This week we fleshed out our ideas and themes and turned them into high-concept pitches for our client. Starting with the theme we decided to explore multiple game genres and better define the platforms that they were targeted for and why.
We all decided to settle on VR as platform for which we wanted to pitch all our ideas. This was based on some research we did on the god genre of games for PC. These games felt a lot more flat, mainly because of the interface afforded little more than clicking on the screen: not a god-like feeling at all. On the other hand, VR was a platform that would allow us to design an experience that would make the player feel viscerally in control.
On Wednesday we pitched our three game concepts to the client. The final three concepts we pitched were:
Slime Lord – A sandbox simulator where the player molds and evolves slime creatures from their own body in order to help the slime population survive.
Resurrection – A narrative game where the player is a god who has to cure his Earth goddess that has been polluted and has fallen ill. Major mechanics include taking human form to solve environmental puzzles.
Destroyer – A destruction sandbox where the player has to destroy civilizations before they can take over the planet by using their awesome powers to cause floods, earthquakes and storms.
After pitching, the client asked us to flesh the ideas a little bit more and settle down on our favorite by afternoon next day. That day we met as a team and went through the client and faculty feedback on the pitches. The client had good things to say about each of the ideas and some advice on what challenges we might face in developing each of those. Taking that information we penned down a comparative table that showed how easy would it be develop a concept vs how excited we were about developing it. That helped us choose Slime Lord as our final idea. This exercise also helped us define our reasons for making this game.
At the end of week 3, we have our game concept and moving forward we can confidently say as a team that we have brainstormed extensively and picked a concept we are all excited about and the best part is – we know why.