Goals

Week Twenty

(or Again, You Aren't Missing Something)

It's now the second week of the semester and I'm hard at work on AIM< along with the rest of Violent Traversal. So far the past couple weeks have been a flurry of catching up on what everyone's been working on and plotting out a tentative roadmap for the next 12-ish weeks of development until we publicly demo AIM< gameplay at SGX17.We are planning to have playtest events, which will be detailed on the AIM< Facebook page.

Over break I worked on some concepts for the cannon's (now a "mech") leg design as well as design document odds and ends. See the gallery below for a look at the mech art.

The past couple weeks have included work on textures, models, mechanics, gameplay, and level design. On Monday we will be presenting the current state of AIM< to our producer and adjusting elements based on his feedback.

In my first blog post, "Initial Game Design and Ideation", I talked about the nature of AIM< as a capstone game design project at UW Stout. Fall semester can be summarized as a lot of ideation and pivots. Spring semester heralds the second "half" of the course and a bit of a shift in focus. AIM< now has a set mission statement, which will be used as the goal by which further decisions are made. I'll be trying to focus my blog posts more on the reasons behind the game design decisions I'm involved in and how matches up with the mission statement. Ideation still continues but there won't be anymore pivots since the endgame is set.

So what does a mission statement mean in game design? In a nutshell, the mission statement is the essential overall elements that create a game's identity. My professor here at UW Stout, Jay Little, teaches that a game's mission statement is three things; who you (the player) are, what you do, and how do you win. It should be short enough to explain what the game is as a concise pitch. The mission statement I wrote for AIM< looks like this:

"You (the player) control a mech that shoots projectiles and drones and seek to destroy an AI."

The mission statement can be expanded upon with details for the "back of the box" marketing bullet-points. My working version for AIM< so far:

"Take control of a futuristic mech able to launch drones and fire projectiles created out of recycled scrap materials. Gain the ability to create different types of drones and projectiles through power-ups.  

Experience compelling platforming gameplay where each shot fired reveals more possibilities through the planet’s dangerous terrain. Drones and projectiles are not just weapons but tools to provide solutions to challenges.  

The mech, drones, and projectiles all rely on one another. The mech creates specialized drones and fires projectiles. Drones collect resources, can be used as batteries, and explore out-of-the way places. Projectiles turn certain objects into scrap, siphon energy, and send resources back to the mech or a drone.  

Explore varied environments across the planet’s harsh surface, through claustrophobic caverns and an abandoned settlement.  

Use the mech’s resources wisely to outwit malicious technology and survive devastating environmental hazards." 

As a game designer, my goal with the mission statement and "back of the box" blurb is to give a potential audience enough info to decide whether to play the game.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

AIM< Mech Leg Ideation by Aram Wahler