After many weeks of reworking game mechanics and plot flow, we have come together to make a full build of the game. There is a full story. The last steps to the game will be adding a solid ending, with future work concentrating on lighting and narrative tweaks.
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Art Updates
We’ve taken a new direction with the way the levels are set up, in order to achieve the feeling of a dream world.
All the worlds will have a broken up set up, whether the roof is only partially there or like the family room and kitchen, broken off into sections. The church is in a similar fashion with half of the roof and wall missing. Additionally they will be placed into a white washed world to further insinuate the world is not real but a memory.
The family world in particular is supposed to evoke “displacement” as if something seems off or distant about being home.
Reference
Playtest Build #2
New test build includes Art Studio, memory terrain, chapel memory bubble and living room memory bubble. New playtesting session will test visual style and flow of new game layout.
Playtesting Notes from 6/5/14
On Thursday we had a playtester come into our meeting to try out the current gameflow of Remembrance. Overall there was positive feedback about the control scheme and how the game flowed from apartment to terrain world to the memory bubble. In addition, the dialogue boxes that are prompted when player approaches an object were also met positively. The playtester was able to infer that their character was not confident about herself. a theme we are trying to integrate into the gameplay. Below are the playtesting notes.
Girl Model ( Wip ) – Pictures –
Core Gameplay Build 6/3/14
http://cguevara.com/Build.html
The following build shows the core mechanic gameplay of the new iteration of Remembrance.
From the last build many things have been changed:
- Apartment building has changed from God-mode to third person interaction
- The terrain changes at player’s will and they can freely interact with it
- Memory bubbles accessed by traversing the terrain world through puzzles
- the environments are more realistic and less dream-like
- Player interacts will all objects instead of interacting with NPCs
5/29/14 Meeting Notes
Gameplay mechanics were discussed during this meeting. To further promote agency within the game, we looked at games such as Dear Ester and Gone Home. Gone Home primarily has the player interact with objects within the home, prompting a text object. The same concept will be used in the Art Room. The player will have to look around the room and interact with object. Interacting with an object will prompt a text box explaining what it is and who’s painting or sculpture it was. Interacting with it will make the object fade and “dissolve” into particles that the player absorbs. The final artifact that you observe is your own, which then triggers a new ability and opens up a portal to exit the memory bubble. However, instead of the whole easel disappearing, only your canvas turns to white.
In total, 4 easels/canvases and 2 sculptures will have this feature.
In addition to this, with art assets starting to come in, we have implemented a more efficient file structure on Dropbox to make file sharing easier.
Art Style and Direction
Thursday’s meeting consisted of finalizing the look and feel of the game and it’s art style. Using spotlights to emphasize objects within the memory bubble and having the textures fade into white will further bring the player’s attention to the object they need to retrieve. Using these techniques will differentiate further the differences between the physical world, the memory world where the player navigates and the memory bubbles themselves. The apartment itself is very solid, concrete with realistic textures. The memory itself however, although has detailed textures as well, still has a dreamy pastel color tone to it.
Depicted below is a progression of the player’s avatar as they progress through the game. Coming from a small town to a big city, she progresses from closed off and shy (hoodie, jeans, ponytail), to slightly more confident, (Braid, styled clothing) to a changed more open person (dress, longer hair and an even more stylized look). Since she will be the main focus of the game, the character will be of a higher detail and quality.
Notes and To-do List
From our meeting on 5/8/14
- 5 worlds have been agreed to start modeling assets for. Of these worlds are:
- Bedroom
- Art classroom
- Library
- Family Room/Living room from the character’s original home town
- Church
- It has been agreed that the progression of the game will go from artifact from the apartment, that triggers the memory world, leading to navigating a terrain puzzle that leads to the actual memory bubble where the player will play through a memory
- Concept art has been created that depicts a progression of the character’s personality from shy to more outgoing
- Each memory world will have it’s own theme and color scheme to correspond to the artifact that the player will be taking back with them to the apartment
- Tasks have been assigned to each team member
- Anthony – character modeling and asset creation for the art room
- Caroline – Asset creation such as abstract sculptures and art room supplies to place in the room
- Lina – Texture creation and modification for such models as well as additional sculptures
- Kenneth – Further Prototyping to create platforms within the memory world and gameplay mechanics
- Jichen – Fleshing out the backstory for each memory bubble
Remembrance 