I consider that I should now start thinking about the game. What it would be like, the genre, the platform, etc. At the beginning, I imagined it as a discovery platformer game, but I decided to research a bit more before starting this.
Open World Game
During the Friday session it has been pointed out to me that my idea would work quite good as a Virtual Reality game. James showed me the “Rose and I” animated film and now I know I have to do this.
I believe an open world game would fit the theme and essential experience better than a platformer one, because you would have freedom to do anything you want, and what is more relaxing than that? In addition, I think I can actually use procedural generation to create an always-unique environment where you cannot see the same thing twice.
Since I’m having a bit of trouble with finding a suitable mechanic and mission for the game, I looked into some Open World design issues. According to James Hague, successful mission design requires that the developer let go of control within missions.
By controlling each step in the completion of a task, the designer prevents the player from playing the game how he or she wants to play it, which essentially negates the open world.
I totally agree with this and even though I don’t want to have a traditional mission game, I want the player to have the freedom to do anything they want, take their time and still be able to complete the tasks. I want to create the game in a segmented like area, not a linear mission.
Aesthetics
When asking myself what genre this game will be, I realised that a recap of what all the genres actually are would help in defining my game. I research this, and I chose three aesthetics I want my game to display: sense pleasure - being visually stunning, fantasy – having the ability to step into a role you are not able to in real life and discovery – I want to player to uncover the new.
I like what I have so far, I just need a proper mission for the player and some mechanics to support it.