DEVLOG 1

DEV LOG #1

Hiiii, This is the Chluffles (pronounced Cluh-fulls) and we are making a VR game called “Handle with Care”! We are a group of young game designers united to create great and impactful experiences. 

Come meet the gang!

Lucas: Narrative Designer, 3D Artist, Level Designer

Chloe: Narrative Designer, 3D Artist, 2D Artist, Level Designer

Jude: Programer

Axel: Programer

Ben: UI Designer, 3D Artist, 2D Artist, Programer (TBD)

As people from the younger generation enter the housing market in Toronto, we all fear finding a liveable situation in this time of economic crisis. That’s why we’d like to make a game about such a widespread issue within Toronto.

So what is our game?

“Handle with Care” is a stressful story where players must manage their budget amidst a ruthless housing crisis in Toronto. The gameplay includes unpacking their belongings into numerous apartments they can barely afford. As their situation worsens, the player must move out into progressively smaller and smaller apartments which leaves less space for their belongings. The player can then choose which of their memorabilia to sell off when there's no space, which might help them keep their apartment for a little longer.

But the inevitable must occur, and the cycle will repeat itself until all that's left is a space just big enough for your clothes.

Research

Individually, we researched to find out more about the housing crisis to properly discuss it in our game. Here are some things we found:

• Those in real estate tend to exploit the housing prices to gain more profit 
• Many apartments are rented out as AirBnB’s. Some Canadians’ live in AirBnB’s
• Immigrants are affected disproportionately by the housing crisis 
• Immigrants are often the scapegoat of why the housing crisis has become so bad
• There are 2 movements made in response to the situation
  • YIMBY is for building more affordable housing and more infrastructure
  • NIMBY is against building more housing and infrastructure   

Research Takeaways

The topic itself is very stressful for everyone involved. Not physically, but mentally. We’d like to reflect that by having relaxed gameplay mechanics, but a looming sense of doom that hovers over you while you play. We’d like for the game to be from the perspective of an immigrant as they receive the worst of this situation. The research helped immensely to give us a new perspective. 

Game Experience

Our aim is to create a stressful story but to give it relaxed moment-to-moment gameplay. The stress should come from the narrative, the constant looming fear that you can be evicted from your home. However, the majority of the game is about unpacking your belongings into a new place. You’ll be able to pick up objects and place them down wherever you want. Interacting with objects is also encouraged (they’re your precious belongings, after all). However, over time the rent will get too high and the player will have to pack all their belongings back into their boxes and move into a smaller apartment. Due to the smaller space, you’ll have to sell some of your precious belongings to make room and some extra money to keep you afloat. Then the cycle continues. Eventually, there won’t be space for all your belongings and you’ll have to sell some of them off. 

Concept Art

The image below is an example of what the player might see in the game, where players can pick up personal belongings and inspect them further to learn about the item's history with the player's character.

We wish to recreate the effect of letting go of something near and dear to the player through our design. Getting players to grow attachments to their surroundings will leave more sentimental value within their belongings, making it harder for the player to give them up when they need to sell it off.  Our team enjoys the idea of challenging players' resource management and empathy, as letting go of beloved objects and history is unfortunately a cruel reality of people suffering from housing crises.

Next Steps

Now that we have the basic premise of the game, it’s on to begin development.

We will begin working on pre-production such as our GDD, planning out our narrative beats, and characters, deciding on an art style with references, as well as concept art/models.

We plan to use Unreal Engine to develop our game. Many on the team aren’t the most familiar with the tools yet, so the programmers will test the engine to see if it is suitable for our game, as well as our scope with the learning curve that comes with learning new tools.

Feel Free To Comment!

We'd love to hear what thoughts you have about our ideation thus far. Follow our page to stay up to date with our project development!