I give you a sincere, hearty welcome to the second official post of Homemade Games, Fresh From the Oven Daily (Just Like Your Mom Used to Make). Week 2 has come to a close for us here at Hogwart's School of Gamecraft and Artistry. What occurred in Week 2?
We've got a trio of concepts laid out for the time being. All of them are closely tied to the soft body physics that we have planned for our physics engine. I'll briefly go over them. I don't want to divulge too much about our concepts at this time. We're still juggling the details, and we're not completely sure what we're going to use or not.
The first idea we had was just the basic mechanics that played off of moving throughout the world by making connections with other particles. Some of the particles would have an attractive force and some would have a repulsive force. That was really the main chunk of the idea, and we both agreed that it lacked substance as it stood. However, it was a solid, basic mechanic that would do well with the engine.
The second idea was one that was inspired by jellyfish--of all things. We had an idea of being a young creature amongst a swarm of others. Then, some event happens to cause them to become separated and scattered. The player's goal would then be to help gather them up again and put them into colonies to grow and be happy. The weakness in this concept was that lacked defined mechanics, but we really liked the story element to it.
Pictured: Inspiration.
The third idea was basically just a sandbox type of game. The player would be given basically the same sort of tools us designers would be using, and the player could paint things in the world and play with the physics to his/her heart's content. We also figured that we could have some kind of main gameplay mode that would feature puzzles or something. The only thing about this concept is that we're not really sure what all we can do with it, but it's a pretty interesting idea.
Each of these would benefit from more expansion and prototyping, of course. We are not yet totally sure which one we'd most like to do. However, my fellow designer and I felt fairly attached to the second one because of the strong story element. As a writer, I am big into that kind of thing. Our technical director came up to me and proposed and idea to me of a possibility for the game he thought up. What he proposed was actually the exact idea we had for our third concept, so that makes the third one a definite possibility.
I'd like to get a fourth idea down before Engine Proof, which is week 5. Coding has begun on our engine, and progress has been made on it. We've only got three coders, but I feel like they've got a solid grasp on things. I can imagine we'll have more and more to show each week. Right now's the planning and early development stage just to get things set up. We designers will get to prototyping very, very soon, and the coders will have their engine as well. Our first milestone is approaching quickly.
That's all for this week. We'll see how things are at the end of next week. See you then! Peace.
Sincerely,
Alicia Yeargin.
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