Developing Under Quarantine

This last sprint of development was certainly unique in that I really began to feel getting hit by the corona quarantines. I firmly believe that we cannot buy into the panic hype and keep our lives going while we are healthy, and do as much as we are able to do. And of course, working from home and not going to school means I can work a lot more on the game.

So first of all, this week I was focusing on two main things: 1) story drafting and 2) implementing parkour mechanics. I looked to various games and fictional characters for inspiration for the protagonist and the setting, and came up with something I think will be great at conveying the theme of duty that I am trying to convey. Essentially, the game is set in a fiction elf city called Gadia-Sariel, where one's social status is often dependent on the amount of magical capability they have. The player begins as a member of a group that perceived an imbalance of justice between those who have magic and those who don't, but is quickly betrayed by them when he refuses to follow an order.

After they leave him for dead, the player manages to escape and starts a new life for himself, laying low. Shortly after, he runs into a noblewoman who had been attacked by some thugs, who turn out to be part of the same group he had once been a part of. He will then have to find out the truth about the motives of various characters and unravel a plot that is going to put everyone he cares about in danger.

As for the mechanics I was able to implement so far, I re-did the movement system using a state machine, and tried to use this system to create a wall run mechanic. I unfortunately didn't have much luck doing that - for more details on that, check out the devlog video linked in the post.

The game has undergone a genre switch one already, where I took the game from an immersive sim to a parkour game, conceptually - however, the problem was that I had completely misunderstood what an immersive sim was, and I'm beginning to think that that genre will fit this game much better. Also, I find the parkour mechanics very difficult to implement and would much rather implement various cool abilities for the player to experiment with in a sandbox type setting. Feel free to let me know what you think might be better in the comments.

Stay tuned! I'm actively working on this project and despite the various re-works, the concept is crystallizing more and more. I'm very excited to keep at it!