At the point in development of beginning creating the codebase and producing the concept, I decided to take a freeform approach to the process in order to “feel out” the concept of the game as I developed it. While this may not be the most efficient approach to production, I feel like I trust my instincts in this topic after my research, and want to be able to include personalised details to the game alongside the systems that I implement in order to create a product that feels more characterful than clinical.
Starting Systems
I began by designing the environment using some simple primitive objects and coloured lights. I created a closed room with some furniture, and modelled out the “war table” in blender. I placed the objects in the room to give a feel for the dissonance between the regular bedroom setting, and the high tech military cliché war table.
After setting up the room, I began by creating the main interactable of the game, a mission point orb that can be spawned on the war table and once clicked, shifts you into the “mini game” of the mission. I used a simple tweening script to move the camera between the original position, and each of the missions when clicked, and created a simple unique ID system to ensure that the camera rig flows between the original point, and each mission without the simple “state machine” breaking down.
Next I realised that the game felt very static in it’s presentation, so I added a simple camera shifting script to the rig class. The core function is to shift the camera slightly towards the mouse cursor on the screen, to make the perspective feel more physical. This script is active both in missions and the original position, and allows the player to look around the room a little bit also, which could be used to hide easter eggs for the player.
I also added a mission spawner object, with code for generating missions within the bounds of the war table, outside a certain distance from other mission points, and removing them when they time out.
At this point I felt that the main resource of the game that I wanted the player to track was the Balance of the war, represented by the in scene progress bar at the top, I also added a ticking timer to limit play time. The main message that I want to express with these two features is the rushed and frantic nature of the media representation of the culture war, while having zero repercussions or failure state to the game to highlight how the entire concept, in my opinion is created to have a unifying narrative to keep viewers engaging with and therefore creating revenue streams for alternative media sources.
For this reason I also decided to include a small gimmick in the balance bar, where once you maxed out the perceived balance, the bar would extend around the room continuously to represent the nature of the culture war as a narrative both unable to be ended, and unable to reach a satisfying conclusion for any involved in order to retain the revenue it generates.
I finally added the menu’s and initial UI elements for the game to sell the setting to the player, and prepare them for the narrative framing that allows the game to function rhetorically.
I found a free sci-fi/military font that I liked and sold both the colour palette I had created, and the idea that I was trying to express through it. I wrote up a semi sarcastic Mission Brief for the player using some conservative talking points, jingoistic lingo, and tongue in cheek jokes that I liked to properly frame the game.
My next step is to design the mini games through which the message of the game is conveyed, I had WarioWare Smooth Moves in my head as a strong influence, and decided I wanted to create a series of silly abstract mini games, with clean animation and easy to grasp mechanics that I could use to allow the player to “complete” the missions.
Some of the ideas I had are:
- Fit as many logical fallacies as possible into the comment box: Tetris with logical fallacies
- Get the threat to the correct person, where you must avoid sending it to right wing commentators who slightly ideologically oppose you, to make sure it reaches the “real threat”
- Destroy your private property in the most tweetable way possible to OwN tHe LiBs (inadvertently generating traction for that company)