In our recent meeting we had to get down and design our trailer. This was an interesting moment for the team, as the trailer is what defines our game, before it has even been released, and is something a lot of the team got involved with. Unfortunately Michael Prior wasn’t present, and was unable to provide his valued input with the trailer design. In this post I will be discussing the points we discussed and how the trailer will play out.
Challenging.... Artistic....
These are the words the team came up with to describe our game. They wanted something that fell into these categories, in order to sell our product and create a truly immersive game world. With these points in mind we knew we had to work with these key points with the plot line and ideas we put forth with our trailer.
So, what is our idea?
We had a few ideas brewing around between our tiny group. Previously we had discussed the possibility of utilising a education puzzle based environment. This was of a large interest to me, as it seemed a basic, yet very solid idea. However, it didn't have the enthusiasm of the team behind it. Alas, many other ideas where stretched out between our constantly active tongues. Curtis implyed that we create some kind of horror scenario, with the use of undead historical figures, however, the idea was very generic, presented not much in the terms of a educational story fashion, and scouting around the groups we discovered that the other two team where planning something similar. In an aid to be different and try something new, we denied the idea, and the team agreed.
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| Our Results from the Public |
It wasn't until we looked at our target audience of which is 25 +, we knew that it was obvious something along a more interesting, mature and solid storyline was inviting. While this was our target audience, we also had a large area of interest from the younger faction, so we knew we'd have to incorporate some kind of adventure, into it to make it more interesting and interactive. Besides, who doesn't like interactice anyway.
Because of the statistics we have, we also know that our age range is quite young to old. A mixture of both, is always good, it means we are interesting a wide market area. I believe keeping the game mature, and aiming for an around 15 + would be a good sure way to make sure the game can be bought by all the market, I will bring my suggestion up with the team.
I will explain in our next meeting how I believe that making the age rating low and providing mature but educational content will attract more customers, and also not sour the name of Saltaire too much, with a violent aptitude, which we are not looking for in this product. We are looking for a logical, but creative outcome to a story, a game that requires thinking and on par interaction, whether the adventure is one of the mind, and providing learning in the form of something many can enjoy, especially tourists to Saltaire, of which Saltaire gets many.
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| Preview from Uncharted 3, it reminded me a possible environment for the game, with the old rustic, victorian look. |
Joey came up with the final idea, taking inspiration from Indiana Jones, Uncharted and some areas of adventure based games, like Tomb Raider. The idea was to have the player be a treasure hunter, and have to wade through the crypts under the Salt Building, to find a special treasure. I immediatily caught on with the idea, and a few of the others did, with some speculaton from Stuart however. Nevertheless we all inputted our improvemenets to the idea, Curt implied we could make ourselves key NPCs in the trailer, like myself could be the tech savvy assitant, like how Lara Croft has her tech savvy side kick to help her during adventures.
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| Tomb Raider inspried our idea. The Clock work tools at the back give us an idea about the steam punk/technology of the game level chambers. |
We nodded and liked the idea, it was a sort of easter egg. Joey also mentioned that we could improve the adventure aspect to be more interactive, similar to how the story of Uncharted goes, by providing puzzles as well as a way to manipulate the environment, to get people thinking. This was a good idea. we was onboard with this concept, and alot of ideas where zooming around, by the end of which we all had a decent idea on how we wanted the story to go, however we haven't solidfied anything as of yet, least not until micheal returns for the next meeting.
The Name
We took into context the value of the good name. The general idea was to relate our name to the our plotline, which was similar to games like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, with a more artistic element of Steam Punk implied, and photo-realism, involved with flash back of events and locations around Saltaire. We decided in relation to opening this for sequel and more of an adventure series we would go with the name, Saltaire Chronicles: The Wine of Titus.
The name was a freefall choice, due to the basis that the storyline was thought out during the initial planning stage. The group pitched in and chose a lot of names that related to the plot we had. Each member of the team selected 4 name ideas each and we decided for the sake of making voting easier, that each member would then select their favourite.
I myself selected the name of The Vault of Titus, trying to play on the element of treasure and a mysterious element involved.
Joseph Brown was the one who came up with the idea to Saltaire Chronicles, in which he came up with two secular ideas, naming one The Golden Alpaca and the other the Wine of Titus. I have to state now that we all liked the idea of Wine of Titus due to the basis that Titus banned alcohol in his village, and having a scared bottle of wine that is rumoured to grant the drinker immortality, seemed quite interesting as a reward for the player at the end.
Stuart , chose the name of Salt, Rock, Shock which was a play on the puzzle based idea we selected, as I stated we based our idea of the name, and built around it, however Stuart was basing this name on the previous idea we had before the new one was introduced. This idea was favoured by us all until the story plot line, Joseph introduced was seen more favourably, and therefore this name didn’t realistically work well with the atmosphere we had.
Finally, Curtis selected the name of Titus Exhibition, this name was interesting, however to me it seemed to imply the use of the Exhibition building, and our project trailer was focused around the Salts Building, the others agreed on this concept. After a rather one sided vote, it was obvious what name and plotline accompanying it we was selecting.
Job Roles
The job roles where not discussed heavily, we mentioned in the team that any Photoshop work should be taken care of by myself and Joseph Brown. However we decided it was best not to fully discuss who would be taking care of what, until Michael returned and we could properly discuss this with him and we decide the best roles for each of us to take, based on our skills.
It is probably the case though that we will need to take multiple jobs to the lack of use, realistically we will be looking at the follow positions that need to be filled.
- 1 – 2 Photoshop Developers
- 2 – 3 Modellers
- 1 Sound Manager
- 1 Animator
- 1 Effects Artist
Of course, mixing and matching the jobs would be most likely the correct course to go down. This would be based on the areas of expertise each of our members had.
Story/Plot Development
Before we move onto to discussing each point, such as artistic style and genres, I feel the need to discuss the plotline for our trailer. We decided our game would be heavily based around adventure, but primarily about solving puzzles (To involve that educational feel). The start of the trailer will begin with an overlook of the Salt Building at night; the concept of the ideas is that the player takes the role of a treasure hunter, searching for the lost treasure of Sir Titus Salt. With his trusted assistant, he ventures into the depths of Salt Building into an old tomb that contains a powerful artefact that is said to give its user immortality.
The player will have to solve and wade through numerous puzzles that relate the Salt Family and Saltaire as a whole, while being stalked by the stone lions that are the guardians of this secret. The player must fight to survive, and as he delve in deeper and darker, the way out becomes harder, with no choice but to press on.
In the end, the player is gifted with the wine, but just as he grabs it, he hears a growl and it flicks out of game. The aim being that the lions had finally caught up with him, for a final showdown. This is the generally storyline for the game as a basic guideline, and we will discuss a more in depth story based development for the trailer, once Michael return
The plotline is to try to introduce historical aspects about Saltaire, as educational phenomena it was the sole idea that we implement a lot of the history of Saltaire in our fictional storyline. This was to broaden the area of design and also to incorporate a more real story line behind our original concept.
The use of tombs and exploring forgotten locations is often present in these games, and since we are basing ours in an underground chamber, beneath Saltaire, I believe it creates a great ambience for the player.
Genre
We decided that we wanted to incorporate a adventurist genre with use of puzzling, taking elements from horror (in correlation to the lions) that works with our story design, because we are using elements of all three of these we will have to take into context how unique how design will be and incorporating multiple genres will suit us well.
We are taking inspiration from many different elements, such as Uncharted, Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones, researching into those areas to help define the characteristics of the story.
I think a tomb raider idea works very well, people love an interactive adventure and when coupld with puzzles it opens up the world for a more intriguing setting.
This video of Tomb Raider 4 gameplay gives a great insight to the type of end product I am looking for, the incorporation of puzzle and adventure elements.
That is why I believe a Puzzled Based Adventure type game, is the best method to go with. Employing adventure and education in an interactive environment.
I did a little research into this particular genre to see what kind of market they recieved. On this basis, I have to say I have loved the Tomb Raider franchise since I first got a playstation, back when I was around six. Coupled with this, I have always appreciated the artitistic and unique style. However, thast my opinion, and in order to better sell our product, I needed to see how our inspiration competitors did, and learn from this. I found a great article that gave me some insight into the lifetime sales of Tomb Raider.
http://kotaku.com/5224724/tomb-raider-lifetime-sales-show-off-lara-crofts-biggest-hits
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| Sale figures for Tomb Raider, 1996 - 2008 |
Unfortnatly, this seems to be a rather worrying element, there has been a steady decline in the units sold as the years have gone on. Whether this is down to decline in interest, expecting of more from these games, or even just a lack of enthusiasm on the developers side, it is defintely something that the team and I need to look into, at some point.
However a similar game to Tomb Raider, Uncharted 3, statistics state from this website.
http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/10/uncharted-3-sold-3-8m-copies-on-its-first-day/
"Sony’s Uncharted 3 Drakes Fortune shipped 3.8 million on its first day of sales on Nov. 1, the company announced today."
This means that uncharted as sold more in one day that five of the Tomb Raider games have sold in a year. Fantastic statistics, and it probably be worth looking more into Uncharted for some ideas on how to progress with our game.
Areas of Discussion
The Areas we discussed for the main idealism for the game and style generated and bullet pointed below.
- Set under the Salts Building, where an old tomb that holds the last and greatest treasure of Sir Titus Salt.
- The incorporation of Lions as protectors guardians, which relates to their history as keepers of peace, incorporating their duty to protect the treasure of Sir Titus Salt from the unworthy seems key here.
- Puzzles to solve as the player progresses each level, this also builds on the adventure and progresses the storyline.
- Subliminal images of Saltaire and Surrounding Areas, in Black and White Imagery.
We discussed numerous areas of the trailer. Mostly style, environments, and effects that help to benefit the overall look and design, and complement the plot line. We decided due to our results from our queries begin returned as a even mixture of Past, Present, Future, that we would set the time in the present, but because the player is delving into a tomb over 200 years old, the element of past and present would mix, with traps that are far to modern for Titus’s era, steam based gizmos and enemies. Where thinking the Dwemer from Skyrim, here, which were a bunch of dwarves that had clever devices and enemies that had technology far beyond their era. (This also relates to our steam punk idea for adding in this sort of element).
We already know that from our results we would be basing the concept around Salts Building. However we felt that we didn’t really want to do the interior of the Salts Building, due to our initial idea being that we wanted to incorporate a tomb based idea. We decided to make the tomb under the Salts Building, and this allowed us to incorporate the lions since they are sat primarily outside of the Salts Building itself.
Now that we were satisfied with the environment and how the general style was going to look like, we decided on characters. We never did solidify characters, but we did discuss that we wanted to place ourselves somewhere in the fold, Joey stating that I should be in the assistant of the player, due to my technical background, and this would work out as Easter Egg, adding the developers into the fold of the characters.
Apart from using the stone lions as the protectors, and adding us into the fold, I would personally really like to see the spirit of Titus Salt, and his children be involved as a part of the plotline, well not all but some historical figures that tell a little part of the history of Saltaire and of course our fictional storyline.
On this area, it will probably be a good idea to discuss the artistic style. We wanted to go predominantly 3D with this, to try and tell a much better story, and to express more creativity. We wanted to add a lot textures taken from the surrounding area to try and keep the current feel, however for the inside of the tomb we may need to explore a more old and worn out location. However, I do like the idea of a cross between old ruin (Egyptian) and the incorporation of a steam punk based environment, as I have previously stated.
Credits
Obviously for the credits, we only discussed what would be implemented but not how it will be implemented, personally I would like to see the names and jobs roles used through the bulk of the trailer, like in Metal Gear Solid, was a introduction to the creators, rather than blanking out or placing it at the end, like a rather generic design.
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