Doing Some Researchin'

---

Game Submission: https://up778454.itch.io/the-descent

---

Reflection:

Once I met with my team, I found that they already chose to go for a gothic theme. I agreed with this idea and added we could include demonic influences to give a darker theme. Once we had this, we needed to think of a way to incorporate the theme into a platformer. We decided early on to save time and cut any combat to not over scope the idea and give time to our programmers to learn their engine of choice, Unity. This eventually led to an idea where we would go for a runner that starts in a castle and would run through the rings of hell. This is what I'll be researching for my team so we can get a grasp on the level’s environments and it gives me an opportunity to learn how to research and focus less on UI design. We also laid out what we would make for the game in a document that was written during the meeting.

I mainly focused on our Levels: the environments, themes and level layout. Since we had heavy demonic and gothic themes in these levels, I spent the week looking into these things, specifically the demons and the 7 sins. I started by enquiring about the deadly sins, their themes and what they represent in Christianity. I then looked at the demon associated with the sins according to Binsfield’s definition. Unfortunately as I learned more about these demons, I found so many inconsistencies depending on their definitions. I was eventually able to get their role and theme within Christianity but not without difficulty. To further help gain a good picture, I looked into Dante’s Inferno, a group of poems that originates the idea of separate rings in hell.

With Reflection by the team, I looked even more into the castle level since this was our first level that we felt we could accomplish within the time period but would still use my research for level plans and theming within the castle. I felt happy with the amount of research I did and I think it helped me gain a better understanding for our game, something I was just relying on my own knowledge beforehand.

Due to our other designer dropping out for personal reasons, I had to also do our level design. This led to me coming up with a design for a more complex level with the castle that could then flow into our hellish levels if they were made. This was an interesting experience since I still had to incorporate ways in which our movement mechanics would work in the level and try to minimise any sequence breaks that these mechanics could cause.

That’s all for now. Bye!