Sprint 1: Ideation

Sprint 1 is coming to an end. The goals our team set out for ourselves were to come up with game ideas we are all excited about, figure out some initial meeting and communication logistics, set up our blogs, and put together a general road map from now until December. We accomplished all of those and a little bit more. In addition to sharing our game ideas, I also had each team member (2 artist, 1 Designer, 1 programmer, and me the producer) share what excites them about games and what do they like creating. While we know whatever we end up making is going to be different from start to finish, I also know it is very important for everyone involved to be inherently excited and interested in whatever path we take. We are going to stay agile, we will be doing plenty of QA testing, and the way we approach development is certainly in the design thinking realm (solving for what the customer / player wants), but it is important to all of us that we enjoy what we are working on. Here is what we came up with:

Competition / High skill ceiling: The more you play the better you get and the more rewarding the experience

Action / Immersive game play: Less spreadsheets and wikis, more playing in the game

Monsters: Organic creatures of all different shapes, sizes, colors, and personalities

Cool places / Crazy scenarios: invoking the imagination

Innovation: Asking "why" and "what if", challenging our assumptions, rethinking to create something new

This simple list of game creation values / interests helped us figure out which of our numerous ideas would best align with both our interests and capabilities. The three ideas we want to try to explore are: a luchador themed 2D fighting game, a farming game where you have to cut corners to survive, and a 2D platformer where one player plays as a dungeon boss while the other players are heroes trying to traverse the bosses level. All the ideas excite me and concern me in different ways.

Idea 1: Luchador Themed 2D Fighting Game

Arguably what brought our team together was that we all had an interest in fighting games in someway, so I am not surprised that one of the ideas we are excited about is a fighting game. This luchador themed fighter asks, “what makes a fight so compelling?” A good fight is always a good show- meaning the crowd is involved and gives energy to the fight and the fighters. Lucha Libre, has ropes like wrestling that contestants can use, costumes, crazy personalities, story arcs, and culture. Lucha Libre is so much more then simply a fight, a single match could be apart of a rivalry that has stretched several generations not only of the characters themselves, but also the audience following the characters. The game idea is to capture this essence of Lucha Libre.

While I believe this idea has so much potential and I am very excited about it, I also know the fighting games are very demanding to make. Everything in a fighting game is so interconnected around the fight with so many moves to design, program, test, and animate. Additionally, with this being our college capstone project and each of us having other classes we need to focus on, we may not even have the time necessary to really do the idea justice.

Idea 2: Farming and Cutting Corners to Survive

On the surface it might just look like another farming simulator akin to Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon, but underneath the soil is a dark and comical / ironic narrative of cutting corners to survive. Think, the dark questionable decisions of Hotline Miami or Darkest Dungeon, but presented with the whimsy of a farming simulator. We through around ideas like having to make an underground deal or selling products you shouldn’t be selling just to keep your farm and family afloat, somewhat like the moral decisions players have to make in Papers Please. There is a lot our team can do with this idea and it suits each of our interests and capabilities in a different ways.

As for how viable it is, it is certainly within our whelm of what we can make. Both of our artist specialize in 2D which suits this genre very well (it is also why all of our games ideas are 2D). Farming simulators aren’t to difficult to begin prototyping. I am a little concerned with how well we would be able to find the fun. I would suspect a lot of the fun would relay on the narrative we come up with and would also be the basis of how we market the game. Speaking of markets, farming sims have been hot lately which means there is a lot of attention but also a lot of competition. Again, the narrative is the key with this one.

Idea 3: Dungeon Versus Survival  

Asymmetric, 2D, dungeon crawling, level making, platforming. One player is a “boss monster” that creates a dungeon level for the other players, “the heroes” to then traverse. At the end of the dungeon the heroes and the boss fight similar to Evolve. There would be creatures, traps, platforming, and…. oh my that sounds like a lot of work. This is nothing to crazy difficult to make with this idea, but there a lot of little different things to make. I’m not sure how we are going to prototype this one, or where it would fit in the market, but the concept is certainly engaging.

Closing Statements

With all these ideas in mind, here is our rough development roadmap with the only hard date being “the pitch”:

Ideation (1 week)

Concept Exploration (3 weeks)

Proof of Concept (3 weeks)

Vertical Slice (4 weeks)

The Pitch! (Nov. 20th, 2017)

Post Pitch (3 weeks)

Over the next few weeks we will be prototyping and testing these game ideas. There is a lot of room to explore, but there is also a lot of pressure to figure out what we are doing quickly so that we are in good shape for the pitch, the results of which decide weather or not we will be allowed to continue making our game past November. A lot is still up in the air, but I think we’ve had a good start.