Devlog #1 - Concepts

Week 2 - 01.08.2018

So far, the basic ideas and concepts of the game were done in the two weeks this was worked on last year. However, ideas on the directions of the game, possible outcomes and the actual "gamey" aspect of the game was not fully considered yet. The first thing we had to do was come up with how the game was to be played which helped us prioritize what needed to be done in each week as well as what exactly we wanted in the game and the scope for the 12 weeks.

This is a flowchart for the game; it has different pathways for what the player can do and what it may lead to. Later on in the weeks we will probably tweak it. Adding new things or taking things out based on how tight we want the scope to be or if we decide something else is more suitable for what we want for the game. (The image is small and unreadable for spoilers sake!) 

I felt that doing this was really important as it helped organise our thoughts in a very literal way. We had ideas, put them on a page and arranged it in a flowchart so we could see exactly what steps we needed to do and in what order. This helped with not only getting ideas out and organised but also with helping us know how big our scope is and what things we needed to prioritize in terms of workload on a week to week basis. Although we don't know the exact details on what we need to do each week and things will be clearer as the weeks go on, we have a rough understanding of what we need to do.

Next, I worked on a rough narrative and dialogue for certain interactions in the game. It definitely isn't polished but I was able to get ideas out so that I could get a feel for the world itself which will help with refining later on. I found this to be quite difficult to do as I'm not the best writer and for some of the dialogue I felt quite uncomfortable typing it out as I personally would never say some of these things. I had to consider what things the characters could say that would make it believable and not forced. This will be tested next week in the playtesting session. So far the dialogue is in a word doc but I think I might put it in another flowchart as it'll be easier for us to read when making the game and also easier for us to create a dialogue where we can decide if we want to have it so that what the player chooses to say will impact the game.

Finally for this week, I've been working on making the main character models for the game. This is something I am still working on. I decided to get started on them now so that they'd be ready for when we want to fix up the models in game and start putting in certain interactions. I started with the character models instead of the environment models because I take longer making characters than I do with environment assets. For the moment, I'm just getting the base of the characters done so I can focus more on working on the dialogue and interactions.

This week, the thing I think I struggled with the most was writing for the game. When I got started on it, I sat there staring at a blank page for quite a while before starting. I had ideas already in my head but I think I was just scared of not writing well or putting out bad ideas. After forcing myself to start typing, I realised that it doesn't matter if it's bad, I was just getting ideas out so I could fix it up later. It's still hard coming up with ideas and getting them to sound (at least) decent but if I'm able to get the ideas out on the page, I can get myself in the world and ideas will just flow. (I don't know if that made sense! I guess what I'm trying to say is that I learning to not be afraid of failing because if I am I won't get my work done. If I start working and it doesn't go well, at least I have something to work off of to fix and make better!)

Thanks for reading!! 

-Jo :-)