New Project
-The first week
For the next project I will be finally focusing on stencyl in the creation of a 2D Sidescroller Action adventure platformer. For the first week of this project I spent a large period of time working out what I was going to do for the plot and how to approach the learning agreement. After some thought and inspiration I found my idea, and completed the learning agreement so I can begin on work for good.
The Idea:
You play as Mira Fabula – a young girl with an incredible imagination who works for a small group known as ‘Editors’. Editors are in charge of looking after the living universes within books and films. When a young and talented apprentice decides to use the power over these worlds to take command and rule them– Mira is asked to use her imagination to enter the worlds and save them from the perils that shouldn’t exist: Spaceships disturbing the rest of a medieval world, Dragons attacking pirate ships, etc. and bring the troublesome apprentice back into the real world. To do this she must take command of her imagination and wield fantastic powers straight from these worlds – swords and shields, capes, guns, and even a mermaid’s body.
Genre:
Action/ Adventure with possible Platforming elements
Inspirations:
(Narrative)
(Accessed 20/03/2012)
The narrative is very reminiscent of old games like Spyro the Dragon or Crash Bandicoot whereby the player traversed varied and fantastic worlds, speaking to their inhabitants before solving their problems. At the end of the level they would be given a reward before progressing onwards. A grand evil genius or Tyrant was the Antagonist. Other games like Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank also emulate this narrative.
Kingdom Hearts is another game like this – where a protagonist would enter worlds unlike his own and form friendships and work with its inhabitants. These worlds were Disney based so were vibrant and friendly. Outside elements were the ‘Heartless’ and ‘Nobodies’, while the Antagonists were relative to the protagonists world – yet threatened others.
*Honourable Mention: I feel I ought to mention a concept created by a friend on the course, Jessica Betts, when talking about my idea. While it wasn’t an influence, her concept 'Zork' involved traveling into books and abiding by each worlds conventions (having swords and shields in a medieval world, etc.) The game was a first person and after I formulated my idea, I realised the similarities between to two. However I feel that both our ideas are striving for completely different things but I thought her idea should be brought up, in case it had been a subconscious influence on the narrative.
(Style, feel and Mood)
–These are a few of the different points of reference that I am going to look at to get ideas about how to present my game, or things that are relative to the ideas I have:
Limbo
(Accessed 20/03/2012)
When you think of silhouettes in a fluid sidescroller, the first game that normally comes to mind is the world of Limbo, where a young silhouetted child traverses a world made of simple silhouette objects, with dark but excellently lit areas. One thing that I might take from Limbo is how exceptionally simple the game objects are in comparison to the environment – perhaps a hint at how I could make mine look as smooth
Little Big Planet
Little Big Planet is a staple example of a fluid platformer, and why I am looking at it is largely in relation to the unique ‘handmade’ style of the objects. You climb over platforms of cardboard, sponge, metal, ice and swing on string. It feels very Organic – like the Eden of East ending below. Maybe I could scan in various materials to use as in game items to replicate this with the ‘out of place’ elements in the world?
Apple Jack
http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/gaming/upload/2010/08/apple_jack.jpg
(Access 20/03/2012)
An excellent sidescroller that is bright and colourful on the Xbox live ‘indie marketplace’. This game makes use of the techniques used in limbo but is much brighter in colour and has an excellent ‘mood’. The soundtrack for this game really suits it, and after researching the artist behind this game I discovered that his music is available to share and use in projects. I might email him and use his tracks in my demo.
Children’s Picture books/ Pop up books
I haven’t looked at many as of yet, but I will research and look at picture books or adaptations as inspiration for the backgrounds
Hotel Dusk
I look at hotel dusk very often for inspiration – normally when relating to narrative, but this time I am looking at it from an aesthetic perspective and this proves to be a perfect example of how I could implement the silhouetted characters into the book worlds.
(Accessed 20/03/2012)
In Hotel Dusk the sprites look like cut outs hastily placed onto the screen. They are fluidly animated, yet the changing edges really feel like someone is placing several images, one on top of another, to create a flick book style animation. I think this is a really nice style and might be how the protagonist character could be animated
Eden of the East ending
This ending really was another inspiration for me with possible styles as it is an excellently made animation that makes use of plain paper silhouettes and really plays with shadows taking the form of a real object, etc. Also making reference to the content of the anime, the character destroys missiles by pointing at them and pretending to fire a pistol using their hands. In the animation the missile is replaced by a pencil and instead of an explosion, it turns into a crumpled up piece of paper (Possible idea for how things could be destroyed in my work?)
Either way I can see this animation really influencing the execution of my concept
Outland
In a talk with tutors this game was brought up as a possible example to look at so I shall play some of it this evening to see if it could be a possible influence, posting up my thoughts afterwards.
What Next?
In the learning agreement I stated that I had planned to create a design document with characters, gameplay mechanics and narrative in the first week to accompany my demo so I will focus on working out the gameplay mechanics tomorrow, generating ideas for characters, enemies, assets and scenarios Thursday and onwards. I aim to keep to the target of completing a first draft design document before the week is out so that I can spend next week focus on teaching myself Stencyl.
![http://www.emuparadise.me/fup/up/37594-Spyro_the_Dragon_2_-_Ripto's_Rage_[NTSC-U]-1-thumb.jpg](http://www.emuparadise.me/fup/up/37594-Spyro_the_Dragon_2_-_Ripto's_Rage_[NTSC-U]-1-thumb.jpg){kind=link}
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