Soul Walker Game Concept Devlog
Soul Walker – Game Concept Devlog
Concept Statement
The game that I’ll be trying to create is a puzzle/platforming game called Soul Walker. The main character is going to be a hooded person whose soul can leave their body. The purpose of this is for the soul to reach places the player can’t so they can complete certain puzzles, adding a slightly unique element to the puzzle genre. The aim for this game is to have unique levels, defined with a strong art style with difficult puzzles that the player won’t be able to forget easily.
Genre or Category
I have decided that the game Soul Walker is going to be a puzzle game. This is because I personally find puzzle games very interesting because it implies a certain type of thinking that isn’t really involved with other genres of games. This is also a decision to immerse the player more into the game world because they must concentrate more and focus on what needs to be completed in order to progress through the levels.
Concept Creation Process/Area
The reason that I have chosen to make a puzzle game is because that I have always enjoyed puzzles, they get my mind thinking and there is always a sense of accomplishment for completing a level. The art style that has inspired me the most is a game called “Have a Nice Death. (figure 1)” This game is a roguelike but with similar graphics to what I want my puzzle game to look like. It has fluent animations with gameplay that flows well, meaning it has easily understandable controls and goals, as well as having intuitive gameplay. Another inspiration for me is the puzzle game called “Portal 2" (figure 2). This game has interactive gameplay where the player must implement the use of portals to solve problems. The player is led by a robot which guides the player and progresses them through the storyline. I chose these two games for my inspiration because the idea of my game was inspired by the art style of “Have a Nice Death” as well as the gameplay and puzzles from “Portal 2.” An example of gameplay is showed in ‘figure 2’ and shows how the box had to moved towards the lasers to reflect a light into a portal, which then goes through a different portal and hits the robot in the back, hence completing the puzzle. This kind of thinking and puzzle solving skills is going to be a key feature of my game and a feature that I’ll strive to implement to the best of my abilities. The way that I’m going to try and create this game is start off with very basic sprites and implement the core mechanics first. What this might look like is maybe having a square, roughly the size of the intended character and a circle representing the soul and designing controls for these mechanics. After implementing every mechanic that I want in my game, i will work on the level design, to create playable levels, slowly introducing harder puzzles as the levels go on. Then finally, after this, I’ll design the art and graphics as well as sound effects and audio, along with any other necessary additions that are required when I get up to this point.
Audience and Competitive Analysis
The audience for my game is obviously going to be anyone who enjoys playing puzzle games. This is due to the people that already have played and enjoy playing puzzle games are more likely to find my game and play it. My game will also attempt to bring in new players from people who play platforming type games by implementing similar mechanics that platformers have. A very simple example would just be jumping over an obstacle. The game that I create is obviously going to have competition, so there must be some way that I can make my game stand out from the rest of them. This is where my unique mechanic of controlling the soul of someone’s body comes into play. While the player controls the soul of their character, their character will be rendered immobile, thus creating unique puzzles that the player must solve. This allows for unique level design to be implemented which allows for new players to be interested in what the game has to offer. My game isn’t really going to be targeted towards people already playing puzzle games, it’s going to be targeted towards people who don’t play the already, and to draw them in to the genre. This may seem a bit counter-intuitive to what I mentioned in the first sentence but it’s more about trying to create NEW players to be interested in the genre. I’ll do this by creating very simple menu design and intuitive (to an extent) gameplay, so the player understands what they must do almost immediately but has to figure out how to get it done. The general age range from my game would be 10+; just old enough to be able to understand what’s going on. This means that even more players will have access to my game which will allow for more exposure to get different people in the puzzle games scene. These people will be interested in the game I’m creating because it’s something fresh to spice up the puzzle genre as well as not being too difficult of puzzles so there won’t be any rage quits with some people not being able to complete them.
Game Treatment and Concept Art
The game starts off, loading into a semi-animated menu screen with three buttons labelled as: “Quit”, “Play” and “Settings”. The menu screen shows off the main character but that’s pretty much it. The settings button will just bring the player to another screen with the same background but with options to change what settings they want; the quit button will obviously quit the game (won’t work in web browser obviously) and the play button will bring the player to a blank screen with a voice explaining the story along with subtitles if the player has the audio on mute for some reason.
After going through the menu and listening to the backstory (this is skippable if the player has already seen it), the player will find themself woken up in a small dark room. This place looks inescapable, but then the player finds out that the soul can leave the main body and is told for the soul to go through the impossible to reach the window. (Note that the soul in this game is something that can’t pass through walls but is something that can pass through certain things such as solid glass or ‘one-way platforms. Doing this, they use the soul to go through and open the door on the other side to allow the body of the character to press through to the next level, where they need to figure out how to solve puzzles on their own. This little introduction sets the scene for what the player can expect of the gameplay and overall structure of the game.
The player will be able to move both forward and backwards, as well as being able to jump a little bit but that’s it. The controls for these will be left and right arrow keys to move, with the space bar being the jump key. The button to enter “soul mode” for the player will be ‘c’ but this can only be done while the player isn’t moving. To move the soul around, to buttons will be ‘W’,’A’,’S’ and ‘D’ so it’s possible for the soul to travel in all directions. These specific controls allow for easy hand placement on the keyboard to have access to all these different things at once.
As the player progresses through the different levels, the puzzles will become increasingly harder until the main character reaches their goal: to evade their taxes. Each part of the game is metaphorical about something: the hoodie of the character represents that they are hiding away from their responsibilities, leaving what needs to be done to the last minute or even not at all. Their soul leaving their body is more of a literal thing rather than metaphorical, it quite literally represents their soul leaving their body; that they have given up in doing their taxes and living a “normal” life. The levels getting harder represents that the more they hide, the harder things will become if things aren’t attempted or looked at to try and get better. The ending also has a meaning, but I don’t really want to spoil what the ending is. Everything is going to be expressed through strong graphical representation as well as well thought out audio cues and hints within the levels themselves so the player can find out what needs to be done. If the players struggle too much to solve what needs to be done in the level, they will be able to use a hint which will point out what exactly needs to be done to progress through the level. This is a representation of that people can ask for help when they really need it and that there is no shame in doing so.
Overall, it’s a game that has a fun little story which is developed using metaphors. The very bare bones of the story will be explained at the cutscene at the start – when the player presses the play button. It will have interesting and unique mechanics (also ones that I haven’t mentioned here to keep things interesting) to keep the player wanting more after they have completed the game. Note that these ideas could easily change as I develop the game, depending on the scope and how much I get done etc. (Concept art shown below in figure 3)
References
www.haveanicedeath.com. (n.d.). Have a Nice Death. [online] Available at: https://www.haveanicedeath.com/
GameSpot. (n.d.). Portal 2 Co-Op Hands-On. [online] Available at: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/portal-2-co-op-hands-on/1100-6286739/