I imagine After the Fire as a fundamentally hopeful, peaceful game about rebuilding your home and watching life slowly return after tragedy. As a result, in my mood board and playlist, I tried to find media that hit a mix of hope and sadness, while simultaneously evoking peace, nature, and the mystical.
I imagine the eventual game soundtrack would mostly consist of forest ambiance (which does make an appearance in Ancient Fairy- the most spot-on song in my playlist- but I avoided adding natural ambiance directly as the purpose is to get at a mood, rather than a soundtrack). I initially had an hour-long playlist which I think covered the emotional range of the game more fully, but I had to make a lot of painful cuts to get it under 20 minutes.
Based on these emotional notes, here are three directions I imagine the game could go:
1. Slice: A digital tile placement game focusing on peaceful satisfaction. Get random seeds regularly, each wanting to be near certain other terrain and plants. Fulfilling their requirements generates vitality, allowing you to progress and unlock new seeds. The story would largely take a backseat to the mechanics, providing emotional context and suspense for the core puzzle of the game.
2. MVP: Same as above, but the tile placement gameplay, art, and atmospherics would instead take a backseat to the story. The simple and easy core of tile placement here could provide a nice backdrop and contemplative space upon which the story can play out. Here, rather than trying to maximize the vitality of your seeds and progress, you’d try to keep each plant happy through the seasons.
3. Slice: We’ve currently focused heavily on the emotional core of grief, forgiveness, and hope. While I think this is great and is necessary if we focus on narrative as our form of space, I could also see us dropping it to focus on the mystical and peaceful elements of the game. In this version, we’d target a mobile platform rather than PC, make sure the game is never too challenging while still being satisfying, and try to maximize as best we can making the game a happy, quiet, peaceful refuge from the anxieties of day-to-day life—allowing our players to slip for a moment into just listening to the birds and replanting a forest.
