Conceptual Documents done!

André here again! A quick post this week, as I'm currently getting ready for a party. Hey, I can have a social life as well!

This week we spent a considerable amount of hours developing our conceptual documents. This included taking a look at the domain of our game, researching our competition (we were NOT pretentious at all on this part 😆), defining our stakeholders and focus group, as well as defining our main gameplay loop, among some other things.

One of the most important things we defined were our game experience goals. We will use these to see if a design decision makes sense for our game:

Game experience goals

1. The puzzles won't be complex but should challenge the player.
2. The player will develop a relationship (not necessarily a positive one) with 42.
3. The player will want to thoroughly explore all floors.
4. The player will want to complete the game about 3 times.

What this means is that every time we implement anything new, we'll have to check if it benefits any of the above goals. If not, we should probably reconsider its inclusion in the game.

We already have some ideas in mind in order to achieve this, which include:

1. The puzzles should be easy at the start of the game, and gradually increase in difficulty.
   
2. 42 will have a strong personality, and players will need to learn how her mind works.
   
3. The current floor number will be visible and will increase by one with every floor cleared.
4. Each floor has explorable environments that trigger optional events.
5. The Fortress will have a mysterious aura about it, with floors being different in shape in order to encourage different styles of exploration.
6. It will be impossible to see all outcomes in a single playthrough.
7. After the first completion of the game, an Event Log is unlocked that shows what events and outcomes have been witnessed, and how many are still yet to be seen.
   
8. In order for point #7 to make sense, there will naturally be a New Game Plus mode.
   

In the following weeks we'll be building some prototypes, as well as defining the main points of the story and characters in The Fortress.

Now I must go. Sushi awaits me ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Until next time,

André