The beginning of my Production II class this semester was dedicated to creating many prototypes of potential games. We were split into small development teams and assigned the task of creating 3 prototypes in three weeks. We were then given a fourth week to polish and pitch one of our prototypes. My amazing team was comprised of one producer: Ryan Murphy, one programmer: Nicholas Eckstein, and myself, the designer and artist.
We began with a simple game. The player would attempt to balance a character on a chair while reaching up to screw in a light bulb.
We received decent response with this game, however we felt that we could do better. In addition, we were the smallest team, and we wanted to challenge not only ourselves but the expectations of our peers and do more with less. For our second game, we chose to do something slightly more complicated. We chose a concept that I had been itching to create since high school. In this game you control a pirate ship which crests giant waves and avoids sharp rocks by deftly raising and lowering the sails. Additionally, debris in the ocean can be destroyed with the ships cannons.
This game was more impressive than our first, however, the art was time consuming and we weren't entirely sure where exactly we would go with it. Our final game is the one we chose to spend a second week on and eventually continue to develop with a larger team. This game was entitled Lymantria Dispar. It is a survival game in which the player must survive in a dark forest, cutting down trees and using them to create campfires and torches in order to see. However, they must also use the felled trees to make arrows to defend themselves from the giant moths and larvae that the fires attract.
Needless to say, I am so happy looking back on these prototypes and so proud of this team.