This semester, I had the privilege to work with ‘Team Blawesome’ as part of an assignment for USC’s writing course, “Advanced Writing for the Visual and Performing Arts.” The assignment was very open ended: the class was divided in teams of four, and each team must utilize the artistic strengths of each individual to collaborate on an artistic project – any artistic project –that can be presented to class. My group consisted of Allison, an actress, Brian, a film writer-director, Katherine, a graphic designer, and me, a game designer. The combination of these talents led us towards the creation of a story-driven video game. After a good deal of brainstorming, discussion, and hard work, we were able to produce a small demonstration for a game we have tentatively entitled Raz.
Raz is a 2D, side-scrolling, action-adventure game concept that follows the story of a sabertooth tiger cub whose mother goes missing. Now, he must lead his younger brother and sister across a vastly-changing terrain, which is being torn apart by seismic activity. Thus begins Raz’s journey to find his mother and lead his siblings to safety. It is an icy adventure across a prehistoric landscape.
As game designer, I set out to figure out what the player does, and how to make that activity fun. I first began with what I call “character-centric” game design. I asked myself, why would someone want to be Raz? What can he do? The obvious answers were that he can run, jump, and use his teeth and claws to attack. This merely suggested a kind of “Super Cat Bros.,” which did not sound very inspiring. It then occurred to me that the core gameplay might be summed up in two words: claws and ice.
The concreteness of these words began to spur images and emotions within me almost instantly. I began to see Raz clasping onto giant blocks of ice in a struggle to climb out of dangerous situations. The thought of having to choose when to slide and when to clasp while on ice seemed very intriguing, and it grounded my vision as I continued to make game design decisions. Thus, we now have gameplay that feels somewhat unique, allowing for the player to feel like a specific character that could not be Mario, a housecat, or even a modern-day tiger. Indeed, it seems that only a sabretooth could engage in this particular activity.
For me, this project provided some great practice in game design. I learned how to more efficiently isolate intriguing gameplay by first beginning with the character, and then asking myself why that character is unique. In a gameplay context, ‘unique’ refers to what a game element can do. In this way, my approach to Raz began with story elements (character, goals, and obstacles), from which I translated into gameplay, much in the way directors and cinematographers translate a screenplay into a motion picture. Working in this way, I was able to draw upon Brian's story concepts to engineer a product that could integrate Katherine's visual design as well as Allison's ability to provide dramatic voice acting (though, regretfully, we did not have time really flesh out the sound design). The approach I employed allowed us to blend story, art, drama, and gameplay quite seamlessly, and because of that I am very excited.
As a screenwriter, I was particularly interested in what you had to say about character-centric game design; it seemed all too obvious once you described your process but it was something I’d never thought of or read about in regard to video games. And despite your opinion, “Super Cat Bros.” sounds awesome! Make it! You’re sitting on a gold mine, Turpin! The way you stumbled upon a unique action (clawing ice) through your character-centric thinking, spelling out the evolution of that process for me was awesome. Way to blend the arts, man. Your future is bright and fun to read about.
Raz is a 2D, side-scrolling, action-adventure game concept that follows the story of a sabertooth tiger cub whose mother goes missing. Now, he must lead his younger brother and sister across a vastly-changing terrain, which is being torn apart by seismic activity. Thus begins Raz’s journey to find his mother and lead his siblings to safety. It is an icy adventure across a prehistoric landscape.
his merely suggested a kind of “Super Cat Bros.,” which did not sound very inspiring. It then occurred to me that the core gameplay might be summed up in two words: claws and ice.
As a screenwriter, I was particularly interested in what you had to say about character-centric game design; it seemed all too obvious once you described your process but it was something I’d never thought of or read about in regard to video games. And despite your opinion, “Super Cat Bros.” sounds awesome! Make it! You’re sitting on a gold mine, Turpin! The way you stumbled upon a unique action (clawing ice) through your character-centric thinking, spelling out the evolution of that process for me was awesome. Way to blend the arts, man. Your future is bright and fun to read about.
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