The Big One

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Game Details

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Game Submission: https://unleashedraptor.itch.io/potion-profiteer

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Reflection

The final Game Jam of the year. One that is actually graded. This is the one I need to focus on then, more than I have with the last 3. This Game Jam started a bit differently since we had to pick from a set of ideas set by other students. We were also given this brief just as Christmas started so not many people were present during our meeting after the lecture.

With the rest of the group, we came up with a basic concept, we collectively agreed to go with the potion profiteer game unanimously. We felt that many people were going to go with this same idea, so we wanted to make it more unique. We decided to achieve this through the use of minigames in the format of Cooking Mama. We also changed up our style, going for a steampunk, mediaeval style rather than purely mediaeval, mystical. With this idea, we left it until after Christmas to flesh it out with the rest of the team.

After Christmas, we met up again and focused on gaining an understanding of the idea we had and getting the others that didn't attend the first meeting up to speed. We also iterated on our original idea, expanding on the concept of the other worlds and minigame mechanics. I was then tasked with expanding on the minigame idea, laying out the purpose and design of each minigame that we planned within the game itself. This presented me with an opportunity to retry researching for this project.

I spent some time looking at gameplay and the general gameplay loop of the cooking mama franchise to see how they layout and set up their games based on what each recipe needs. Based on this, I came up with my minigames that fit what we need for each recipe. Laying out the individual steps that are needed and making each one into a minigame. 

I also wanted to incorporate a score system into each minigame that can affect the yields of each minigame. This helped to give skill and a sense of stakes to the minigames since it can give the player direct impact rather than a mindless thing they have to repeat over and over.

I liked creating these minigames as it let me look into game mechanics that I don't normally see and have some interest in. It also allowed me to think more about the player experience when creating the system, focusing on how I could make this repetitive task more interesting for the player.

Through Design Studio, I learned about different ways of information accessibility that we, as designers, could use to display our ideas in more digestible ways. This was when I learned of Notion, a software that allows the creation of a wiki. Wiki’s were something I looked into extensively for the project as the more I did, the more that they made sense and seemed better than smothering all the information in 1 massive document. I massively prefer this new style of laying out information, I don't have to repeat myself since I can hyperlink any repeated information.

The Art style was one of the first things we, as a team, worked on. I wanted to gain a good understanding with the other designers and bridge our ideas together. To do this, I thought it would be best to all agree on the style that we wanted for the game and then we could branch from this common understanding. We all agreed that we wanted to go for a less traditional style when thinking of magic and potions. 

This landed us on steampunk, a related style but one we thought would be wholly unique compared to the rest of the groups since the majority of the year were choosing Potion Profiteer. I also thought that going for a more flat styled game such as Paper Mario could help cut down the workload since 3D models wouldn't have to be produced for the characters themselves. The characters would also then be more in a Chibi style to fit more into a cosy, relaxing game aesthetic. 

Unfortunately, the style didn't really come out within the final product but still has the essence of the cosy game we originally designed.

Unfortunately, due to lack of communication from some members, we decided that our scope would be way too large for the workforce we had. This resulted in a team discussion on what we needed to cut. This meant trying to portray an understanding of the entirety of the game to the rest of the team and using their feedback to understand what is and isn't necessary. With the help from the rest of the team, we managed to remove nice but ultimately unneeded features. Such as the building upgrades.

Later on in development, our team was able to share the project with one of the lecturers, Neil. He introduced us and got us to question what the player experience was, what the player will be doing and what is the focus of our game in terms of entertainment value. This led us to understand that we have too much development on our outer worlds when we wanted our focus to be on the minigames and potion creation.

Overall, I learned many new techniques during this project, completely shifting my understanding on how design is carried out and it is important that the communication of the idea is to make a game quickly and efficiently. I’ll be using most of the techniques such as the use of wiki and the game focus splits in future projects and it helps to layout game ideas and scope even more in my head.