Wednesday, August 27, 2014

My Game Ideas

Just in case anyone is interested, here are the game pitches that I brought to class on Wednesday. Critique is welcome!

Game Idea #1:  Attack on Titan + Shadow of the Colossus + Survival Stealth Mechanics
You wake up in a pile of rubble, feeling a faint, rhythmic shaking. You look up and see a giant walking away in the distance, leaving total destruction behind. The goal of the game is to make it across the city to the town gate without being detected by the giants roaming around. You need health packets for when you get hit with debris, and the louder you are the more likely a giant is to come by. The more people/noises that are around also means higher odds of a giant coming. You can climb buildings and scale small walls, but if you get within line of sight of a giant you have to immediately hide or be crushed.  As the giants roam more rubble forms, giving more cover, but also destroying any health packets which may have been in that house.
Visually this game should be very atmospheric, making the viewer feel tiny compared to the scale of the giants. Clouds, dust, rubble, and destruction would need to be animated in great detail. Music would be mostly non-existent, using sound effects to evoke desolation.
If there is time it would be interesting to explore level options, such as a modern day city versus a medieval village.

Game Idea #2:  Restoring Color to the World with Paint Guns
An evil color-eating demon comes to your town and sucks the life out of everything but you. Luckily you have your paint gun, and your job is to revive everyone with its vibrant spray. Find paint buckets (you need to have magenta, cyan, yellow, and black paint to fire your gun) and restore the town to its former glory. Watch out though, lifeless villagers will try to stop you, so be sure to spray them before they get you too!
The game would be a 2D platformer, and the player would be scored at the end of the game by how much they restored. The final boss is defeated by bloating it with so much paint he explodes. Difficulties could be created by making paint scarce since you need all four colors for the gun to fire. The game should be fairly ridiculous, and would be simply but beautifully illustrated.

Game Idea #3:  Dark Cloud without(?) dungeons and more politics
Your town is destroyed by a mighty storm, and you are a tenacious architect looking for a challenge. However the city manager is still a jerk and demands you get the proper approvals before you can rebuild the town. Work your way through rebuilding the town by gathering supplies, doing favors for contractors and politicians, and completing mini-games to make your masterpieces.

The game is one part search and find, one part small plotlines/quests, and one part mini game. The player needs to find the required supplies to build the project by either buying them or scavenging, which cues a mini game or a search of the ruins. Then they need to complete small tasks for the NPC's that own the land so they can get permission to build. Finally you play a mini game similar to Tetris to build the house, but it has to follow the blueprint on the screen. If you fail you can keep the supplies to reuse once, but if you fail again you have to go get more supplies. The style would be best in 2D, though 3D is also possible. The style should be fun and eclectic and not overtly dark or depressing.

Obligatory Favorite Games Post (HW 01)

Favorite Game 01: Dragon Age (specifically Origins)
Dragon Age Website
This game has an excellent plot, believable romance, and solid mechanics. I really love how Bioware has developed these kinds of choice games, where the decisions you make change the world of the next game in a profound way. Also Alistair is adorable, but that is neither here nor there.

Favorite Game 02: Thief
Thief (2014)
I've played and loved the original (now called Thief Gold), so while I haven't technically played the reboot all the way through it seems to remain pretty faithful. It gets over the old game glitches and is still the stealth crawler that we know and love. I may be biased though, I am always a rouge when I have the option, so this game catered to my inner stealthy kleptomaniac.

Obligatory Photo Post (HW 01)


    My current portfolio cover. It needs an update, but otherwise I think it's pretty solid.





Samples of my work and artistic range.


Example of web design work for DoTA fansite.


Example of weapon/book cover design.

And I think that about sums up this post, moral of the story is I want to make a gorgeous video game, or at least gorgeous concept art.



Obligatory Video Post (HW 01)

My Thesis Project: Kitsune no Yome Iri

Above is my completed thesis. All sound editing and some of the voice acting was done by me, so it should fulfill the voice-over requirement. NOTE: Dialogue is in Japanese with no subtitles. See end of video for voice acting credits.