Concept doc (artwork)

 I've been doing imagery for my concept doc, i did this one in more detail and with colour. It was monochrome before like everything else so i'm on a mission to fix it. It's rather inconvenient though.

This is the mock up for the notebook, i might have to change it a bit when i show it in the GUI section, like show the hand bringing it up and opening the notebook.

I did this one because i needed some artwork for the narrative USP and i didn't want to just reuse the two character artwork pieces of Alys and Gabriel. It's pretty rough but i didn't have much time. 

I trying to find the time to get extra artwork done but i think i might have to cut some corners and reuse or not have any imagery in certain sections. I can't see it being needed to have artwork showing first person movement, that just seems silly.

Concept doc progress

Ok so my concept doc is all written up and i'm now putting it into the layout design on photoshop. I went through a bunch of different designs before settling on which one worked well. Most of them were monochrome because i tend to prefer the high contrast look of it and it works with the games theme of things fading over time. I was told not to do gery because it looks bland and negative so i've gone for more of a sepia old memory type theme with cracks progressively growing throughout the document. I have some pictures of some of the finished early pages.

I like how it looks for the most part but i do kind of feel it looks a little empty. As the pages go on the crack at the top will grow, i've not got to the last page yet but i'm hoping it doesn't start looking messy.

I have also done more work on the front cover, changing it to sepia too and adding the crack idea. I will now be adding some of the later artwork into the shards.

Alys

This is Alys, the protagonist of my game. She is of both asian and western decent and is a young psychiatrist.  I enjoyed creating her as i don't often draw people from other ethnicities, you just get used to drawing what you see in the mirror all the time. This was fun though and i had a crack at painting, that was not so fun as i'm not that great at it. I think she came out well though and the practice was good. Next i will be drawing the concept for the father Gabriel. He will be a fairly old man now so that  will be good practice too.

1st draft concept doc

 

Contents

 
Game overview    3
Narrative overview    4

Unique selling points    5

Game mechanics    6

Controls    7

Level overview    8

Games user interface    9


 

Game overview

 
Game Title: Memoria

 
Summary: The game revolves around a the main character Alys and her farther Gabriel as Alys tries to dive into the mind of her farther as his memories fade. Gabriel desperately holds onto his most precious memories of his young daughter and it the players job as Alys to help secure these memories and thus hopefully secure her father's mind. Alys will help save as many memories as she can by delving into her father's mind and navigating his twisted decaying memories, solving puzzles to repair his mind as much as possible.

 
Genre: Adventure, puzzle.

 

• The games genre is defined by the exploratory gameplay which is punctuated by puzzle solving.

 
Game Engine: Unreal engine 3.

 

• This game engine was chosen because it is the most accessible 3d game engine available and will

 
Target Platform: Wii U/Nintendo Network.

 

• The Wii U was targeted because of the interesting and intuitive new hybrid control scheme. This platform will undoubtedly gain a substantial install base simply due to the fact it is a Nintendo console.

 
Perspective: 1^st person.

 

• 1^st person perspective was chosen because of the Unreal engine is primarily a first person game engine as well as it making it easier for the player to view the environment in detail.

 
Players: 1 Player.

 

• This was chosen because the type of game is very narrative focused and is a very personal experience; multiple players could work against this. Also the Wii U has trouble using two game pads at the same time.

 
Target Audience: Mature adult audience. 16+

 

• This game features a mature and sensitive narrative which will appeal to older gaming audiences. This game will not feature and gratuities violence but the themes explored in the game may be distressing or confusing to younger audiences.

 

 

 

Narrative overview

 
Narrative Synopsis

 
Alys is the daughter of Gabriel Reid and Mei Wen. Mei was raised in china by a very traditional Chinese family, when she grew up she learned English and moved to the west to follow her career. There she met Gabriel fell in love and had a child. Her parents being Chinese traditionalist's frowned upon her starting a life with a western man.
When Alys was 7 her father Gabriel developed early onset dementia. Mei's parents viewed this as threatening to their family and pressured her into leaving Gabriel. Alys distraught with losing her father to the disease grew up to become a Psychiatrist. She eventually took on her father as a patient.
Game Narrative
The game takes place in the memories of Alys' father Gabriel. As Alys attempts to help her father with his disease and help him hold onto his most precious memories, they use the memory of his house in order to access and navigate his other memories. Stepping into rooms in the house causes Alys to walk into the weaker distorted memories. These memories can lead into other memories either those accessed through the house or by finding another door in a memory.
Memories

• Alys' 6^th birthday.
• Camping trip.
• Trip to the cornfield maze.
• Zoo trip.
• Toy shop
• Christmas

Gabriel will be trying to hold onto his favourite memory of his daughter; this memory is of Alys' 6^th birthday. This will be the goal of the player, reach and secure this memory.

 

 

 

Unique selling points

 
Write. Record. Remember.
The player has a notebook at their disposal; the player is free to write anything they wish in this notebook. Its primary intended use is to store details and information to help the player solve puzzles.
Below the surface.
The player is able to use the Wii U gamepad to view memories damaged or hidden by Gabriel's dementia.
Narrative
The game has a mature and sensitive narrative that explores a real world disease and its effects on people who suffer from it. The game explores a real world topic that many people can relate to.

 

Game mechanics

 
Health Mechanics:

• Health in Memoria is unlike most health systems. The health system does not relate to the health of the player, the health system is the representation of Alys' fathers mental state. If the player does not succeed in accomplishing tasks Gabriel's mind deteriorates. When the patients mind deteriorates to the point of no return their mind breaks and the game is over.
• Mental state can be improved by completing puzzles to successfully recover memories of Gabriel's daughter.

 
Movement:

• Movement in Memoria is simple, basic walking movement is available with a sprint function.
• Jumping is a basic function only used for simple traversal. Some higher up ledges can be climbed up using a simple animation. This allows for more vertical level design.

 
Interaction:

• The player is able to interact contextually with objects in the environment. Some objects may be picked up and moved, some objects are fixed and will act as triggers for other events such as switches or triggering audio.
• Some items can be placed into the inventory so that the player can move them between memories and combine them with other memento items to unlock new ones.

 
Note book:

 

• The note book can be accessed at anytime, the player will simply choose a page to write on and use the gamepad keyboard to write in the notebook.
• Some details critical to completing puzzles will be told through the voice of Gabriel. Some details will be able to heard again through object interaction but the notebook provides a useful way of

 
Memory vision:

 

• The player is able to force a view of distorted or broken memories by using the Wii U gamepad to view how the memory was before it deteriorated. This feature allows the player to gain new information, find hidden paths and unlock memories that were sealed off by failing to complete a puzzle. Using the memory vision weakens the mind of the patient. This must be used sparingly to avoid a game over.

 

Controls

 

Level overview

 
The game plays out inside the memory of a large house, most of the rooms fluctuate and change, rooms will either shift into puzzles or rooms will outright be some form of puzzle or informational tool for figuring out a puzzle in another room.
Levels
House – Game area hub.
Rooms –

• Basement
• Attic
• Bedrooms
• Living room
• Kitchen
• Garden

    
Memories – Puzzles (Separate areas)

• Alys' 6^th birthday.
• Camping trip.
• Trip to the cornfield maze.
• Zoo trip.
• Toy shop
• Christmas

 

 

Games user interface

Mental State

 
Mental state is the health or life system in the game, health always needs to be well communicated to the player. As the health system in this game has such a steep penalty for loss, the visual indication must be very clear.

 
Mental state is the condition of Gabriel's mind, when stressed or puzzles aren't completed then his mind will deteriorate to the point of breaking. This level of breakage will be shown by a large crack in the screen. Starting from two opposite points of the screen the crack will grow until it meets in the middle of the screen. This symbolises the mind being broken.

 
Inventory

 
The inventory is viewed on the Wii U gamepad, any memento items picked up can be viewed here. Some items may be fit together and other items may be puzzles in themselves. All of this will be done using the Wii U gamepad and its features, touch screen, gyroscope, camera and microphone.

 
Notebook

 
The notebook is always available to the player, it is used on the Wii U gamepad, text can be input either via a touch keyboard or the player can write their own notes using the stylus.

 
Gamepad interface

 

Research

So i began doing my research into mental illness in other countries in order to back up my knowledge of mental illness being almost a taboo in China. I looked through a bunch of sites to find some information on China's views on mental illness as well as some other countries just incase something else came up.

I found that i was indeed correct about about the public perceptions of mental health in china and the taboo associated with the conditions. There has recently however been a move towards fixing this, with some people calling for the Chinese governments to help get more treatments and help change the public's perceptions of mental health.

I didn't find any other majorly differing views on mental health compared to our views on it. I did find some people with some bizarre and interesting views but they weren't enough to base a games narrative off of. 

Here is the intro narrative i have written for my game.

Alys is the daughter of Gabriel Reid and Mei Wen. Mei was raised in china by a very traditional Chinese family, when she grew up she learned English and moved to the west to follow her career. There she met Gabriel fell in love and had a child. Her parents being Chinese traditionalist’s frowned upon her starting a life with a western man.

When Alys was 7 her father Gabriel developed early onset dementia. Mei’s parents viewed this as threatening to their family and pressured her into leaving Gabriel. Alys distraught with losing her father to the disease grew up to become a Psychiatrist. She eventually took on her father as a patient.

I also did a little mock up of the character Alys for my cover. It will obviously be better when it's finalised. 

Problems

Right so i said i intended to have my project plan up on here a while ago but something has been going wrong. Last time i did it i just used photoshop and copied each page into that so i could make jpegs of them. For some unknown reason i have not for the life of me been able to figure out why but now when i copy my pages into photoshop it completely messes up my formatting and removes my tables. So until i can figure out a fix i won't be able to post my project plan.