This week I have focused on the design of the game. I asked questions such as; “what do I want to achieve with this project?“, “how can I make the player experience what I want them to?” and “how do the mechanics help or hinder this experience?”
I thought about what is the core of the game. The core emotions I wish to instil in the player is a feeling of tension and horror as well as some level of immersive exploration. The main mechanic; the ball throw, must aid the core experience. As of now the ball throw makes exploring tense as to see you have to make noise and makes the player fearful as to what lies ahead. However, the bright colours currently in use take away from this feeling and make the game feel more like Splatoon VR. The placeholder sounds also detract from the core experience and should be changed.
The enemy as another core element of the game must add to the core experience I want to create. Currently, the enemy doesn’t feel scary, this is because the enemy simply follows the player and throwable objects. The AI has to be more complex, building tension before attacking the player. Stealth mechanics will aid this greatly, new ways to get around the enemy will also help. So I will be working to find new ways in which the player can avoid the enemy without combat.
Mitchell Gibson - Gameplay and Prototyping 