Thought of this module

One point i would like to make is that i do not enjoy blogging and due to the main bits of my research being in the form of the books that i have used for my essay there really was much of a need for blogging due to me not drawing and not creating anything such as an animation which has a more detailed process that can be listed here. The overall development of the piece is shown in the document and that is all due to it being a text based piece

GDD

One of the main topics of research that i did was to look into game design documents be they professional or amateur. One of the main GDDs that i used was the one created for grim fandango which was released in the 90's. The thing that must be known is that GDDs are like gold dust and are very difficult to get hold of and are an insight into the company that a lot of companies do not want to be shown.
When looking into the Grim Fandango GDD i found that though it was full of illustration it was more about puzzles, solutions and story elements than about information of gameplay which if i had more time i would explore myself and expand my GDD to encompass what a completed document is.

The Rats Book

Before i started writing the story i looked into key scenes in the book that i will influence here are the scenes listed below:

>The first kill of a homeless man in a cemetery which is before the public know of the rats

>Child dies after getting bitten at the canal by a rat

>The death of a baby and a dog in a household raises peoples suspicions

>The massacre of a train in the tunnels leading to the biggest death toll and causes the government to take drastic action

>School massacred by the rats leads to the extermination of the rats by poison

These are all scenes i took influence from when designing my own scenes except for the baby due to it being a touchy subject to be shown as a game.

Bradford Animation Festival

The Main reason for this post is due to talking to members of sumo digital, Team 17 and also Warren Spector which gave me information into their though of game design documents which mostly led to them saying they are needed but sometimes far too much information is put into it when it is not needed and that though you should put time into it people will be playing the game not the document. I tried to keep that in mind while designing the document due to it being in part with the essay as well a there being a real game as the end result.

The Rats

When i was looking into if i should either do a piece in an existing universe or creating my own i decided to use an existing universe due to it's connection to the topic of mythopoeia that i am doing in the essay. I decided to look into books and the books i looked at were:
Darren Shan
The Rats
Star Wars
First Blood

In the end i decided on the rats due to the violence as well as how well written the books were as well as their close connection with the real world rather than a fantasy one. Though this will be set in a different location and an original story in the Rats mythos which well allow me to look more into the topics of my essay though the practical.

Primordia

One of the games i also used for reference into what i will do is Primordia.

The game is very stylised which gives a wonderful fall that brings you further into the story. the voice acting in the game is though basic also really well done. The main reason that this was a good reference is due to tell tale games having more resources in the form of script writers and money and primordia being a indie title which is closer to my own skill level and a more reasonable goal to strive for.

Genre Decision

First thing i should decide is what genre the game will be since that will impact the research and the processes of looking at gameplay.

Examples of genres:

First Person Shooter

Third Person Shooter

Platformer

Point and Click

Survival

Arcade

In the end i decided on using point and click due to me recently playing a few point and click games but also due to the being able to write a very text based game design document. The decision to make the game to be affected by your choices also affected the choice.

Telltale Games Walking Dead

While deciding what type of game and where to get my artistic influence which in the end led to me looking into the walking dead series by telltale Games.

The game is critically acclaimed and is popular due to it bringing back the point and click genre back to the general audience which would most likely not have played a point and click game. The art style is cell shaded and works with the style of the story which though it allows the gamer to connect with the story it will also take you away by the use of the art style.

With it's simple interface the game is easy enjoyable and easy to immerse yourself into. Above is the mood board that i collected while also playing the game to get a clear decision on how i want my Design Document to portray the game as.