DEVLOG #2

Hello again! 

Our progress has been at a standstill since our last dev log,  but we are here to elaborate more on our idea! We've already fleshed out our intended gameplay and the general narrative blockout, so we've decided to expand upon the aesthetics of our intended experience.

Game Pitch

The deliverable following our research and ideation phase was our official game pitch! Solidifying the idea of the game allowed us to create a good foundation for development going forward, especially with how narrative-heavy we intend our game to be.

As we've discussed previously, our game takes on the main mechanic of packing and strategizing your resources to have enough money to cover housing rent.  Amongst the more profitable items to sell are belongings that hold immense sentimental value to the protagonist, which we wish to convey through it's visual and dialogue charms. Allowing the player to interact and manipulate their environment is the core experience we wish to deliver,  which means building an attractive yet intriguing setting will give players more reason to connect with the rooms and personal possessions that reside within them.

Artstyle Guide

Since our gameplay relies on the player interacting with the 3D environment, we wanted to create a distinct art style that distinguished our game's focus on the narrative props. We want the players to grow attached to their belongings and replicate the pains of having to give away mementos or other treasured items via our designed gameplay, further emphasizing the struggles many people facing the housing crisis are forced to go through. To ideate what we wanted the game to look like, we compiled a series of images of various game environments to illustrate our concept.

Our art style takes inspiration from the imperfect geometry of Psychonauts and Tim Burton, creating assets that divert from its generic geometry while still maintaining its root features. We wish to strike a balance between the monotone greys and vibrant hues to convey the quirkiness of the protagonist, yet the graveness of the housing crisis. Rather than simply modeling conventional items to their intended scale and appearance, we want to innovate a theme that gives the player's belongings more flavors beyond being keepsakes. It gives personality to conventional furniture and increases the sentimental value of potentially sold-off goods. Sketching up ideas for room concepts, we started to get a better idea of depicting a typical student's apartment in the bizarre geometry we were inspired by, designing props that stray from their typical forms while maintaining their recognizable features.

Using the concept sketches, we wanted to evaluate just how wacky we wanted to push the geometry of the various furniture in the protagonist's room, giving them unique shapes that still keep their purpose recognizable. This serves as a good starting point to further innovate as we continue to flesh out a full art style guide, and eventually get to 3D modeling.

Above all else, we have charged 3 VR headsets to prepare for playtesting (equipment is very important after all).

Next Steps

Other than what we've logged so far, we chose to prioritize other projects as there were some really big assignments due and we’ve had a good idea of the specifics of our game for a few weeks. Continuing our development, we will continue building up the narrative, finalizing the art style, and other technicalities revolving around our ideation phase.

Stay tuned for our next update!