Starting Fresh

It’s pretty overwhelming to start a new project. As a one person team I have everything about this game floating through my mind all at once. The visuals, the storyline, the gameplay mechanics. My approach is very holistic – I think ideas start as vague and disjointed, and I try to develop them all together so they grow to fit snugly.

I feel like if I decide on gameplay, then build a storyline, then build visuals, I’ll end up with something that’s “plastic.” Instead, I have everything building on each other all at once, growing and interacting with each other in my mind. As I compile Maori mythology and form a picture in my head of the universe they lived in, I get a sense of what that world could have looked like, and what people or mythological creatures there would have acted like. That informs my ideas about gameplay, and about how things should appear. It also forms a basis for the emotional content of the story – how the main character feels and interacts with the world, and her motivations for moving forward.

I’m simultaneously figuring out what resolutions and sprite sizes will work, wrestling with the main character artwork, and learning everything I can about legendary Maori history, and that of New Zealand itself. It’s a ride, and I love it.