I spent the weekend learning to use Leonardo, a nifty drawing program on my new Surface Book 2. I’m drawing up the design for Speedy Cell and I’ll be asking a Unity developer and friend to make it so. I was planning to code it myself, but I have decided to focus all my efforts on design only. I need better design documents… Usually I approach developing a game with a fellow software developer as if they are partners in the design as well. But they do not necessarily want to be, and there are enough hard problems to solve in code after the design is nailed down to keep any brilliant mind occupied. So, here I go, getting up early on a Sunday to hopefully use my new Leonardo skills to nail down the design.
I also am thinking about calling Speedy Cell “Immune Defense Trainer” instead. A friend of mine pestered me about my pitch for this game? What will I say to sell it? It is not really an endless runner, so a name that reminds one of Flappy Bird isn’t really helpful. It is more like an endless version of Immune Defense: there are decisions to make as you move along the endless path of bacteria.
I have a dear friend who is working as the musician for Immune Defense Trainer. What kind of music is appropriate for a game about an infection? I bet you can guess! Guess. I’ll tell you next time, when I discuss the aesthetics of the game.
For now I wanted to mention just that the aesthetics are very important in my mind because I want people to jump in and stat playing with very little introduction. So many words, even the word “cell” puts people off. I keep saying that I have a game with a really neat new RTS mechanic and so I am going to present my mechanic in the best light and as clearly as possible direct to the player.
People are put off by these “science words” for several reasons, some people say, oh this is science I should know it which sets them up to not pay attention to my tutorial, or worse they spend their time with the game not learning the specific thing I’m trying to teach them but instead thinking about all the possible things that they think they should already. Imagine the difficulty of making a first-person shooter if you present a gun and your player is distracted by being nervous about how to hold that specific model of gun and what implementing their strategy according to protocols that they’ve learned in class… Basically, even though I’m presenting a real game, because it sounds like science, people approach it as a class instead of a game. And that ruins the game.
So planning to make a sweet looking, easy and inviting to jump into game… Better get to it. Happy Sunday and happy creating, to you all in 2020!
