Update 1 - 3 Hours In
Basic Movement, Temperature, and Finding Mechanics
I have a basic game. I am working on getting my core loop finished so I can start testing. I've added the ability to swipe and move, a thermometer, a basic lantern, and a Son to find.
[ I can't figure out why I can't upload mp4 files, so this is a placeholder]
Brainstorming
I started out sketching my idea out on paper. I find that doing it there helps me brainstorm quickly without getting bogged down with software.
I came up with some of the mechanics. I want the game to really focus around the balance between needing to move and wanting to stay still, so I wrapped a lot of the mechanics back into that. For example, I originally thought about having the player have a button to change the height of the lantern, but then decided it would fit that balance better by tying the lantern height to the player movement.
Mechanics - The Lantern
The lantern will have 3 heights -- low, medium, and high. The higher the lantern goes, the further the player can see, but also the further the player can be seen. The only way to raise the lantern is by moving, which should force the player to think about moving vs. standing still. As soon as the player stops, the lantern goes to medium height. If the player doesn't move for a bit, then the player hunkers down and moves the lantern to low. This makes the player almost invisible to the Soldiers, but he can't see very far.
The lantern will have 3 light ranges as well -- Bright, Dim, and Darkness. Bright light is where he can see well, identify things and colors, etc. A Soldier who sees the Bright light will find the player. Dim light he can still see a little bit, but it's muted and muddied. A soldier ignores dim light. Darkness is pretty absolute. It will have some variation to help with providing context to player movement, but nothing useful can be gained from the darkness.
Feel of the Game
I also brainstormed on the title screen and several of the cut scenes that I wanted in the game -- Opening, Freeze, Shot, etc. These will be coming later, but I wanted to work on the emotional feel and knowing how I wanted to present things would help me decide direction later.
Colors
I read somewhere that offering a strong color palette can help to really tie a game together, so I went with a minimal palette in order to help guide the player without telling them what to do.
As an aside, I recommend the site (coolors.co) I pulled this from. It was quite nice to generate a palette.
My wife has offered to watercolor some textures for me, which is awesome! Hopefully I can do her work justice. I will probably model my own stuff, but we will see on how far I get on the mechanics. No mechanics, no game. Graphics are a plus.
Next Steps - Web Build and Finish Gameplay Loop
The next steps I have are to build a basic level, improve player/camera movement, and implement some rudimentary AI for both the Son and the Soldiers. I need the level and the AI to start iterating on Light Mechanics. The movement improvements are because the movement doesn't feel good enough to me. With it being a core gameplay loop, it needs to be flawless in interaction.
I also want to get a web build up and running for people to try. That way, I can get feedback on the game as it progresses. I know I am already biased to like the game and need outside feedback to help make it better!