By the end of week 1 of our game process Shashank and I quickly realised that I wouldn’t be able to learn enough about 3D modelling in Maya to make literally anything useable for our game in the time allotted; let alone serviceable game build assets. We decided to keep with the original concept, while tweaking the story a bit to suit the 2D platformer game style. This worried me alot because so much of the organic feel to the mechanics that a 3D third person game would provide was very key to the way the story had meant to play out.

Worries:

A lot will be lost without AAA game feel, the subversive nature of making a feminist game with a fully dressed, stocky, not quite gender-conforming protagonist that looks and plays like a typical dude-bro shoot em up would be gone completely.
The melee style mechanics would be no more
The call and response audio cues coupled with swarm attacks from enemies would be hard to jig.
The freedom to wander and experience different “consequences” through varying time periods just by nature of being a woman would be pretty much gone in a restrictive side-scroll format.
I still won’t have learned Maya
Since S has done a similar game previously, I worry that we may end up using existing code for the game rather than custom mechanics, which I think are important. Example: The way she throws a dissertation should move like a book or stack of papers would, not like a disc, rock, etc.

Wins:

I feel confident that I can actually create the assets needed and on the right timeline
S has done this exact style of game before, so we should be able to get one playable level going quickly then make the next one(s) more in depth
I am creating all of the assets myself (with tutorials) rather than pulling a bunch from the asset store as I would have if we used 3D
This being such a different iteration than our original concept is leaving me even more motivated to pitch the “proper” version of the game and pull together a team to work on it in future.

Level Design:

In our story, one of the levels our hero time warps to is in the neolithic era. As she lands on the scene, the Narrator’s voice says “Don’t get carried away by the cavemen!!

Here we are playing on the trope that men used to just club a woman over the head and carry her off back in the “good ol’ days” as some men still assert (jokingly?) today.

#NOTALLCAVEMEN try to carry her off, but many do once they notice her. The game play is also designed that when one notices that his cavebro is having trouble with a non-knockoutable woman, he then goes into attack mode to help his cavebro out.

I’d like to see the dinosaurs on the horizon and the Pterodactyl in the sky slightly animated as well as the tarb bubbles that can be seen below in image 2.

The move from 3D to 2D clearly also included a major style shift in terms of visuals. Once the hyper realistic gameplay and mechanics were gone, so was my interest in that style of art for the game. Instead I focussed on visual consistency and using a really complimentary colour palette. I still thing that if animated right, the gist of our jokes will still be possible. It will just look extra silly to see a cartoony horde chase a woman for being able to read in level 2 rather than provide and actual adrenaline pumping experience of that same situation that the 3D platform would have been lovely for. The above assets were created in Adobe Illustrator and by watching youtube tutorials on level and character design, largely by Mark Rice. Thanks Mark!

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Work in Progress Blog

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Time Wench Phase 2: Level Design