Presenting concepts and the inter-dimensional Gecko

The first thing that sprung to mind when we were given our multiple realities stimulus was having the ability to travel between parallel dimensions and the potential for interesting and fun gameplay that could come from this idea. The group spent a whole lesson talking about ideas for the game and we decided that we would present all our concepts to each other in the form of a concept document and we would decide which idea we'd like to take forward. We would decide based on how fun the concept sounded and whether it would help with our time restrictions and lack of artist.

My final concept was a fast and furious 2D platformer where the player could navigate portals which led to different dimensions. In each dimension the player's abilities and attributes would be different and also the properties of the level would change. Everything would also change aesthetically. In my head, I saw the player using the portals to change dimension in order to complete puzzles, get past certain obstacles and advance to the end of the level. I saw the narrative taking a back seat to the gameplay in this concept and came up with a simple story about a Gecko called Marty, who lives in a jungle that is under threat from an evil inter-dimensional being that was using his dark magic to transform the jungle into a dark and horrible place. Marty stumbles upon these portals and uses them to aid his escape from the jungle and to find a new home.

Happy with my idea, I presented it to the class and we decided to go with it. The other guys in the group had some great ideas too but we felt my straight forward idea allowed us to adopt a minimalist approach to the art for the game. We also felt that it allowed some exciting ideas in terms of gameplay. I also did a quick sketch of Marty the Gecko, it's kinda hard to make out due to me not going over it before scanning but there it is.

However, it wasn't long before our tutors got their hands on our concept and gave us some really good constructive criticism. Martin told us to give the player the ability to toggle dimensions rather than make use of portals to allow the player to have more control over how they finish the level and to make it a little easier for us to design.

Next up was Ben, our producer for the project and production tutor. He wanted to hear how our concept was coming along. He told us that the gameplay side of our project was coming along nicely and that he really liked our main mechanic. However, he also said that we should keep thinking about our narrative as he thought we could do something a little more interesting than we had. We quickly mourned for Marty the Gecko and decided to take his advice and discuss a new direction for the game's narrative and setting.

We scheduled an early meeting before class to renew our concept and in my next post I'll be describing what happened!

That's all for now!