Design
- Initial Game Mechanics
- Run
- Dodge
- Shoot
- Distract
- Reflection Shield
- Camera System
- 3rd Person (offset character from centre screen)
- Camera is automated, not controlled via input.
- Look at target that is on a rail between the character and the creature (the closer the character is to the creature the closer the the creature the lookTarget is)
- Camera moves closer/further from player depending on that character's distance to the Aeon (closer to Aeon = camera gets closer to player).
- Camera lags behind character a little, so forward movement means the camera will be further from character, whereas if the character moves backward towards the camera, less of the character will be seen.
- Shooting causes the camera to zoom into an 'over-the-shoulder' mode (lag time is reduced temporarily).
- Different events (such as destroying a core) will cause new camera behaviour where necessary.
- Control System
- The player is given the option to change between different control schemes in the options.
- The player uses the left and right sides of the screen in order to move the character, whereas the central section of the screen is dedicated to other actions.
- Press left to run clockwise around aeon. Press right to run counter-clockwise.
- Press the top left of the screen to both run forward and clockwise. etc
- Press the bottom left pf the screen to both run backwards and clockwise. etc
- To move directly forward or directly backward hold both the top left and top right of screen, or bottom left and bottom right of the screen simultaneously.
- Drag finger down centre of screen to 'knock the bow'.
- Let go then to fire arrow.
- Aiming of bow still to be figured out perfectly, currently suspect that dragging finger around once arrow in knocked will change where aim reticule on screen is. Possibly rely on accelerometer tilt.
- Swipe up the screen to create distraction.
- Press and hold left and right to hold up shield. This will reflect long range attacks.
- Double tap a direction to roll (need to take the hit on rolling directly forward and backward and say it cant be done. To be fair rolling should only ever be useful sideways anyway.)
- Roll can also be performed by letting go of a direction and reapplying touch to that direction again, if you need to roll whilst running.
- Tilting the device may create a slight camera rotation.
- Tap the icon at the top of the screen to exit to the in-game menu.
- During travel, tap the owl icon at the bottom of the screen to enable/disable owl transport.
- Single tap anywhere on screen if an exclamation mark appears, in order to interact with a world object.
- Single tap anywhere to skip past some dialogue. For cutscenes, tap and hold the >> button in the bottom right to fast-forward / skip it.
- Story Design
- This has depended in large part on the visuals of the creatures so has been set aside temporarily; however the basic idea behind the story is that an Owl Spirit (spirit of nature) has trapped these gigantic creatures known as Aeons in large obelisks. This was done because the Aeons were corrupting the landscape around them, and destroying life wherever they went. For centuries the Aeons have been imprisoned in this way, but as the Owl spirit's magics are beginning to wear off, you must journey into the forbidden land to renew its magics by sealing the Aeons away once again. You journey to the temple where the Owl resides, and with his help wander out to defeat each Aeon one-by-one.
Helping out on the projects concept art side of things has been Zhu Yan and Romain Hemeray. The main focus of their work so far has been to narrow down a 'visual language' for the creatures. Whilst each Aeon will be unique in both its looks and how it is fought, I considered it important that they should all feel like they are 'cut from the same cloth'. We wanted to also make sure that the Aeons felt both big, and unique. The game is drawing on a lot of sources for inspiration, but should ultimately have its own identity; and the creature design will play a huge role in this. Here's some of the art work generated:
Programming
In order to ensure that gameplay is working as soon as possible we need to get to a stage where we can prototype gameplay as quickly as possible. To that end I've already started working on a character controller system for basic movement. I have yet to implement a basic camera system yet as I've been a little busy with organising the team, but that and a basic UI system will be among the next features to get implemented. Alongside that I will be hunting for some basic animations to use in order to allow the other systems to start taking the other mechanics (such as shooting, rolling, shield etc) into account.
There's been other pieces of work in the pipeline to do with the main character, modelling and 'story-boarding' that are currently being handled as well. But other than that ... well .... that's all folks!
More news as it comes later.
