This week was largely focused on getting our project off the ground and to begin development as soon as possible, so we could maximize the amount of development time we had.
We had our team formed on the first day and immediately started brainstorming our ideas. We each pitched ideas we had in mind, and voted on which one seemed the most interesting. In the end, we settled on creating a roguelite/metroidvania game inspired by the likes of Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and Hades.
Once we had our concept in place, we started expanding on it, figuring out core game mechanics, ideas for our character, and narrative. The original pitch was a dark fantasy setting but didn't get much deeper than that. Eventually, we developed it into a world of flame and ashes that we called...
TOWER OF ASH
A lone Kindling is guided to the Tower of Ash by a mysterious voice.
Their goal is to ascend the tower to challenge the guardian for the Undying Flame, giving them immortality through a never ending flame.
The concept of this game is to climb your way up the Tower of Ash while on a time limit. As you explore further, you will encounter dangerous enemies, and learn new abilities to help you climb the Tower even further. However, when time runs out, or when you die, you must begin your climb from the bottom all over again.
This idea was inspired by the roguelike genre, from games such as Hades, Dead Cells, The Binding of Isaac, etc., and the exploration-heavy focus of Metroid, Castlevania, and Hollow Knight. However, we wanted to do a different take on this combination of genres, focusing less on the random generation typically seen in roguelikes and focusing on the exploration of metroidvanias, while still retaining the incremental skill gain from roguelikes. Both genres are notoriously difficult, so we wanted to target players looking for a challenge.
Once these elements were in place, planning quickly began. We set up our team roles and established a Trello board, to keep track of our progress and to list every task we needed to finish.
We also wrote down all the possible abilities the player would have, so that player controls could begin as quickly as possible. We settled on standard running and jumping movement, and five unlockable abilities:
- Dash
- Double Jump
- Wall Jump
- Spin Attack
- Fireball
The point of these abilities was to give to the player new movement and combat options, to give a sense of progression and also to give a reward for exploration. With these abilities created, Jonathan got to work on creating the character controls in Unity, with the effort to make it feel as responsive and tight as possible, to allow for better maneuverability. Nathan aided in development of the player controls and helped work out bugs that were encountered.
At the same time, Herman and Matthew began working on creating the character art of the player, and beginning to make some animations to be implemented.
Next week, we will be beginning the level design for the whole map. The goal is to make a maze-like world with many branching paths, dead ends, and shortcuts to discover. This is being started after the character controls because the level design has to fit the character controls, otherwise it would be tough to navigate and the player would not feel like a natural part of the game's world. The player controls will have combat mechanics added, and the design of the final boss will be brainstormed. Assets and animations will continue to be created.
Until next time,
Sleep No More
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