In this final post about Moral Vice, I will reflect on the development process, discuss some of the decisions I made and analyse pain points and successes I had along the way.
The Concept
Although development on this project only began just under two months ago when we received our brief, Impulse, the idea of Moral Vice is actually one I had been sitting on for many years. At the time (2016/2017), I was very interested in more role-play focused table-top RPGs such as Blades in the Dark, Dungeon World and Fate Accelerated. So I was avidly watching YouTube content by those games' respective designers, John Harper (Blades) and Adam Koebel (Dungeon World). This inspired me to start to note down ideas for my own RPG in my favourite genre, dark fantasy. The games mentioned above, often feature mechanics which encourage the player to make decisions which are fitting for their character, even if they may be strategically sub-optimal. This injects characterisation and role-playing into the mechanics at a deeper level, rather than leaving such things on the surface as a thematic skin for the game. I envisioned players creating Werewolves, Vampires, Zombies and various other, normally villainous, archetypes as their characters. They would then be compelled, through the game's mechanics to act in a character appropriate way, to the detriment of themselves and their allies. This was all just an idea though and never got past the notes on paper phase. When I heard the brief, Impulse, my mind instantly jumped back to this old table-top concept of mine, and I was compelled to develop it into a digital game for this assignment. I did try to come up with other ideas based on the brief, but none of them inspired me in the same way this one did. Overall, I am happy with my choice to pursue this concept. It might have been a little over-scoped, but I wouldn't have gotten as much done as I did without the passion I felt for this premise.
Blades in the Dark: https://bladesinthedark.com/greetings-scoundrel
Dungeon World: https://dungeon-world.com/
Fate Accelerated: https://evilhat.com/product/fate-accelerated-edition/
Design
The core systems for the game came together quite quickly. Turn-based RPGs, both digital and analogue, are very common, and I have played more than my fair share of them. As such, designing things such as the turn system, targeting, movement, energy etc, was just a matter of taking conventions I enjoyed from the genre and cutting out those I didn't. A lot of my time went into designing the characters. Each character had to have a unique backstory which fit with the setting, a kit of abilities which gave them an interesting and useful tactical niche, and an Impulse which conveyed their character, disrupted gameplay to the right degree and created engaging decision moments for the player. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to actually implement any of the characters other than Lucius the Vampire. In hindsight I would probably have been better off spending less time on my character designs. Ultimately though I am glad that I put as much effort as I did into the characters, as they are really the core of the game's concept.
Prototyping
I mentioned previously that I felt I had over-scoped the game somewhat. This notion stems from the fact that the prototype I produced was just a simple combat scene where you control Lucius and Beatrice (both with Lucius' abilities). The characters are in a clearing among a bunch of houses and the player must defeat the two enemies there to end the battle. This served as a fine demonstration of the combat system and the general aesthetic and themes of the game, but that is all. I had originally intended to create a level, featuring all of the characters I had designed, which the player can progress through in the overworld mode, engaging in multiple battles to reach an objective at the end. I was also aiming to have animations and sound effects for all of this. Unfortunately, I greatly underestimated how long it would take me to build my core battle system, and so, as I had other equally demanding projects to work on as well, many areas of the prototype had to fall by the wayside. The main issue that took up most of my time was character movement. I had created a 2D turn-based RPG before (Chosen One and the Quest for the Arbitrary Object) and so I wrongly assumed that translating that sort of gameplay to 3D wouldn't be too challenging, especially since I had recently created a 3D action RPG with AI pathfinding. The combination of the 3D movement, the movement costing energy, the game being turn based and the movement working in a grid system however, made it a very challenging programming task for me, eating up a lot of my development time. Having said all that, I am proud of what I did create. The combat system is very complex and works really well considering it was put together by a student game designer, rather than a programmer, in the space of a couple months.
Chosen One and the Quest for the Arbitrary Object: https://daniel-james.itch.io/chosen-one-and-the-quest-for-the-arbitrary-object
Conclusion
All in all, I am pleased with Moral Vice. I designed a game with a very compelling concept and core mechanic, which takes the brief of Impulse in a unique direction. I put a lot of hard work and passion into this project and it was great to be able to realise a premise that I had had in my back pocket for many years. It is unfortunate that I had to downsize my prototype due to time constraints and over-scoping, but what I did create serves as a useful demonstration of a potentially great game. Although this post marks the end of Moral Vice's development, I hope to one day revisit this premise, and build a spiritual successor to this project once I have more time and resources to devote to it, so that I can do justice to what I believe is a strong game design, with a lot of potential.
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