After 3 weeks of concepting, our development team has produced a prototype that de-risks our main feature of the game. While we have a lot of ideas about where to take the game next, our vision for the product has become more clear. We’ve decided our game will focus around venturing higher and deeper into the labyrinth of Zegu, by controlling your character through a series of methodical levels. Utilizing patience, the player develops a relationship with Zegu, an AI Spotlight Monster. 

Originally, our concept was to make a “Stealth-3D Platformer,” but the more we wanted to implement into the game, the more incohesive and out of scope the project became. We were assigned the task of bringing a fully developed concept to the table, that we could ship in 9 weeks. After brainstorming, documenting, pitching, and responding to feedback from our professor, we have made a few changes to our production plan. 

As you can see in the image above, our prototype consists of a red spotlight, a few walls, and a player character. The player can move, and has the goal of reaching the center without touching the spotlight. Said spotlight moves both clockwise and counterclockwise around the circular level in a semi-random pattern, and will react when connecting with the player. While playing, we found that the objective of not being seen was fun, but was rather easy to accomplish due to the inconsistent patterns of the spotlight. 

Finally, now that we have entered our Pre-Production phase of development, our goal is to create a vertical slice of our game. To us, this means a complete and mostly polished level. In order to do this, we need to polish our spotlight, implement “doors” that open and close when the spotlight sees you as a punishment for being seen, and a simple enemy to populate our game space. We have three weeks to complete these tasks. We plan to test our level every monday to get feedback on our gameplay, and iterate accordingly! 

Stay tuned for more posts about the development of the game and a playable demo to come!