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Beginning A Project

By the time I'd started this blog up, I'd already finished this process for my prior project and so I didn't elaborate upon it much. This time, I aim to change that; this is my first “proper” project, the prior one being... an experiment while I learned. I did the same thing then as I am doing now, but now, with 2 extra years of learning and experience under my belt.

Now, when I sit down and think about how I want a game to play, feel and look I hash out a quick idea of how I want it to be. My main point of reference for this? I think about games -or movies, or books, I think restricting yourself to one medium can only harm your output, but that you must do so selectively-, I've enjoyed, how they impacted me and so forth.

By this point I'll already have sketched out a story outline, basic characters, and scenarios, but then I want to look for reference points and where to research. Obviously, for different aspects of design, there must be slightly different reference points, and this part isn't essential for everyone's creative process, only mine.

I can't really look to films to work out how I want a game to play, generally speaking; I can, however, look at cinematic editing and shots, to work out cutscenes and animations. That's a very surface level distinction to make. I'm just explaining in full so we don't get lost: of course there are games that strive to be cinematic and so will look to cinema to inform more of their design. But, that is not me.

For me, this is often difficult when it comes to concepts. I tend to write down “x by way of y” as a succinct summary of the game and where to begin -for example, my current project, a sci-fi horror, is currently in my notebook as “Metroid x Dead Space x Alien”-. In general terms, a grimy, claustrophobic sci-fi horror, with that shared aesthetic of these three media pieces. A slightly personal way to look at the media, because my read is probably different to your read and this summation is not intended to reflect the final game, more for my personal notes and where to kick-start my own research.

On a more detailed level I wonder about how I want the game to play; how a game such as Metroid known for its twisting, non-linear gameplay would mix with a more linear game such as Dead Space. There are, of course, similarities; both require items or power-ups to progress but the mode and pace of progression is different. And, more importantly, not so much how to make that as a concept feel “fresh” but how to make it, as a concept, work and achieve what I set out to make.

One of the ways I do this is in writing down how I want the game to make people feel. In the case of horror, that's obvious: fear, trepidation, paranoia, and so on, with as many synonyms as you can muster. But, I also at this stage, think of games I've played in similar genres; what worked, what didn't, but this is of course entirely subjective to me and my experience of the “game-feel” is probably entirely different to yours. At the end of the day, I'm a hobbyist making games mostly out of a small kindled flame of passion; I can and do ask for outside opinions, but my first port of call is usually my own experiences. My reach is not that wide.

Because of this, the first step in making games and obviously, the very first step being writing and then design, means I set out and write down important aspects of the game that I want to focus upon.

For example, in my current project, that looks like this: Aesthetic: grimy, anachronistic, 70s sci fi Alien, Stalker, Silent Running, Bladerunner, Colour scheme: cold, blues and greys, black and greens, yellow and white lighting Game-world: twisting, self-contained, exploration encouraged, environmental and narrative design Gameplay: lock-and-key, written logs, isolated Tone: horror, isolation, trauma

To break this down, for “aesthetic”, I'm highlighting that look I want to go for; this helps me when I go to look at media that can serve as inspiration and helps me to narrow down. Instead of looking to all 70s sci fi, I pick specific films, books or games that I feel inform the look I want to go for.

For “colour scheme”, this is a newer detail I've hashed out in light of issues pinpointing how I wanted The Ancient Land to look. I don't think colour schemes are implicitly important, but it is also incredibly easy to over-clutter and crowd colours, detailing, and so forth. So this time, I decided to actually highlight the colours I would be aiming for. “Game world” and “Gameplay”are very self-explanatory and just informs how I want to build the world, and what sort of world and visual narrative I want to inform through it. And, I think tone speaks for itself.

This is a very basic way in which I set out how I want to create a project, but it also allows me to go along these lines and refer back to my notes to see if I'm straying off path, which frequently I do. But, as important as (in my opinion), games with detail and care are, sometimes less is more.

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