, and add that to provide context to the player. Given the opportunity, I would also create a character progression system, allowing our protagonists to earn experience, level up, unlock new abilities and acquire equipment such as armour and weapons to improve their capabilities.
10. Finally, I opened the floor for questions about the project. I was asked about the hypothetical monetisation plan I had for the game. To this, I responded that since the game was a single-player, story-driven, RPG, I believed it was best to simply make the game a one-time purchase. In response to this, it was pointed out that I may be underselling the project's potential in this regard. Our lecturers suggested that, due to the ensemble cast and nature of the combat system, the game could potentially have a multiplayer component in which players each create a roster of characters and then face them off against one-another. If this was the case, it would open up the opportunity for further monetisation options, in the form of cosmetic items.
Conclusions
After hearing the feedback on my presentation, and those of my classmates, I have re-evaluated my plan going forward. I was intending to attempt to add the rest of my player characters, along with a series of enemies, to demonstrate my combat system as well as possible. It was stressed, however, that the prototype is not an especially significant factor in the assessment of this module when compared to the design documentation. Due to this, I now plan to just finish implementing Lucius, set up a combat scene for him to demonstrate his abilities, create a short overworld section to give this combat some context and then largely just focus on documenting all of my ideas for the game, even those I will definitely not be implementing.
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