Introduction
My name is Mariano Cayzac, I am member of The Nameless Pebbles. For our Collaborative Group project, we decided to make a psychological horror game with the title Monochrome. During production we will put emphasis on narrative and we will be taking Isolation as our main theme. For this project I am I will be the Lead Game & Narrative Designer, I will also be sculpting and rigging the main character, as well as partaking on some programming.
Work flow/ Development Process
First I start by brainstorming some ideas. These have barely any limitations as they are meant to generate a baseline for the game itself. Once I narrow down the key elements that I want to consider on the game I start performing some research to determine best ways to build the product together.
Once the research phase is over, I can start elaborating mechanics that are entangled to the theme using them as metaphors to glue the narrative together. As every good piece of design is always good to test it to properly verify that they work as expected or if they need to be tossed aside.
The whole project then starts to build up from there, and the story starts to take form.
Lead Game and Narrative Designer Role
During this project, as the Lead Game and Narrative Designer my major role would be to create a game which is fun and engaging that is also able to portray a serious narrative that illustrates real life mental health concerns. With the use of proper research and testing I aim to avoid falling into one of the biggest fears of a designer while making a horror game: ending up with a walking simulator.
Technical specialism(s)
As a Lead Narrative & Game Designer my responsibilities are:
- Conceptualize, implement, and maintain gameplay systems that achieve a fulfilling flow state, addictive game loops, and a risk/reward balance.
- Developing the storyline, character back-stories, and dialogue, through scripts and storyboards, including any relevant research.
- Create and maintain comprehensive documentation (such as design outlines, diagrams, and visual mockups) that details the triggers, interactions, and subsequent events of specific features or aspects of gameplay.
- Pitching new game ideas to team members, teachers and collaborators.
- Following industry trends and good practices.
- Doing quality control.
- Prototyping.
Relevance
As a Game & Narrative designer my work for the team is essential. I am the one that should ensure that the overall experience is enjoyable and is good in quality.
Mariano Cayzac
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Programmer Role
As a programmer, my job is to assists Jay Hriscu (our lead programmer) in tasks such as scripting, optimizing and testing. For starters, I will be working on my own mechanics on a different file making it easier to then merge my progress with his. Later on development, I will be dividing the work with him to make the workflow faster and more efficient.
Technical specialism(s)
As a programmer my responsibilities are:
- Writing and testing code
- Updating existing code and systems
- Identifying and correcting bugs (coding errors)
Relevance
I may not be the one responsible for the most part of the work done. But a project of this scale cannot be done by only one programmer within the time restrains that we have. It is my job as a programmer to help with the coding of the game.
Modeler Role
As a modeler, I will be working specifically on the main character model, rigging and animations. This is specifically to ease the workflow of Alex (Our lead Modeler), since she will be busy working on the architecture and props of the level.
Technical specialism(s)
As a modeler my responsibilities are:
- Researching references and resources required for the production of assets
- Designing and developing from concept art to final product
- Creating organic and hard surface models
- Texturing 3D rigs
- Producing UVW mapping
- Collaborating with creative and technical teams
Relevance
For this project I will be making the main character of the game. This includes his textures, rigging and animations which are essential for the game to work since you cannot have a story without the main character in it. People need to see the model and it needs to feel real and not out of place.
Progress and challenges from Semester 1
During semester 1 I was able to provide a full model of our protagonist with textures, rigging and 20+ animations. I developed version 1 of the GDD which provides all the mechanics, with full descriptions, that should be included on the game's beta released. Finally, I have conducted extensive research that aims to boost the quality of the end product significantly, this avoiding facing my main concerns which were:
- Not being able to present a strong narrative design with interesting gameplay.
- Missing the mark at having good use of horror and game mechanics to avoid it being a dull walking simulator.
Challenges
Most of the challenges on semester one were tied to personal problems and having trouble finding the right time and headspace to create content for the project. I believe this is one, if not the biggest project I worked on in terms of character and world building as well as Game Designer in general. I spent a lot of time colliding with multiple design errors and loopholes that made the entire project a big journey and allowed me to feel more confident on my skills and abilities to finish this project.
Previous Plans and targets going forward for Semester 2
Well, from this point onwards my main focus will be on working with what I already have. There is no more time for remaking or starting over, its time to polish and test. I will mostly focus on having everything on the engine and making sure it is presented on its best possible quality.
Progress and challenges from Semester 2
During semester 2 I was able to provide functioning systems and proper use of UI/UX to improve the user experience as much as possible. I was part of two in person user testing that helped us have a better view of our current issues and upcoming improvements, although my main concerns remained the same and some other's added to the pile:
- Not being able to present a strong narrative design with interesting gameplay.
- Missing the mark at having good use of horror and game mechanics to avoid it being a dull walking simulator.
- Not providing enough feedback, leading to the player finding themselves lost often.
- Having to remove more content due to time restrains or excessive delegation.
Challenges
Definitely the biggest challenge was the overwhelming amount of work I had to put myself through each sprint to try meet the deadline. The excessive use of delegation ended up causing multiple burnouts from my part which led to poor work being done which ended up needing more fixes and iterations. This delegations also ended up at cost, since I could not properly focus on my main two tasks as game designer and narrative.