My game design partner Shashank Gargeshwari and I decided to team up to create the game “Time Wench” - the working title that just won’t go away. He would handle the code in Unity and I would do the art and bulk of story writing. I hadn’t done much game making before outside of the sketches on this blog, so I was excited to be working with someone who had made game before and was really interested in doing the coding.

We decided to pursue a feminist time travel story and based on the fast paced gameplay and visual style we pictured, felt it would be best as a 3rd person shooter 3D game. I also really liked this idea because many games that tackle non commercial stories and issue tend not to use this style and high production value, often they use text based, narrative styles or are sidescrollers. This seemed like a good opportunity to learn Maya as well for our asset creation.

Here’s the breakdown of our first concept:

Intro:

In a post apocalyptic future, the government has taken The Handmaid’s Tale as a how to guide. But all is not lost! Turns out Marie Curie discovered more than radium. You play as Genypher, a sassy grad student and volunteer feline midwife, who has to use Currie’s secret time machine to learn how the women of the past survived so many eras of subjugation, and save the future!

Character Bios

Genypher :

Genypher, a sassy grad student and volunteer feline midwife. While working on her thesis (“Feminism Throughout the Millennia : How the F*%K aren’t we there yet?”), she discovers a neato time machine designed by Marie Curie that she uses for “Research Purposes”. As expected, the things she finds in the past are enough to bleach her Bubblegum Blue hair grey. Will she be able to recover the PatriArtifacts and use them to finally bring down the patriarchy?

Narrator :

Narrator is like a  Reality TV Host from the future. Narrator is smart, witty, and incisively sexist. In spite of his tongue in the cheek comments, he means well, and spurs on Genypher during her trials. He secretly wears a #NotAllMen T-Shirt under his suit.

Gameplay Description

Levels are mostly “Get From A to B” with fighting and interaction along the way.
The Player can walk, run and jump. She can also interact with Pre-Scripted items in the environment.
She can attack and perform various combos against enemies. Enemies themselves react to different parameters like position and state of player, environment, and weapons.
She can use a variety of weapons, each with their own unique effect, both positive and negative.
The game plays on queer and third wave feminism tropes, in a satirical manner, that might be seen as a little “inside baseball” but so is the phrase inside baseball itself. If we do it well, odds are that if you don’t get the joke, it’s not for you. 

Artistic Style Outline

• AAA Game Style
• Feminist “Grand Theft Auto”, influenced by style of Psychonauts
• Future versions will have a variety of female identified characters
• Think Lara Croft and Chun-Li had a baby, but with more clothes on.

Aim is to look like typical high end third person shooter/fighter but with subversive themes, plot, gameplay.

Examples:

D’arci Stern – Urban Chaos, Jade - Beyond Good and Evil

Studies of typical female game characters:

Systematic Breakdown of Components:

Player Controller - Receives inputs from the player and translate them into the game world.

Enemy Controller - Controls an individual enemy in the level

Enemy Group Controller - Drives group behavior of Enemies

Interactable Object Controller - Manages object interaction in the level

Narration Controller - Controls the Narrator in the game

Level Controller - Controls the level progression

UI/Menu Controller - Controls the UI of the game and screen navigation.

Art Assets:

• Player
• Weapons
• Enemies
• Level Layout
• Level items and Props
• UI Panels.
• Include auxiliary interaction assets (like sparks from the sword) where necessary.

Text Assets:

• Menu Items
• Narrative and Progression Text
• Item Descriptions
• Interaction Text
• Dynamically presented dialogue

Sound Assets:

• In-Game Sounds [Actions, Interactions and Ambient]
• UI Sounds
• BackGround Music [Menu/In Game]
• Narrative
• Dialogue

Suggested Game Flow Diagram

• Start  
• Level BackStory Cutscene
• Start Level
• Core Loop
• Interaction One [CheckPoint]
• Core Loop
• Interaction Two[Checkpoint]
• Core Loop
• Level End
• Ending Cutscene

Core Loop involves navigation and combat.

A death at any time takes the player back to the previous “Interaction” phase.