"Waiter, my spaghetti is cold!" Game Design breakdown and BTS!
Hello, dear reader! Welcome to the nonsensical ramblings of an excited vn dev.
Here, I'll be pretending to know what I'm talking about; trying to break down the design process of my vn game, and how I went about creating my O2A2 Jam assets.
Spoiler warning for the story!
^^ pixel cat gifted by the lovely spiderpunkss on twitter!!♡
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Index:
1) Starting a game is tough (early doodles)
2) The chicken or the egg? (developing a background that influenced the game's genre)
3) Just who, exactly, is Sean? (developing the love interest)
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1) Starting a game is tough :
While the thought of creating a game excited me, the thought of writing, programming or creating multiple expressions for a sprite sounded tedious.
Getting over the dread of starting was possibly the most challenging thing I had to overcome, but once O2A2 popped up I thought, "Ten days and less than a thousand words? That sounds simple enough."
So I sat down and, without much thought, started doodling different waiters. Why were they waiters? No specific reason, really. O2A2 being a short jam meant I didn't have to stress about the story too much- I was aiming to have fun while experimenting, which the jam encouraged.
While doodling, a quote surfaced: "He isn't picking up the phone. Even worse, your pasta is cold! Unacceptable!". It sounded fun, even though I wasn't sure what to do with it.
But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to form a concept surrounding this quote, and to bring it to life.
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^^ Sean's earliest doodles. To this day I still can't decide on his age. He seems to be around his early twenties, and holds onto a dream.
^^ This silly doodle inspired the final design the most. "His big forehead is somewhat charming." - friend peeking over shoulder at my doodles.
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2) The chicken or the egg? :
So- which came first, the genre or the background?
Typically, picking out a genre makes it easier to decide on your game assets and story, but I had a revelation midway that changed everything.
The quote I had gave me rom-com vibes, so I was thinking about ways to achieve that. Would the MC initiate the talk? Would the love interest be cocky? Would it just end up with the MC accidentally choking on a ring that was hidden in the spaghetti by the love interest because both parties have difficulty in expressing their feelings outright?
Worried about the time limit (for absolutely no reason, I still had 9 days left) I decided on the rom-com genre for the time being.
Set on a theme for my background, I pulled up some references I took IRL and got to forming the diner one chair at a time. After I was satisfied with the model, I started editing it and drew in small details that gave the background 'life', such as a board and some blinds (as seen in the in-game menu illustration- consistency is key!).
Then I was messing around with the hues when...
oh...
I really liked the purple-hued night edit.
It didn't really 'give' rom-com, but it looked really cool when compared to the morning edit. It just felt right, so I had finally decided on the genre based on the background: this game was going to take a romance/drama/mystery-ish path.
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^^ I was getting quite sick of chairs. And yes, I was considering adding a logo, but was worried about the time limit so decided against it.
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3) Just who, exactly, is Sean? :
Good question, me-that's-pretending-to-be-the-reader-that-asks-a-specific-question.
Even after having a doodle I wanted to base Sean off of, I had no idea what his personality was like; as in, who he really was. Creating a character that people could connect to or have the faintest interest in made me pause for a moment and ponder.
What makes a mysterious-and-lovable character? How mysterious is too mysterious to the point the player has difficulty in connecting with the character / it acts as an annoyance? How do I naturally reveal certain aspects without overwhelming the player or seeming too on-the-nose? What should I prioritise in mentioning within the 1000-word limit?
Honestly, planning this beforehand would have been the smart thing to do, and would have saved me a lot of time. But when throwing questions around wasn't getting me anywhere, I decided to finally sit down and just write the damn script.
I kept writing, hoping to reach somewhere, while trying not to overwhelm the player with too much info and stay under the 1000 word limit. When I got to something that resembled an ending I could work with (Ending A in-game), I looked through the script and realised, oh!
"So that's Sean."
It's like he blossomed out of the dialogue and flicked my forehead for forgetting to outline the story, in order to understand the characters and their motivations, like the dumb-ass I sometimes am.
We live and learn, folks.
So here's the gist of it: After figuring out he was the right-hand-man of Oscar (the supposed antagonist that relied on Sean to get people to talk through intimidation / usually front-and-centre of their operations / mostly 'on the field' .etc) his design came more naturally. Finally having a script also helped in figuring out his expressions / reactions, so that worked out as well.
It was also fun playing around with shapes in his character design. While squares can be found in his form such as his physique and apron (typically represents someone strong, reliable) he also had triangles sprinkled in his hair (typically represents something sharp, someone 'menacing' and unpredictable). The rules, of course, are general and can be bent; and the shapes can be mixed to convey different things, but that's a ramble for another time.
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^^ Some expressions I was trying out. Not everything made the cut o(>< )o
^^ The concept art helped me visualise the placement and size of the sprite within the game.
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And that brings us to the end of my nonsensical rambling.
I do hope you enjoyed, dear reader, and if you're thinking of starting out I hope I was able to help in some way, by lifting the curtain and revealing some of the magic.
You can do it, and your story will resonate with someone out there!!! Don't be afraid to take your first game as a learning experience, and have fun!
Until next time!
( ´ ω ` )ノﾞ
