Game Concept: Forward

Here I document the ideation of the second of my three game ideas, which ended with the working title 'Forward'.

I will demonstrate the importance of our memories in shaping us, having the player purposefully slow down to take in events to truly be able to feel a sense of meaning, or else feel hollow.

Core Gameplay Loop Ideation

Further insight on the essential experience and its ideation can be found here.

I wanted to build a narrative game through this essential experience, as I believe that narrative design is my greatest strength when compared to other skills. I wanted to have simple mechanics that intertwine with the storytelling for this concept.

The following loops are the core –and sole– loops of gameplay that I settled on the before the phase 3 presentation:

Loop 1

Activity & Risk:

Swinging, with the risk that doing so will result in skipping a point in time that may deepen the bond of the player with the characters in the game.

Reward:

Mechanical: They may be able to skip an interaction they deem unimportant, or progress to the next interaction after one has ended.
Emotional: There should be curiosity when entering each scene.

Opportunity:

The ability to swing freely will begin after a small demonstration of the mechanics in the context of the narrative (ie. A tutorial that does not take you out of the story), after which point it will not end until the last scene of the game itself.

Loop 2

Activity & Risk:

Engaging in interactions with non-playable characters (NPCs).

Reward:

Mechanical: Unlocking dialogue options in future interactions and changing what interactions might appear.
Emotional: A deeper bond with characters, and context to understand future interactions they may participate in more clearly.

Opportunity:

When the player does not swing again after entering a new period of time, events will unfold before them that will often lead to the ability to interact with characters within those events.

I went with these gameplay loops because they have very simple mechanics that interact well with each other and fit within the essential experience, making players slow down if they want to stay in a scene and connect with characters in the story.

Later in the idea development, I made the decision that whilst every swing forward would cause a time skip, it would only be when it is a swing that causes the character to be looking up at the sky that the skip actually occurs, so multiple scenes could be skipped at once if the player loses momentum and has to build it up again. My intention here is to make it so that a player can never experience every scene in the game in one playthrough.

Gameworld and Narrative Ideation

First Concept - Forward

"The player will be in first-person as they sit on a swing in front of a countryside house. All the player can do is swing forwards, backwards, and talk. Every time the player swings forward a significant distance, they will skip past the point of time they are in, and onto the next. This can result in missing opportunities to talk with people."

With this basic narrative, the context of past scenes will influence how the player perceives the events in the present scene. Moments that may seem sad on their own, will (or should) elicit different emotional reactions from those who experienced prior scenes. To those who made sure to not swing, to observe and interact with the scenes they entered at different points of time: they will have context of the protagonist’s life.

Player Character "Toni's" Gender

I considered whether I could aim for not giving a clear gender to the player character, using a gender-neutral name and avoiding pronouns in dialogue referring to them. It may help the player put themselves in the place of the character if they are not given a specific gender. This is something I could not decide on by myself, so I made sure to note it in the phase 3 presentation to potentially get feedback on the idea.

Gameworld and Narrative Final Concept - Forward

"The player is in 1st person as Toni, sitting on a swing in front of a countryside house. They begin as a young child, but as they swing more, time will pass by and the environment around the player will change to make this noticeable –some time skips more than others. The player must stop swinging to stay in the same period of time (scene), or else miss the moment, removing context for later scenes in the game at times.

The player will live out a full lifetime, going through the ups and downs of Toni’s life, and (if they stop swinging) seeing their relationships with others, getting to talk with their family and other loved ones. Living in the moment and holding onto important memories helps give us meaning. Without the context of their past, events in Toni’s life will be perceived differently."

Fundamentally this is the same as the first idea, but I feel it provides a bit more clarity on the workings of the concept.

Prototyping

Storyboard

Sit on a swing in front of a rural house.
Swing forward to skip current point in time.
Observe changes in environment in different time periods
Whilst not swinging, observe events and interact with people who appear
When you feel fine to move on, simply start swinging again
The context of prior scenes will change how one reacts to later ones.

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3

4

5

6 Moodboards

Rural Houses

Rural Environments

One-Page Pitch

The last thing I made for this idea before the phase 3 presentation was a 'One-Page Pitch' to summarise all of the core aspects of the game's theme and gameplay to attract people to finding out more.