Hello everyone!

My name is Olivia Yee and I am the Game Designer on the game we are making called Into the Woods. In these blogs, I will be telling you about the progress that my team will be making each Sprint from the perspective of a designer; I explain the why behind each decision that was made. Along with my perspective, my producer, Nathan Beste, will also be sharing his point of view in terms of the production of the game. I am very much looking forward to experiencing a game on the design side and even more excited to make my vision become a reality!

Before we go too far, let me give you a brief introduction to the team and the project that we are working on. Our team is comprised of 11 students at California State University, Chico all aspiring to be future game-makers in the industry. As part of the Computer Animation and Game Development Department, our task this semester is to publish a game starting from the ground up. Into the Woods is a randomly-generated dungeon crawler in which the player will take on the role of a young witch/wizard whose master has been stolen. In just three in-game days, the player must cast spells, brew potions, collect items, and explore the forest in order to save their master from their captor. 

Will you step up and recover what you lost, or will you remain lost in the woods?

With that in mind, let's get to some progress!

Pre-Sprint

Before the entirety of production started, there was quite a bit that went into the pre-production of the game that I had not thought of. One of the biggest challenges that I faced was not only needing to figure out what it meant to be a designer but also realizing that everything that was in this game was my decision. From that, it was making a design document (that ended up being about 22 pages), putting together keys and standards, as well as developing a mood board.

Moving into the sprint, I would like to say that there was so much that was done that I cannot even begin to express my joy. I was super nervous that the thing that I was creating in my head would not translate, but my team really stepped up to the plate to show me the wonderful things that they could do.

2D Art/Animation

In terms of the visual style that I was going for, and what I mentioned when I pitched this game for the class, I wanted everything in the game to feel very whimsical. If I were to pick one buzzer word for this entire game, that would be the word that I chose. The reasoning behind this was that I wanted everything to feel like it popped right out of a storybook. You are taking on the role of a magical being, I wanted everything around to reflect that. On top of that, whimsical styles are something that I quite enjoy. When I was thinking about the design of my game, I also wanted it to be something that I would play if I were a player.

That being said, I think that my 2D Artist, Atley Sakamoto, and my Animator, Daniel Solis, really nailed that vision that I was going for this sprint. Atley was able to come up with not only a character concept for the main character, but also come up with some initial UI layout. Both of these things really captured this idea of whimsy and I am very excited to see them in the game.

This sprint, I tasked Daniel with doing a little bit of rigging as well as test animations for the game. I wanted him to get a feel for how I wanted the character to look when it was moving about the screen. That being said, the challenge that I gave to him was that I didn't want the character to be straight from life. To get the whimsical element, and if you noticed from Atley's character design, the player doesn't have any legs....so it would not walk the same as a human. Daniel really nailed the idea of "squash and stretch" that I had asked him for and I cannot wait to see this little guy moving around the map.

3D Art

In terms of 3D Art, I was very happy that my artists were up to wearing multiple hats. I knew kind of what I wanted in terms of the look, but I didn't really know how to express it without drawing it out. Fear not! My 3D artists were up to the task and came up with some beautiful concept work that not only matched this idea of whimsy that I was hoping for but also gave me a pretty clear vision of what their 3D models would look like (and even the textures and color palettes!). That being said, I had Erika Muniz working on some concepts for the environment and Talia Law working on concepts for the collectible items that the player can get throughout the game. Below, you will first see Erika's concepts for the environment and the other images are Talia's.

Level Design

First of all, let me say that I am so very proud of the level designers and the work that they did this sprint. It was beyond any of my expectations and it gives me confidence that we are going to be able to deliver a unique player experience each time that the player starts a new loop of the game. One of my goals was to make sure that the player was able to play the game over and over and not always have the game feel the same. That being said, each of my level designers not only annotated 16 different rooms that the player can encounter but also blocked them out so that they could be easily implemented in the game!  When they were initially trying to understand what exactly that I wanted, I told them to reference The Binding of Issac. I liked the way that the player didn't always have to battle an enemy in each room and that sometimes there were rooms that were harder than others. We won't know for sure how the balance of each of the rooms that they designed will be, but from what I have seen so far, my level designers are nailing it! There are far too many maps to show, but here are some of my favorites. The first one that you see is from Eric Swartz and the second is from Reggie Parades.

Programming

My hat is off and I am blown away by the work that I have gotten from my programmers. When I was initially thinking up the game and writing all my thoughts down in the Design Document, I was so worried that I was making a game that was going to be far too complicated to make. How wrong I was to think that because Chase O'Connor, JT Esmond, and Paul Hernandez are on the case! In terms of programming, I mentioned this a little bit with level design, but I wanted the player's experience in each time that they played the game to be unique and to match the rhythm of the game. Since one of the resources that the player will have is time, I wanted to make sure that they were not wasting it. In that came natural keybinds and easy to read and understand UI. These two elements would then pair with the randomization of the game that they were playing. This sprint, I got a peek into all of those things! 

Chase was able to make a player functionality that matched my design and felt smooth for the player as well as a dent in the collectibles that the player would be able to get. 

JT was able to get some basic UI in that would be giving the player the info that they need to know.

Last, and certainly not least, Paul was able to get the randomization of the world going....and this excites me so much! He did a fantastic job at taking what I hoped for and making it a reality. With this system in place, and hopefully an astounding amount of work from the level designers, the player's experience will never be the same when they play.

All that being said, to wrap things up, I am so excited to see everything that I designed come to life. We are definitely on a path to greatness and I could not have done that without an amazing dev team to back me up. I definitely learned a lot this sprint about what it means to be a designer, but I still have a ton to learn! It is going to be a lot of learning as I go which is minorly terrifying, but also really exciting for me as an individual. One of my goals this next sprint is to get a little bit of 2D work done as well for my team as I find that it can be easier for me to either write or draw the things that are going on in my brain.

To my team, thank you for all that you do and I cannot wait to see what we make moving forward! To those of you reading this, thank you for tuning in and I'm very excited to share with you the progress of my game. Hopefully, you will stick with us on this journey and play along as the game grows!

See you soon. 🧙‍♂️

- Into the Woods Dev Team