Skype call 1

we have started using Skype to have meetings rather than meet in person all the time. Often there isn't enough time to have a meeting in person so it has become quite useful.

During this conversation we decided to focus on ideas for the core mechanics of the gameplay which would spur on ideas for the narrative and concept designs. Considering we had an idea of artistic direction I began to think of ideas for the mechanics which would relate to the idea of mechanical chaos. I liked the idea of a puzzle based game but to represent it in a different way. Someone suggested that the player has to get from one side of the map to the other. There would be obstacles in the way which are embedded in the environments such as large cogs turning that affect other areas. The puzzles would have the player interact with the environment to move mechanics such as walls, ledges, floors etc.

We all liked this idea and had strong ideas for environment design however this left little for character design. The idea then developed to have enemies as robots in the game. These characters had mechanical traits which created their personalities. For example one concept we thought of was a 'wall robot'. This robot would stop the player progressing by standing in the way. The personification would be for it to be big, slow and seem dim witted.

This stemmed into several ideas for the enemies which created a game concept. The player must get from one side of the level to the other without being stopped by the enemy robots who were searching for him.

We all felt comfortable with this idea and started to create sketches to represent our ideas to each other.