2 weeks ago I've made a weird dream where I felt incredibly lonely. I can't really put words to describe that feeling, and that's exactly what I found interesting in this dream. I almost immediately wondered how I would do if I had to transpose this feeling in a game. And that's what made me work on the Not Alone prototype.
Play the game here : http://gamejolt.com/games/other/not-alone/14150/
Loneliness?
So the objective was to make the player feeling lonely. Let's face it : I think I failed but the whole creating process was still interesting.When alone, world is not so bright... |
Game Design
Lonely doesn't mean Alone. So I wanted the player to be among lots of other characters, but not part of their group. I wanted that all other individuals in the level go away from him/her. (It looks like player is pushing other characters with physics but actually this is a small AI playing here.)But if I wanted to turn that into a game, I needed an objective. So player has to make some friends (and maybe find love!) to "feel better."
This kind of stuff needs to be short in order to be completed by most people who will play it. 5 one-minute (max) level should be short enough.
So basically this is it : player has to make as many friends as possible through 5 levels of 1 minute.
Art
First thing I decided was not to focus on graphics : It's not that I don't care about that part of a game . The reason is that I'm a terrible graphical artist. So instead on focusing on creating a nice looking "style", I have chosen to use simple visual assets.Still they are key : I use them for feedback (color of characters) and to show progression (the level itself, which is some kind of visual representation of main character mood).
That's much better :-) |
Audio
Initially, I didn't planned any sound around the game as it was just a prototype. Still I though that having a weird music would help. I found a (almost) random fractal music generator and made my score with that. Current music is calm but disturbing and perfectly fits the game.Then after play-testing the game a bit around me, it was clear that I needed a feedback to tell the player he was approaching a potential friend. And that's the purpose of the heartbeat, nothing new here but efficient and that fits this game pretty well again.
Motivation
This prototype is also about motivation. Not player motivation, but mine :-)It's been almost a year since I started working on my "main" game, and I was working on something quite long and invisible, so it was a bit difficult to keep the motivation high. I really needed a side project done quickly. So having made and released Not Alone in less than 2 weeks (remember I'm a really part time indie dev) was very important to me. Something concrete!
Ok this was not very ambitious, polished, or amazing (I'm way more demanding than that for my "main" game) but that's Okay as it was not really the purpose here.
Still, I hope some people around the internet will try and maybe like the concept!
So feel free to leave a comment about Not Alone here, on Gamejolt or even on twitter.
Cheers!