Designer Blog 1

Hello World!

My name is Abbey Mendoza. I am the lead designer of Perry’s Pies. In Perry’s Pies, you play as Jesse, a young teen from a small sleepy town who has just been dared by his friends to find Perry’s Famous Pie Tin in the old and abandoned bakery. Rumors have been going around the town for ages that Perry was once a baker in the town and wanted to have the best pies in the country so late one night he took his favorite pie tin and used it as a ouija board to summon the devil and make a deal with him. Due to Perry using a pie tin and not an actual ouija board, the summoning went wrong and Perry instead got possessed by the devil and now haunts the abandoned bakery. 

The team working on Perry’s Pies consists of eleven to thirteen members and is run by our producer, Brad Farris. Since I am the lead designer, my blogs will be more on the process of helping lead a large team, overall design of the game, and making sure that the vision I have for the game is expressed correctly. If you would like more information on how the team is doing and what they are up to, I highly encourage you to check out my producer’s blog!

I had previously made a Game Design Document (GDD) for this idea but that GDD was for if the team had more time to work on the game (it was very much out of scope). It was the original idea of the game. Originally, this game (if I could have endless time and resources on it), was a multiplayer game with up to three players. Perry could also be able to hear the players through their microphones.This is unfortunately not the case though for the game we are making. When coming up with the idea, I was aware it would be out of scope so I designed another version of the game which is the one we are making. If you would like to visit our ever growing and updated GDD, please click HERE. This “version 2” of Perry’s Pies is a single player game and, while Perry can still hear the player, it is not through their microphone but instead through environmental hazards that the player can knock over. Another design that was changed was having the player be able to hide from Perry in specific spots on each floor. Hiding is still in the GDD for what we are making but it is put as more of a want than a need in the game. When thinking about the design of this game, I really really focused on playing into a human’s natural fear of the paranormal and the fear of “monsters under the bed”. To add more replayability, after the player finishes the game once, a speed mode will be unlocked where the player can speedrun the game and try to beat times. 

Perry has quite a bit of different aspects and designs going into him especially since he is the monster of the whole game. As mentioned earlier, Perry can hear the player through environmental hazards. The player will also have other defenses against Perry such as deterrents and attractions. Deterrents are designed to be used/activated when the player is being chased by Perry and attractions are for when the player is trying to get around Perry in some way. Perry will also be on a set path through each floor but is still able to go off the path if the player triggers a hazard or uses an attraction. Perry will also be crawling extremely fast at the player when chasing them to add to the horror of the game. 

When designing the levels, I wanted the player to be able to have the freedom to choose the order in which they get the three different keys to unlock Perry’s spectral chains on the exit door. I gave the player this freedom because I believe it would be very frustrating for the player to find one of the keys before the other if it had to be found in a specific order. Players will also be able to travel to each floor by the way of an elevator. In total, there are four floors if you include the ground/ introduction floor that is the bakery. The other floors are the kitchen, factory, and the basement. 

Since there is a lot to be done when making this game, I instantly had my 3D artist start modeling Perry within the first sprint (my 2D artist was very quick and amazing at creating great concepts!). I also had my producer task the programmers with basic controls for the player and making Perry be able to patrol and recognize the player/ chase the player. The art style for Perry’s Pies is combined with stylized realism and the atmosphere of an abandoned bakery that has seen a lot of better days than its current condition. 

While my producer got the ball rolling with the other departments, this gave me the chance to focus on making concept art of the different wireframes needed for Perry’s Pies. When thinking about the wireframes, I never wanted them to be cluttered with a lot of feedback. This is mainly due to the environment already having so much clutter everywhere (it is abandoned of course). Since the player is only able to hold a combination of5 attractions/deterrents, I decided to have the hot bar on the bottom of the screen. This is also a more natural design for the player since so many other games have their inventory bars at the bottom of their UI. I also wanted the player to be able to see their “hand” in game and be able to see the item they had selected in their hotbar to also be seen being held in the hand. I designed it this way because, if the player is being chased, they wouldn’t have time to see what they had in the hotbar, it could be easier for them to see it in the character’s hand. I also focused on making the victory and game over screens as well as the elevator menu so the player can choose what floor they wanted when interacting with the elevator. 

As we are vigorously working towards our very first prototype, I plan to have a level where the player will be able to run away from Perry in order to test his “AI” in an environment for the prototype. 

In conclusion, the development of Perry’s Pies is off to a very strong start and I cannot wait to see how amazing this horror game will be!