P2 Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc

Ideas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrEsNI0aCPk 

    • Narrative game where the narrator is schizophrenic and has to listen to audio
    • Synesthesia, inter-related senses, connecting colors with sounds
    • Haunting sounds
  • A ghost finding his way his home through a world of sound, traversing his past lives, experiencing auditory hauntings along the way
  • Memory puzzle: listening and then repeating keys
  • Puzzle with musical cues: listen to a musical cue for what direction to go in (high or low note, louder or quieter)
  • A figure climbs and explores a piece of large sheet music (a platformer- you jump on notes to hit them in some way
  • Linerider but the ski slopes are set already and you control the skier

Synopsis

Note woke up one day and found his body gone and his home disappeared. The world he finds himself in? A world haunted by music and memories. Help Note recover his memories, restore his body and soul, and get back home through a series of music-based puzzles. 

This 2-D game is a collection of music-based puzzles. 

Our primary protagonist, Note, is an 8-year-old ghost lost in the In-Between. He is lost, he is young, and he has no memories. 

The game begins with Note alone surrounded by total darkness. He hears a single sound and sees a warm glowing light, which guides him toward his first puzzle, a memory-based game where Note must memorize a song correlated with a path and navigate his way to the next light. 

Upon completing each level, Note moves physically closer to home, uncovering a song from his past life in the process, and unlocking an auditory memory from Note’s life in the process. 

Tone

  • Haunting
  • Wistful
  • Endearing
  • Heartwarming
  • Invigorating
  • Creative
  • Joyful

Setting

The game takes place in the In-Between, a space of limbo that mirrors our protagonist Note’s life. As we traverse through his life, the setting will change accordingly with the narrative. An ice cream truck’s jingle prompts the recollection of a neighborhood street; a movie soundtrack would bring Note back to the theaters. Common childhood events are chosen to induce the feeling of wistful nostalgia within the player through our narrative.

Gameplay

The core of the gameplay is solving music-based puzzles and exploring the world of the In-Between. Each level is a different audio puzzle that focuses on different aspects of music like pitch, tempo, and dynamics. The player must solve the puzzle to move Note to the other side of the platform. All of the levels will use third person controls.

Puzzles we’re considering include:

  • Listening to a simple piece of music and replicating it by pressing keys in the correct order
  • Jumping on bars and notes in sheet music to get across without falling
  • Navigating across a black screen (night mode) by avoiding areas with loud sound and staying on the quiet path
  • Traveling across the screen while avoiding active audio-visualizers that will hurt Note if he touches them
  • Collecting missing notes hidden throughout the level to complete a melody

After the player solves a puzzle, they unlock a new memory from Note’s past. The memory may come through conversations with other beings in the world, auditory flashbacks, or other storytelling means. 

Tone References

Games:

Movies/Other Media:

Key Challenges for Design

Being wistful. Incorporating wistfulness or the feeling of being lost and haunted in a 2-D platformer is going to be quite the challenge. A lot of it will boil down to the graphics and design choices we make combined with relevant, high-quality audio clips.

Creating puzzles. Striking that fine balance in the level of challenge experienced by the players is important. More importantly, the players must be able to transition to higher levels of difficulty

Key Challenges for Tech

Synchronization. Proper synchronization with the various overlapping auditory and visual elements of the game will be imperative for the game play experience to be enjoyable. 

Resource Management. Since the game involves an intricate combination of audio and visual elements. It is not only important for these elements to complement each other but also they must be storage efficient to allow for a smooth playing experience on the desired gaming platforms.

Key challenges for art

Balancing this feeling of wistfulness, endearment, and haunting. Our game aesthetics and art will need to generate empathy and compassion for our protagonist, Note. At its core, players need to feel attached to Note, invested in his story, and gain a degree of  which will primarily take place through our rendering of Note and our 

Huge variation in the puzzles. Figuring out how to keep the puzzles consistent across tone but engaging is important. 

Who is this for?

This game is designed for people who enjoy beautiful auditory and visual experiences with a wistful aura. 

A carefully crafted blend of endearing yet slightly haunting elements, the game focuses on delivering a unique playing experience for those who enjoy puzzles. Most games in our category prioritize the logic and the difficulty of puzzles, however, we believe that by adding in stunning auditory and visual elements as pieces of the puzzle not only sets our game apart but also it greatly enhances the game experience. Moreover, this design choice for the game introduces players to a new combination of elements as opposed to what are usually found in puzzle games. 

Individual concept posts

 

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