Project Name
Working title
Abstract
The main idea of the game is that you are rebuilding a new environment from the remains of an old one. The second player will tell the player underground what to build and the underground player must adapt to the environment they are in whether its in the jungle or a cave like area with lots of rock, they must find a way to make life sustainable.
They can find certain resources underground like for instance if they are in a cave they might find coal and if the other player gives a stick they can make a fire torch so they can see.
Another scenario could be the player underground is in a jungle there will be lots of vegetation and water so the player underground decides to grow something so they need a spade to dig a patch for growing things.
Most of the crafting methods have been inspired by Minecraft as well as digging underground which partly also comes from an archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans who uncovered an ancient city as well as architecture that has been relocated in museums and other countries. This research came from the idea two different of worlds and what the afterlife could look like and how we can preserve things that are valuable in a new world.
Another topic of research which was supernatural entities which shows the connection between two worlds and how people from our world can communicate with them, in this case the player will be passing resources to the player underground. The main reason I wanted to research this as well was from what I found out about near death experiences and what these people have experienced and from doctors studying these patients they believe something spiritual happens to you when you die which is where the afterlife comes into play.
The main reason I chose these research avenues is because nearly everyone has always wanted to know what life is like outside of our scientific understanding and how this evidence can be proven. I was originally going to study more about religion but then it opened up some more topics for me like how religion perceives the meaning to life, agnosticism and ethics as well as entities. I had a rough for these other topics but they seemed far too complicated where as many games like oxen free use the concept of a connection with another world which was a good starting of inspiration on the topic of entities.
Visuals
.jpg)
General art style
Goals
From a commercial angle I think there are several ways I could achieve something. This idea can be developed into something far more interactive like motion capture where the player can interact with the game through body movements, these kind of games focus less on aesthetics and more on the usability which I guess makes it a bit more fun but I need to make sure this responds to my audience as its all about understanding the audience.
The idea of two different realms kind of works in this game but doesn't really explore the supernatural entity theme which is what I was hoping to use but when brainstorming ways on how to use these topics were difficult to combine. My first initial concept was to make something narrative based from a religious perspective but then I thought if I'm doing two different realms it needs to be more about the interactions which I guess needs to be the main thing that stands out.
What I personally hope to achieve from this is more time to work on my 3D skills for my portfolio. If this project does move towards production it will need coding and animation depending if its third person, which is something new for me to try as well as something that could support my portfolio.
User experience
Target Audience: The player working in the world above will be in a harsh wasteland environment whilst the player in the underground world will be in a utopic clean world, so I guess the target audience is really kind of open as it would appeal to a wide range of social classes.
Competitive Analysis
My competition would be Minecraft as the mechanics and crafting methods have taken a lot of inspiration from it but how does it differ? The art style I'm going for is a lot more mature and realistic which gives the player a more interesting world to explore other than just gathering resources. Minecraft is a game of creativity but whilst this game is creative as well it can also show emotion for the player in exploring a world that used to be there home but is now a dystopic wasteland.
I guess the idea of two worlds interacting is what oxen free does but doesn't show an idea of what the other world could look like and instead explores the supernatural theme in more horror like genre. My game does the opposite and hopefully gives the player more chance to discover things this ways.
Critical Analysis
The topics that I am researching that aren't specifically games related are afterlife experiences, movement of architecture and the preservation of it. A key example of this is some books and articles I researched throughout phase 2
-
Moody, R. (2016). Life After Life. [online] Google Books. Ebury Publishing. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Life_After_Life.html?id=EOZsCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.
-
Rollet, C. (2018a). The odd reality of life under China’s social rating system. [online] Wired UK. Available at: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-blacklist [Accessed 31 Oct. 2020].
-
Mark, J.J. (2016). Egyptian Afterlife - The Field of Reeds. [online] Ancient History Encyclopedia. Available at: https://www.ancient.eu/article/877/egyptian-afterlife---the-field-of-reeds/.
-
afterlife101.com. (n.d.). Afterlife 101. [online] Available at: https://afterlife101.com/ [Accessed 2 Nov. 2020].
Project Content
This will be a Unity based game with 3D animations done in blender or 3Ds max (both are optional). The game uses a similar style to surge and fallout I need to research what components they use to make their environments so visually appealing.
From the Surge wiki in the development section, the company used Nvidia Gameworks which is a middleware software which provides a wide range of graphic enhancements. If I can't use something like this blender or 3Ds Max can do something similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surge - development section.
Blender is also used as a game engine and its features could support graphic content similar to Nvidia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_Game_Engine - features section.
Fallout 4 uses creation engine which is a 3D video game engine. In the development section of the wiki page they talk about enhancing the graphical core by adding a physically based deferred renderer to allow for more dynamic lighting and to paint materials object surfaces with realistic materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Engine.
Reading up about the history of Unity 2.0 it has 50 features, including an optimized terrain engine for detailed 3D environments, real time dynamic shadows similar to what the creation engine has. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)