In the beginning, you know nothing.

In the beginning, you know nothing.

For our current game project, this is equally true for both the player and for the designers.

Our, as yet untitled, game lets the player take control of a moth, flying through a forest at night. Obstacles need to be navigated and enemies avoided in order to reach the goal: A light at the end of the level. However, the player can only see what is in a small part of the screen directly around them, with the ability to shoot a “cone of sight” to extend it.

As the lead designer on the project, part of my job is to determine exactly how this will work. Which is easier said than done.  The basic idea is simple enough: Press a button, and a part of the screen is revealed. That leaves a number of questions, including:

• How large is the area revealed?
• Are there different sizes, and how are they triggered?
• How fast is the effect?
• How long does it last?
• What happens after?
• Is the ability triggered when the player presses the button, or when they release it?
• Can the player move while doing this?
• What limits are there to the player using the ability?

All of these lead to more questions, and most (if not all) tie in with each other. Not to mention tying in to other aspects of the game, such as movement.

So how to start answering them?
Start somewhere: Test it, change it, test again.

The first thing I’ve learned from starting to test is what must be determined first.
Our initial prototype let the player move while using this ability. That doesn’t seem to work like we want it to, so we are changing it; using the ability will automatically stop the player. This will have a lot of impact on several other things, that really can’t be tested properly until the change is implemented. For example: Will size of the area revealed need to be bigger, since the player is not moving as fast? What would the implications of that be on how long the effect lasts?

The answers rely on the answers to the questions before, and each answer also seem to lead to new questions that we hadn’t even thought about.

So new obstacles are revealed and navigated, in a constant loop,
each step taking us a bit closer to the light at the end.

About Leo Thyberg

2016 Game Design

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