Initial Ideas

The past weeks have been spent generating game ideas for the project, mainly through frequent meetings and a lot of note taking and brainstorming.

Our initial concepts started to take shape by thinking of a mechanic first, and then dressing it up to make it more appealing. We went through many mechanics, the main ones we focused on being time travel and co-op play. Then, after losing our third team member and deciding these concepts weren’t strong enough, we decided to take a different approach.

Rather than think too hard about a mechanic straight away, we were encouraged to think more about what we wanted to say through our game, more about what we wanted the end result to achieve. After some more meetings and brainstorming sessions, “freedom of movement” was one of the main points raised.

The mechanic that we drew from this was as follows: The player rolls a ball around and can walk around on the line it leaves. We wanted something that had a focus on instant feedback and something that would become second nature to the point that you’d miss it in other games. This mechanic is obviously quite restrictive, seeing as the player can only walk along lines they’ve created, however the player would be able to roll the ball anywhere they liked.

After more thought, however, the ball mechanic sounded like it would be too cumbersome and might be difficult to control. This could be frustrating for the player as they rely on the ball to move around. Therefore, we removed the ball and in its place decided to give the player a type of handheld tool (something like a hose or water pistol) so they could simply shoot the line out in front of them, giving them better accuracy and thus more freedom. This altered mechanic also means that players will be able to spray lines up walls and along ceilings, giving more freedom of movement still. We have since created a world in which to use this mechanic, the story for which will follow shortly.