Refined Product
So refining the idea, I also wanted the game to be on continuous path for the player to explore and designing those became a bit of problem as I was designing the narrative alongside the mechanics. But how to I get the idea of the narrative to be solid?
As I mentioned before, taking the player through a dream seemed like the concept I was going with and delivering that I thought that the character the player is going to control is a psudo-character, so what happens in this dream is a reflection of the real characters life. There has to be a traumatic experience for the character to reflect what will happen in the story and experiencing these emotions.
(Hopefully) Brief Narrative Summary
So I will give a text based story board that goes over the game and what happens:
‘The little boy goes to bed as usual, not much is known of where he is, but it is just him in this room and start drfit into a deep slumber’
The camera would then zoom onto a little shelf where we meet the character we are playing as…. Prime (the reason for this name is just because I see diamonds and I think of shapes which then goes to Prism, I think there’s a resemblance). As the character starts to move towards the other side of the shelf and a portal is open to the dreamscape and the character walks through seemlessly to a Ancient Looking forest
In his dreams, the boy see a figure in the distance resembling his mother and tries to chase after this figure, he end up getting lost trying to find his way back home. He succeeds in finding he way back home, bumping into his friends as he plays little games with them on his way back to his house, where he meets his Mother. They bond of simple talking and going over their personal memories of times past.
This is then interrupted by loud crashing sounds and a howling of sinister omen as the sky turns dark. They both inspect what this is by promptly going outside, people are running in distress as a beast of an unknown nature slaughters them all as the Sun turns black….. getting lost in the crowd Prime, discovers his own Mother lying there unmoving, unconcous and no longer alive. Prime is taken by other member of his tribe to run away from the terror. He then runs alone in his sloq discent to madness angry and his own people, being alone and having angry halucinations trying to hurt his own people.Again a figure of his Mother lights the way leading to believe what he seen is impossible and he starts to follow it. Whilst doing so another encounter with the Beast of The Black Sun ensures and he hides whilst still following this figure to recieve some answers.
He finally approaches this figure of light on the edge of a cliff, only to a find a false transformatiion of his now deceased mother. The false idol approaches him and gives him an option whilst he is on the cliff, jump of the cliff and accept the future, or stay in this world and dwell on your mistakes’
The ending is designed to understand how the player is reflective not just in their experience of the game, but outside of it as well so it makes the player choose whether they will stay in this dark world and hold on to problems which can make them suffer or accept these flaws and problems by going forward and not backwards.
Additonal Components
I just want to gloss over some choices made
Starting with a unknown boy going to sleep in his room
I wanted the game to start off as something realistic before turning into something out of the imagination, to slowly introduce the concept of this dream and to convey that message at the end of the game, which should have more impact because of this beginning idea of a cutscene.
The Forest inspiration?
Using influences from Aztec culture and changing it’s initial concept a bit, I didn’t want it to be the biggest influence but it allowed for the idea of dreamscape in the woods to be themed correctly without having to use any of the serious elements of the cutlure. The Black Sun was then used as a metaphor for great turnmoil for the character
Why all other characters in village, are all the same except for the Mother character?
I wanted to create an emphasis on certain characters, the mother being the best example, as she needs to represent the one shining part in this boys life, everyone looks the same because of that emotional importance the Mother character carries. She is the most important in comparison to everyone else who is background noise.
The character changes colour throughout the game, why?
Mainly the colour change of the diamond humanoid is to present visual represenation of what the character is supposed to be feeling for example, if the character goes into the Anger section, the character will have a red hue.
Any refernce Art?
Of course, I didn’t make the art, the art assets were created by Myles Hunte as posted just below.
