Hi there, I’m here to showcase some kind of game concept that I’ve come up with a little while ago.
First of all I’d like to say that I’m not an english native speaker, I’m french and I’m posting on this side of the forum because I’m currently developing–sort of–my game in english for obvious “marketing” reasons.
So, the game concept that I thought it would be interesting to make something out of is about philosophy and thinking. I realized that games have incredible similarities with films and books–textual and graphical communication–which are quite used supports for philosophical works.
But even though, I’ve rarely seen philosophical games.
I am not talking about games with lots of references like Xenosaga or the awesome Xenoblade. They’re great games, and Xenoblade is one of my favourite.
But what I want to make is a game that is an author’s philosophical work, just like a philosoph would explain his ideas and theories in a book. But I want to use a game instead 'cause I think it’s definitely possible and would even be something great. And I want to do it with GDevelop because why not.
I am not saying that people didn’t already do that, I can’t confirm such a thing. But as far as my gaming experience goes, I can’t prove that these kind of games exist either.
Even though I am not a reknown author–I’m trying to write a book but I need more time before getting published if somebody ever accepts to read my weird words–I still want to try creating such a game. I’ve thought of concepts, scenario schemes, game design ideas, graphical and musical stuff… and finally, a shiny name with a fancy, translatable subtitle: Kamigami to Tanin - of Gods and a stranger.
The subtitle is a direct translation of the title, which is in Japanese. I chose that pretty language because it sounds cool, japanese symbols–the kanji–look really nice in a logo and nobody will ever understand the title except if they’re japanese which is in my opinion great for a video game title.
I made a logo (remember, I’m not a graphical artist either):
It tells what the game will be about: black and white and all sort of gray shades (R-18) stuck in between these two.
Also, one of the most important goal I gave myself to develop that game is to link completely the gameplay, the graphical appearance and the plot together. This is why I will use mainly these colours and why, when designing stuff, I choose wisely what colours to use (or at least I’m trying to). This logo’s forms and colours have a precise meaning.
About the game’s practical aspects: it will be a platform game. Yet another platform game. I simply think these are good to set up stories without all the complicated mess other type of games could beget that a single person won’t be able to fix.
My progression so far is quite nice: I’ve “finished” the “first level” (it’s still damn wacky but it looks alright), important menus are working and I have planned the keyboard stuff and other gameplay aspects. The scenario is still wandering in my head a bit but at least I know where I’m going and the first three “levels” are written and chain up quite well.
I have also already created basic functions and stuff like that which took me a lot of time to do with GD–but I nailed’em! For example, the game is already localizable thanks to lang files that compile all that is made out of words in KtT.
I’ve also created a really nice cutscene system with automatic line breaks (one thing I’m REALLY proud of), character portraits (the dialogues look a little bit like Fire Emblem’s). These are triggered by regions, inspired by Warcraft III’s world editor.
But my biggest inspiration was Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii–not only about some graphical and plot details, you’ll maybe discover that while playing the game.
And while we’re still at references, remember that there will be a lot of philosophical references. Even though I want to make a game about what I thinks, references will never be a bad thing in a reflection.
So here are some screenshots of the current state of the game:
Some cutscene preview:
Some dialogue stuff:
Feel free to criticize and leave your thoughts down there. I would be more than happy to know about your opinion: would you play such a game? Do you find my idea interesting? Do you think I’m too bad at something to create that sort of game? Am I pretty?
That’ll be all for today lads. Have a nice day!
Géraud Legrand