Studio 2 - Statement of Intention

Rationale

The motivation for this project is really just trying to design and create a fun game based on a story I wrote in studio 1. It is based on the theme of Zodiac and speaks a story of world apocalypse and a new-born transcended human named Hera. It is rather a prologue of a long story which can take a long time to finish, and because of this it leaves a lot of potentials and possibilities for imaginations for game ideas (gameplay, mechanics etc). So my intention is to just grab whatever imaginations I can have about the story, either it is from the current plot or its derivative, and convert them into solid game mechanics and gameplay and make a game that is fun. This would be a practice of game design that not limits myself into certain fixed or pre-defined game mechanics but allows new and creative things to emerge through the process of designing and making.

This game is a hybrid game which combines Action PRG playstyle with real time strategy elements, as long as it is for now. I think hybrid genre game gives a very different gameplay feeling compare to other single genre games in its root, so I think this would be an interesting place to explore.

I have seen lots of this kind of ‘the plan is to have no plan’, creativity driven game design (in contrast to fixed game design, for example, the tri-roles design (tank, damage, heal) in most MMORPGs) excels in generating fun for players. Although there is nothing wrong to have a fixed design, but this new approach seems to have more flexibility in modern games.

Context

A good example of this kind of creativity driven design, from games I have played, is the Coop mission in the game Starcraft 2 (SC2) by Blizzard. The lead game designer of the Coop mission David Sum integrates the traditional SC2 gameplay style (which you can build an army with a number of replication of different type of troopers, for example, 10 marines, 10 tanks) with RPG style (like heroes in Warcraft 3, or, in the context of SC2, a hero Marine who have more abilities and can level up through gameplay). Although its not a new playstyle by any means, but the fun comes from the integrating very different playstyles into one game and give player the flexibility to allow the player choose what they want to play. David designed 18 commanders each has a unique playstyle or theme compare to others to let player choose to play, I think his work is very innovating and inspiring.

Method

I will be iterating between designing and coding the game mechanics. The design will be done by layers, from very general game mechanics then go to more specific ones as I adding more layers over time, and this process will continue happening until around week 8 of this semester. Meanwhile I will be coding mechanics in Unreal engine once a layer of design is finished. I will learn and integrate the game framework system in Unreal engine to build the game system for this game. I will be using mesh brush to block the game environment as well as game agents (e.g. characters, NPCs) to allow testing of codes. Simple text UI on top of game agents can be used for debugging and reflecting game states.

Outcomes

The outcome would be a functional gameplay using basic place holder assets (mesh brushes) with a text UI on top of each game agent to reflect its game state. This would be a prototype for further refinement in studio 3.