Kiki Devlog C21346656

DEV LOG –  2

Kiki Oladehin – C21346656

Inspiration from other games

As we were producing ideas on what to introduce and implement into our game we went ahead and looked at similar ones for inspiration. ‘60 Seconds’ and ‘Project Zomboid’ where first to come to mind.

Both games are phenomenally successful and share the same theme of our game – post apocalyptic.

Project zomboid was our first game that we wanted to discuss and explore. It was about zombies and had an isometric view, the idea we were going for. We play tested the game very quick just to get a feel for it, and noticed they used their mouse for the movement. Initially we were going to use standard WASD for movement, but this gave us a different outlook on how we could approach making our game.

Project Zomboid                                        |              Our Initial Game Idea

We ran into some issues with camera angling during our playtest, as the camera was simply set to follow the player. This meant that when the character was covered by third-dimensional layers, the player could not see what they were doing. To counteract this, I came up with the idea of using four 90-degree camera angles, that the player would be able to toggle between freely at the push of a button.

I wanted the game to be story driven, which would give the player incentive to replay the game more than once. I wanted the player to have a reason to interact with the environment, such as little titbits of narration upon entering a new location, finding items the player character held attachments to. This would help build a sense of lore and backstory to the character, and the world they interacted with. Another idea was the collection of easter eggs that would further enhance the players experience of the story, and perhaps even provide them with boosts on further runs.

A few weeks later, the game underwent heavy changes in style and functionality. It went from Isometric to Third-Person Open World, to First-Person Open World. Personally, I feel the game lost out on a lot of the potential it had due to this drastic change, as the original layout and idea had a fresh, unique, and promising future if it had continued as it was.

The drastic changes in art style and functionality, made it difficult to perform my role in creating a solid, uniform, story and introduction scene. The character model changed so frequently I had no idea where to start. Regardless, I still went about trying to draft a clear story to drive the game give the player a purpose. Unfortunately, there was difficulty in communicating my desire to gather a list of locations of importance to the game. The concept in mind was, the player enters a key location, and the character would enter a self-reflective monologue giving backstory, opinion, and life to these locations. For example, the player enters a hospital and starts recounting about a traumatic event that occurred during their childhood, leading to their hospitalisation. They would continue to describe the type of experience they had their, and this could vary depending on the players experience during the playthrough. For example, the player has reached the hospital with no issues, they would recount a pleasant experience. However, if the player has died multiple times, or reaches the hospital in poor health, they would tell of a much less stellar tale.

I believe a system like this would have been a strong addition to the game.