Different viewpoints

Along with the idea that the game's protagonist would use different animal forms for different missions in the game, I wanted to go further than  this and utilise not only their forms but their abilities as well. So I started working on designs that would show how during the game you could use the selected animals senses in first or third person perspective. An example I thought of would be at one stage in the game you are plunged into darkness but if you become a bat you can easily navigate your way around and out of the room using the bat's echolocation. Another example is using the telescopic vision of the hawk to spot snipers and being able to track enemies using the wolf's 'scent vision'.

I liked this idea as it gave a new angle on the game and made using the animals forms more interesting.

Yes Wii can

Expanding on my idea that my game could have a broader appeal, I began thinking that the concept would also appeal to a younger audience so I decided to have two versions of the game, similar to what Atari did with their 'Ghostbusters: The Video Game' in that there was a more photo realistic Xbox 360/PC/Playstation 3 version and a more cartoonish Wii version. I wanted my game to address this as best as possible and make use of the Wii's younger demographic.

I began designing versions of my characters and premise so that it better suited the pre-teen audience and hit the 'Ben 10' style fanbase. I made the main characters younger and designed more cartoonish versions of the animals...

I eventually found a style I thought worked well for this idea and made a mock Wii game cover.

Market Research & Audience

As an action/Adventure game my game would have a predominantly male audience from ages 12+ but I wanted my game to have a broader scope than this so I started thinking about alternate versions.

With regards to Market research, there wasn't a whole lot of games on the market that were truly similar. Yes, there was a lot of highly popular Action/Adventure games, in fact according to The Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/personal-tech/controller-freak/the-top-20-video-games-of-2009/article1405516/ the best selling game of 2009 was an Action/Adventure (Naughty Dog's 'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves) and an Action/Adventure was voted Game of the Year at the BAFTA Awards (Rockstaeady's 'Batman Asylum') http://www.1up.com/news/batman-arkham-asylum-takes-game

Highest selling titles of 2009

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3, action-adventure)

2. Assassin’s Creed II (360/PS3/PC, action-adventure)

3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (360/PS3/PC, first-person shooter)

4. Dragon Age: Origins (360/PS3/PC, role-playing game)

5. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, platformer)

6. inFamous (PS3, action-adventure)

7. Flower (PS3, poetic adventure)

8. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS, adventure/role-playing game)

9. Forza Motorsport 3 (360, racing simulator)

10. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (DS, puzzle)

11. Punch-Out!! (Wii, arcade boxer)

12. Killzone 2 (PS3, first-person shooter)

13. Halo 3: ODST (360, first-person shooter)

14. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS, adventure/role-playing game)

15. LittleBigPlanet (PSP, puzzle platformer)

16. PixelJunk Shooter (PS3, puzzle/2D shooter)

17. DJ Hero (360/PS3/PS2/Wii, music)

18. Resident Evil 5 (360/PS3/PC, survival horror)

19. Batman: Arkham Asylum (360/PS3/PC, action-adventure)

20. Borderlands (360/PS3/PC, role-playing game/first-person shooter)

So if it was released this year, what titles would be my competition? Well titles like Propaganda Games' 'Tron: Legacy', Activisions' 'Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions' and Konami's 'Castlevania: Lords of Shadow' would be the main Action/Adventure contenders of the year but I think that my game has more depth than these and because of it's almost puzzle-solving nature at times along with it's strong premise give it greater scope and wider appeal.

Gameplay

As I wanted the the transformations to be more dynamic and visible, I made the game a third person play. Although it was also firmly in the 'Action/Adventure' genre I decided that I wanted the game to be more cerebral than just another version of Sega's 'Altered Beast', where the transformations would only serve as a weapon. I wanted the changes to be relevant to whatever mission in the game is taking place, that each mission would require the ability of certain animal forms. For instance, for stealth the gamer would use the black panther or small cat form, for infiltration - spider, for speed - cheetah and so on. That made the gameplay more interesting and more involved. I needed to make the control system as simple as possible, as while researching transformations in games I had read that a large part of the problem for Activisions 'Transformers: The Game' was that they had made the system of transforming in the game to complex a control. So mine would be a simple button press and wheel selection process such as utilised in Arkham Asylum to select the weapon type and Radical Entertainment's 'Prototype' to select the power.

The game would be open world like Prototype as well but with a mission led path. It would be single player as well as the premise and set-up did not allow itself for play as a multiplayer game.

HUD:

Because I had used nanobots, they would also act as a good way to give a health bar readout, their 'charge' would enable a limit to the number of times the player could change form. I designed the character so he would have a readout on his wrist which displayed the nanobots charge  as well (it would be bio-luminescent and therefore organic and able to be absorbed as well). This health gauge worked well as the onscreen HUD and I worked in the form select wheel to the gauge so that it showed an icon of the form in use on screen as well.

The Story

For the next part of my design process, I began thin king about the narrative, who would have this ability and why, was there others? Who was he/she up against? Mark Twain once said 'Write what you know'. So I made the main protagonist a male in his 30's. I also decided that I wanted to take as much a realistic/scientific approach as I could to the game's premise, difficult as it is to believe I didn't want to add aspects of magic supernatural. Rather to ground it in science so I decided that it would be nanotechnology that would enable this ability. I then fleshed the story out a little more and decided he would be an intelligence operative that is recruited to a programme that gave him the tech. I then began a few preliminary drawings of the character to create his look...

Then the protagonist, well each hero needs a villain so someone with the same ability would work. I then added the uni-shifters, small low level 'minions' who are given the tech by the main protagonist but it's imperfect and they can only shift into one animal form. These would serve as the most frequent opponent in the game in the same way that the inmates did in Rocksteady's 'Batman: Arkham Asylum'.

As I was keeping the premise grounded in science I decided to add a suit that the main character would wear which he could transform in so as he doesn't rip his clothes all the time and end up naked when he changes back to human. I designed a body-suit which in the game would be made of organic materials which he would absorb into himself and add mass when he changed. I added a diode on the chest which he would tap and voice activate the change by saying which animal.

For the texture of the suit I looked at various animal skins and rubber textures, I liked the look of the octagonal pattern but that had already been done with EA's 'Crysis' and Sony's 'Spider-man' suit. So I finally decided on the look of shark skin, it's made up of denticles; almost teeth like layers across the surface.

Already I began thinking that the concept had enough depth in it to allow for some transmedia application, perhaps in the form of graphic novels or animated episodes.

Now I had the basis of the story and the character's I began to think about the play itself, how the game which I had now called 'Wylde' after the protagonist Thomas Wylde, would work for the gamer.

First thoughts...

Over the Summer I began thinking about what type of game I would like to make. My way of working is to concentrate on the story first as I think it's the first building block of digital games. Obviously others may argue that narrative is arbitrary but for me, my personal taste is for games with string core narrative. I always loved the concept of being able to change forms into different animals since I saw a TV show called Manimal back in the 80's...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugb_TIpPoWA

I thought the idea in the show was woefully unexploited, after all each form he would take would either be a) to get somewhere faster b) to scare his enemies. So I decided to use the basic premise and make it an in-depth game where the changes in form mattered and were relevant.

So my first task was gathering together an influence map, to reflect what kind of game I would eventually create...

Next up I would start thinking a little more in depth about the story.