Since we are expected to have two entries per week, I thought I'd share another concept with you all. This game idea is probably the most deciding factor in what made me want to become a Game Designer.
The game is called The Crystalweb Chronicles. The initial concept for the game came to me while I was dusting my bedroom. I'm terrified of spiders (yet strangely fascinated by them), so I don't do it very often. But I noticed that a tiny colony had set up shop just behind my desk in the corner where two walls met. I sat and looked at it for a while and wondered what it must be like for a spider; to have it's home destroyed every time someone dusts or sweeps, then being forced to rebuild again. Thus the idea for TCC came about.
Story (elevator pitch):
After his city is destroyed, a common house spider called Onyx sets out with a loony mage harvestman known as Pop to find the legendary creator of Cobbleweb City, Crystalweb. But his journey is hampered by Rocky; a desert tarantula and leader of the deadly Red Backs, who is bent on using the city's destruction to his own advantage.
Player:
The player in this single-player RPG takes on the role of Onyx. Tutorial/Gameplay help is provided by nearby NPC's (mainly Pop, who teaches Onyx Aracana, or Spider Magic).
Skills/Abilities:
There are two main combat styles: melee and magical. Melee attacks generally deal non-elemental damage, but are less powerful than magical attacks. Magical attacks (unlike melee attacks, which are available from the start of the game) are acquired throughout 'encounters' or random battles with members/cronies of the Red Back Gang.
Magical attacks can be elemental or non-elemental (arcana, specified arcana). Each spider is assigned an element (Fire, Water, Thunder, Earth), depending on where they are found (e.g. Rocky, a desert tarantula, is an Earth Spider and is therefore weak to water spells, but strong against Thunder). In order to complete the game, the player must master each type of Aracana.
Genre:
The Crystalweb Chronicles is/are (possibility of a sequel?) an adventure RPG. It is aimed at the discerning RPG player who is looking for a more challenging game with a more intriguing and unusual storyline.
This is as much as I have got so far. I have some rough concept art that I will post at a later date.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Day One - Group Members, Reflections and Initial Concepts!
Introduction:
Welcome, ladies and gents, to the first blog entry of Defend Ankh-Morpork! A game based on Terry Pratchett's phenomenal book series, Discworld. First of all, we acknowledge the right of Mr Pratchett as the literary owner and on-high ruler of all things Discworld and therefore must stress that this is only a university project, not an actual product. That said, with all due respect, we'd like to borrow the proud city of Ankh and pestilent Morpork for a few weeks to at least pass our subject.
Our group consists of myself, Amy Vellnagel and Courtney Dawson. While we are yet to come up with a company name (since Hasbro and Mattel are taken, damn!), we expect it will come to us. Eventually.
Reflections on lecture 1:
This was mainly a recap of ITB750, which was good, as I suspect that many people (including myself) may have forgotten concepts like paida, ludus, alea, mimicry, etc. It was a nice refresher and very useful.
I did have a go at reading the required study... this week it was a bunch of slides from a conference in 2005. Now, while most of it made some sort of vague sense, the analogy of using chemistry in a way to denote game design is ludicrous. I did study science and I'm well aware that the concepts being idealised were utter tosh. Gameplay tends to flow from point a to point b, whereas in science (in particular chemistry), there is often no starting point. You can get an idea of the beginning, but solutions are always flexible. Games revolve in a world of numbers that are fairly rigid, regardless.
Well, that's how I look at it, anyway. I could always be wrong.
Game concepts:
Since we were told to change our journals as far as anything concerning the assignment goes, I will blog here some ideas I've had concerning some other games. Usually, I dabble in ideas for sequels, so for this blog, I'd like to present Kingdom Hearts III: Boundary Alliance. My inspiration for the game concept came from playing the second KH game, which I consider to be the best game ever. In one of the 'worlds', there is such a thing as the Cornerstone of Light, which protects Disney Castle and is the source of 'white' magic. The initial concept was 'Where there is light, there is darkness. There must always be a balance'. What if the balance was tipped, but not in favour of darkness? What would happen if the balance fell in favour of light? The following is what I brain-stormed:
Name - Kingdom Hearts: Boundary Alliance
Important features -
Once peace was restored to all worlds; Sora, Riku and Kairi returned home. But all was good. Too good. Darkness began disappearing everywhere until, finally, the sun never set.
The Endless Day heralded King Mickey's arrival in the Destiny Islands. He explained that a neophyte of the Guardians of Light (keepers of the Cornerstone of Light) had stolen the six Dark Crystals of Xenon from the Heart of Darkness, that which make up the Cornerstone of Darkness, shifting the fragile yet crucial balance of light and dark. There were no more boundaries.
Teaming up with former enemies Maleficent and Hades, King Mickey hopes to restore the balance with the Boundary Alliance; a group of prominent leaders from both the realm of light and the realm of darkness. To do this, Sora must rejoin Donald and Goofy to recover the Crystals of Xenon, which lay scattered in hiding-places over the worlds. In the meantime; Riku, Kairi and the King must track down the neophyte who stole them and confront him.
Should Sora and his friends fail, the singular crystals will be obliterated with the overwhelming power of light and Darkness will be no more. But Sora and co. still wield their keyblades and are confident that they will recover the lost Crystals of Darkness and restore the boundaries of light and dark.
Characters:
Returning from KH I & II are -
Welcome, ladies and gents, to the first blog entry of Defend Ankh-Morpork! A game based on Terry Pratchett's phenomenal book series, Discworld. First of all, we acknowledge the right of Mr Pratchett as the literary owner and on-high ruler of all things Discworld and therefore must stress that this is only a university project, not an actual product. That said, with all due respect, we'd like to borrow the proud city of Ankh and pestilent Morpork for a few weeks to at least pass our subject.
Our group consists of myself, Amy Vellnagel and Courtney Dawson. While we are yet to come up with a company name (since Hasbro and Mattel are taken, damn!), we expect it will come to us. Eventually.
Reflections on lecture 1:
This was mainly a recap of ITB750, which was good, as I suspect that many people (including myself) may have forgotten concepts like paida, ludus, alea, mimicry, etc. It was a nice refresher and very useful.
I did have a go at reading the required study... this week it was a bunch of slides from a conference in 2005. Now, while most of it made some sort of vague sense, the analogy of using chemistry in a way to denote game design is ludicrous. I did study science and I'm well aware that the concepts being idealised were utter tosh. Gameplay tends to flow from point a to point b, whereas in science (in particular chemistry), there is often no starting point. You can get an idea of the beginning, but solutions are always flexible. Games revolve in a world of numbers that are fairly rigid, regardless.
Well, that's how I look at it, anyway. I could always be wrong.
Game concepts:
Since we were told to change our journals as far as anything concerning the assignment goes, I will blog here some ideas I've had concerning some other games. Usually, I dabble in ideas for sequels, so for this blog, I'd like to present Kingdom Hearts III: Boundary Alliance. My inspiration for the game concept came from playing the second KH game, which I consider to be the best game ever. In one of the 'worlds', there is such a thing as the Cornerstone of Light, which protects Disney Castle and is the source of 'white' magic. The initial concept was 'Where there is light, there is darkness. There must always be a balance'. What if the balance was tipped, but not in favour of darkness? What would happen if the balance fell in favour of light? The following is what I brain-stormed:
Name - Kingdom Hearts: Boundary Alliance
Important features -
- Guardians of Light - Six Crystals of Argon
- Dictators of Darkness - Six Crystals of Xenon
Once peace was restored to all worlds; Sora, Riku and Kairi returned home. But all was good. Too good. Darkness began disappearing everywhere until, finally, the sun never set.
The Endless Day heralded King Mickey's arrival in the Destiny Islands. He explained that a neophyte of the Guardians of Light (keepers of the Cornerstone of Light) had stolen the six Dark Crystals of Xenon from the Heart of Darkness, that which make up the Cornerstone of Darkness, shifting the fragile yet crucial balance of light and dark. There were no more boundaries.
Teaming up with former enemies Maleficent and Hades, King Mickey hopes to restore the balance with the Boundary Alliance; a group of prominent leaders from both the realm of light and the realm of darkness. To do this, Sora must rejoin Donald and Goofy to recover the Crystals of Xenon, which lay scattered in hiding-places over the worlds. In the meantime; Riku, Kairi and the King must track down the neophyte who stole them and confront him.
Should Sora and his friends fail, the singular crystals will be obliterated with the overwhelming power of light and Darkness will be no more. But Sora and co. still wield their keyblades and are confident that they will recover the lost Crystals of Darkness and restore the boundaries of light and dark.
Characters:
Returning from KH I & II are -
- Sora
- Riku
- Kairi
- King Mickey
- Donald
- Goofy
- Leon (Squall Leonhart)
- Cid
- Yuffie
- Aerith
- Cloud
- Ansem
- Maleficient
- Hades
Joining the cast are -
- Guardians of Light
Comprising of three masters and three apprentices (known as neophytes), the Guardians of Light protect the Cornerstone of Light and its composite components, The Six Crystals of Argon. The crystals by name are:
1. Azur (light blue)
2. Scarl (red)
3. Safra (yellow)
4. Bluzra (pink)
5. Vulcan (orange)
6. Argort (white)
Master Guardians - Neophytes
Mickey - Sora
Ansem the Wise - Riku
Dellan - Roanefold
- Dictators of Darkness
Master Guardians - Neophytes
Maleficent - Mordred
Hades - Khaos
Khann - Demeter
Khann and his son, Demeter, rule the darkness of Kingdom Hearts. They hold the two most powerful crystals of Xenon, Crystal Indiga (purple) and Obsidian (black). The complete list of Cornerstone component crystals is:
1. Indiga (purple)
2. Toxa (dark green)
3. Abyssa (dark blue)
4. Void (charcoal grey)
5. Theta (silver)
6. Obsidian (black)
- Khann
Not inheritly evil, Khann understands that a balance must be kept after Xehanort's twice-failed attempts to access Kingdom Hearts' darkness.
Demeter, his son, is brash and hot-headed. He believes that darkness should reign, unrestrained. It was he who was in charge of re-energising the Xenon crystals when Roanefold stole them.
During his time in the darkness, Khann watched over Riku but never made himself known.
King Mickey first learned of Khann's existence after the Endless Day began.
- Khaos
Khaos is Hades' nephew; a wild child who takes after his uncle a little too much. Khaos is energetic and brutal, often eliminating anyone in his way. In a way, he and Demeter are very similar.
Worlds:
- Atlantis - hero/es Kida, then Milo (boss - Commander Rourke) - human
- Ant Colony (A Bug's Life) - Flick (Grasshoppers) - human, shrunk
- Man Village (The Jungle Book) - Mowgli (Shere Khan) - human
- Treasure Planet - Jim Hawkins (John Silver) - human
- Barrier Reef (Finding Nemo) - Marlin (Sharks) - fish (see Atlantica)
- Great Forest (Bambi) - Grown Bambi (Poachers) - deerform (like Prideland from KH2)
Gameplay:
Players alternate between Sora and Riku throughout the game as the two storylines diverge at the beginning and ultimately converging at the end for the last showdown against Roanefold.
King Mickey and Kairi form Riku's party while Donald and Goofy form Sora's.
King Mickey carries his keyblade while Kairi now carries Oathkeeper, since Sora returned her lucky charm to her.
Fiction:
Something I started. The following link is to a page where I began writing the storyline for the game as a novelisation:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3619016/1/Kingdom_Hearts_Boundary_Alliance
Conclusion:
In all, not a bad start. We have a group, a general concept (that may or may not change) and a good background knowledge. Now, where to go from here...
*Australian dated 29/02/28
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