Devlog #2 - 22/10/2018: What about an isometric perspective?
Hey, what’s up?
Today we’re gonna talk about the first steps of our game. As you’ve already seen in our first Devlog, we intend to share an alpha-demo with you guys until mid-November and that’s around one month from now. But this idea was born somewhere between July-August and we’ve been talking a lot about Edom since then.
THE FIRST IDEAS
We gave birth to Edom way before we would stop to think about names. Back in the day, it was only four of us: Jão, Carol, Paulo and me (again, I talked about the team in the last Devlog). Actually, everything started with a wish Carol had. She didn’t exactly think of whole a game, but a specific character: Ariel (if you’ve been following us on Twitter and Facebook, you probably have already seen something about her). She not only imagined the character physically but also had some ideas concerning Ariel’s personality and background. It was only a matter of time before me, Dave, becoming the guy who would create a more sophisticated lore concerning the character.
In our first meetings, we talked a lot about what we had imagined for the game, if Ariel would be the only char available and what really was our purpose with Edom. After a few minutes exploring the initial ideas, we got to a common-sense: it should be a horror game. But we still wanted to create something different from what we’ve been seeing out there.
Srsly, listen to this awesomeness
Firstly because we still have some limitations (and this is our first serious project, therefore we have no experience with this whole thing). We wouldn’t be able to create a 3D Game in this very moment since none of us is exactly a master at 3D-modelling and stuff like that. Secondly, we really wanted to challenge ourselves with a project that could explore our abilities. More than that, we wanted to create a thrilling atmosphere in a pixel-art style, what we initially imagined it wouldn’t be possible (however, we are very optimistic about it right now).
We also wanted to make things different. We have lots of AAA on the market who are filled with jump scares and all these clichés (not saying these are bad games, pls). As a writer, I’m really fond of trying to create an ambiance through a good narrative and other artistical elements. We wish to see players creating bonds with the characters and, once this link has been established, we want (well, I do want) to crush your sanity and your feelings through an immersive plot and environment (seriously, our artists - me included -  are working hard to make you cry and ask for your mama or your psychiatrist). And I’m really confident that it’s gonna work.
Thanks a lot @the_games_guild
WHY ISOMETRIC? WHY?
We’ll get there soon, I promise.
So, we also had to make sure which elements should be applied to the game. I personally wanted something filled with puzzles and enigmas that would sometimes rely on lots of exploration, just like some Survival Horror’s out there. Besides that, one of the feelings that we think it would be nice to explore it is the idea of loneliness and helplessness. To accomplish that, we imagined a huge mansion as the setting, implying that you’re confined, but at the same time, you can get easily lost if you’re not paying attention enough. We also wanted to make this game to be one of those where the players aren’t supported by any kind of power, so… Yah, no guns or baseball bats for you to kill your enemies. You can only run to the hills.
Somehow, at some point of our meetings, we considered that this game could be a weird Metroidvania-like, but we eventually noticed that this wouldn’t be suitable at all. However, the perspective of creating a 2D game, similar to some old point-and-clicks (which I really loved, I’m totally into adventure games) wouldn’t fit as well. And then, someone (I don’t remember who, but I’m sure it wasn’t me) suggested: what about an isometric perspective?
And we were like “woooooooooow”! And one second alter we were like: “but how the duck are we gonna do it? We know nothing about it and we already have this huge idea that probably won’t be finished and…”
And then someone (probably me) was like “IH, RESPEITA O JOGO, RESPEITA O TIME” (that is something like “c’mon, you should respect our game and our idea, and also trust our own abilities, we can do it” but it sounds WAAAY better in Portuguese).
Anyway, isometric just seemed the right thing to do. Then we had our first animations and scenarios created by Carol in a beautiful pixel-art piece of art. Jão was also doubting his skills, but he is the type of person who can do anything (seriously, we call him “the yes-boy”, cause he always says “yes, I will [manage] to do it” to everything). And, well, I’m glad to say it’s working.
This is only a test.
We had a few problems during the first weeks. Since none of us had any experience working with isometric perspective, we had to ask for help from other people from GDP (if you don’t know about it, you should read the first Devlog). It was at this moment that our team got our first new members. Nayara and Tomás were fundamental to help Carol with this new perspective, giving her some tips and making a better job of it. Nayara, currently one of our artists, has also been doing some great job. Tomás would be our Game Designer (yeah, we didn’t exactly have one before everything started), but he decided to focus on other projects - that’s when Victor shows up and saves the day.
Despite the decision, we still thought of the game following up with the previous idea of a Metroidvania, not as a whole but at least some elements and the level design. Part of it would be useful to increase the idea of loneliness mentioned above. We got ourselves guided by Mark Brown Boss Keys’ video talking about The World Design of Super Metroid and we agreed that we wanted to apply the same concept in our game, so the player would feel motivated to explore each corner in each room. And this obviously took us to talk about Level Design.
We also don’t have any experience with LD and puzzles or things like that. Since the beginning, we’ve been studying and researching about it in order to provide good riddles to the players, in a way they may feel rewarded when solving it. If you already played Super Metroid or watched Brown’s video, you certainly noticed this genre presents you with a huge map, but some parts of it can only be accessed once you got a special ability (for example, you can only access a certain passage if you acquire a double/longer jump ability in another point of the game). We really wanted to include this idea of progression in Edom, but how would we do it if our main character is a simple girl?
STOP WITH THIS “CLIFFHANGER” BULLSHIT BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS AND ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION. HOW’D YOU DO IT?
We would create a few more characters. Initially, we imagined only three, but our musician, Paulo, thought of a very specific character and we decided to include his idea. Each character has a “special ability” (nothing really special, but they are good with certain things that the others aren’t, simple as that) and you can only access certain areas if you discover these other “guests” around the house.
That was a good choice since it would help us in three important aspects: a) the Metroidvania progression X reward system, which is awesome and contributes to exploring; b) would make possible for us to think of many creative puzzles, since you can explore the mansion with different characters; c) instead of one character for you to love with all your heart, you have four of them (and consequently your suffering will be four times bigger). We are also testing the portrait system, in which the player may access a portrait of another character and change it whenever he is in an appropriate place to do it (for example, you’re controlling Ariel and you find a portrait of Clarice, then you interact with it and change characters). This system will be implemented, but there’s still a lot to discuss.
You can’t see the changing system, but notice the portrait on the wall.
Things seem to be okay for now. We haven’t faced many problems after that and the pixel-art is flowing. Jão, the programmer, has found some problems with layers in Unity, but after three weeks of intense research (and a lot of coding), he managed to solve it. In the meantime, we worked to add every command that would be important to the game: walk (in 8 directions), run, pull/push, interaction and using special abilities.
I guess this is it for now. We hope to publish here once more this week, focusing a little bit more on the music and writing. Stay tuned. And follow us on our social media (FB and Twitter), since we’re updating them regularly.
XOXO