After investing a lot of time into Turncoat, we started pre-production, with our first task being to figure out just what it was going to take to make the series of games we had envisioned. We didn't go too far down that road before we realized it was going to take an awful lot of work and resources. Too much work and too many resources: far more than we could swing without outside funding.
That's not exactly the kind of realization you enjoy having, but we were happy to have realized it before we actually started sinking money into development. At this point, we had really only invested our time, and since we had enjoyed the process, it couldn't really be considered a loss. So, we decided to put the larger Turncoat story on the back burner, but use the universe we had created for it as the setting for another game of smaller scope. The tricky part here was that Turncoat was designed as a mystery with a complex backstory, most of which exists to support that mystery. Any number of facts from the existing story could spoil Turncoat for players if and when we're finally able to revisit the original concept.
We started investigating ideas for both 2D sprite-based games and full 3D games. We came up with several ideas, and decided to actually run with two of them. One is a take on a traditional 2D platformer that we're going to use the new SpriteKit framework for. The other is a stealth-based 3D game. It's the latter that we've already started working on and which I'm writing this dev diary for.
In this game, you have to escape from a jail-like facility using a combination of stealth and problem solving with maybe an occasional spot of violence. It will have things in common with several existing stealth-based first- and third-person shooters, but the focus will not be on combat. If you get in a firefight, you've probably already failed. Funny thing about jails; they're harder to escape from if the guards know you're trying to escape.
The game will take place about a hundred years before the original Turncoat story, during the "Last Great War" — the war that led to the creation of a single Earth government. During that war, several of the nation states created internment facilities and rounded up a certain class of people. There were no mass killings or attempts at genocide like in the Holocaust, but the treatment was degrading and often violent and the inmates were treated as less than human. Though there were no systematic executions, many inmates were killed for one reason or another.
Exactly who these inmates are and why they were imprisoned won't be revealed at first, but we'll drop some hints throughout the game, both in regular dialogue and in hidden easter eggs that will give the player pieces of the game's puzzle. We'll also throw in few small hints about the mysteries of the larger Turncoat Universe. The important thing that we'll convey to the player at the start, though, is that they have been imprisoned unfairly, that they are being treated poorly, and that they really need to get the hell out. That's all they really need to know to get started, but we want them to be able to discover more about why they've been imprisoned and more about the world they live in as they play the game.
Once we had decided on a basic concept, next up was figuring out what we need to do to actually build it, keeping an eye on creating something polished and professional while keeping the scope of the game reasonable. Here's the initial, high-level list I came up with of things that need to get done, in no particular order:
- Level Design. We need a place to escape from. To keep scope down, we're going to limit ourselves to a single level for this project, though we're going to leave the possibility for additional levels in the future if the game is well received. To increase re-playability for the one level, however, there will be multiple starting points and multiple ways to get out. Some options will always be available, others may only be available from a certain starting point or using a character with certain attributes.
- Script Writing. We're still trying to tell a story, even if it is a much smaller story than our original vision, and to tell that story, we need dialogue. We'll need an opening cinematic to set up the game's scenario and make sure the players knows what they need to do. We'll need to figure out what the guards and other people in the facility say if the player gets near them. There are going to be hints about the world that will be dropped through dialogue in certain places. When a player escapes, there will be another ending cinematic to tease possible future levels and to reward them for their accomplishment, and it will probably be a different cinematic for each possible exit. All of that dialogue needs to be written.
- Overall Aesthetic. We needed to figure out, stylistically, how everything will look. Will we try and make it realistic, or will it be somehow stylized? Will we favor bright colors or muted ones, or will that vary depending on some factor.
- Environment Design. Once we have a level, we have make it feel like a real place by layering textures and lighting to create an environment that is believable and immersive.
- Character Design. A story means people, so we need to figure out who the people in our story are — both the protagonist and antagonists. We need to know why they're in the facility, what they're going to look like, and at least a little bit about their background.
- Character Modeling. Once we know what characters are going to look like, their models have to be created. For some characters, we'll need both high resolution models for cinematics and low-resolution models for game play. For others, we'll only need the game-resolution models.
- Game Mechanics. We need to figure out how the player maneuvers around the level and what tasks they have to accomplish to get out.
- Sound Design and Foley. An environment won't feel real if it's dead silent. Even games set in the vacuum of space (which, in reality, should be silent) don't feel right without some kind of sound.
- Music. Just like with movies, games need music to set the mood. Music, like other sounds, can also be used to give the player feedback. We might have a different musical theme playing, for example, when the player is heard by guards, arousing their suspicion and putting them on alert.
- Animation. Although we can use stock animations from companies like Mixamo for some of the character and enemy movements, there will likely be some game-specific motions that we're not going to be able to buy, so we'll need to animate them or use motion capture to create them.
- "Finding the Fun". This is a term that a friend of mine who has worked in the game industry uses. It describes the process of iterating over the basic game mechanic until you find something that's enjoyable to play. Unfortunately, you can't "find the fun" until some of the other work has been at done. You don't have to have a fully polished game to start, but you need something. If you can't find the fun, the game should be abandoned or drastically overhauled, so it's best if you can start this process early.
- Voice Acting and Direction. Dialogue means voice acting, so we're going to need to find voice actors and we're going to need to direct them to make sure they say lines the way they were intended.
- Branding and Marketing: Even a free product is a product and it does no good if people don't find out about it.
- Testing, Testing, Testing: Just like any other kind of software, games need to be tested extensively before they can be shipped. Fortunately, it's often easier to find people willing to try out an unfinished game than, say, an unfinished productivity tool.
Yikes.
I know I've probably missed a few things, but I think that covers the bulk of the tasks at a very high level. I'm not sure about you, but to me, that's a pretty intimidating list, but also one with a lot of potentially fun, cool tasks. It's also not nearly as intimidating as it would be for an individual developer. Fortunately, we have a team and resources to hire freelancers to handle those tasks we can't handle in-house.
Although many of these things can be done in parallel by different people, some of the tasks have to happen before others can be started. You can't really begin character modeling until you've got character designs, for example, and you can't really begin working on game mechanics or "finding the fun" until you have at least part of a level to maneuver around. None of these things happen in a vacuum, though, and none can be considered completely done until the game has shipped. Characters might get redesigned, for example and the level will almost certainly need to be tweaked as we test. As with any software development, the process will be one of iteration, so we can't get too married to anything.
Before we can begin even the first task, though, we need to decide what platforms we're targeting and what tools or libraries we're going to use to build the game.
Next Up: Platform Decisions
