Looking into similar games to my Prototype

In addition to playing the games I took inspiration from, I remember in a lecture to look for games with similar themes to the ones we want to make so thats what I started looking for, the main themes of my game/prototype are Taxidermy, Exploration, Creation and Turn based combat.

I began looking for games that feature Taxidermy to see how this would be used in the world, as of this moment I have yet to find one that has it as a core game feature. I did find a DLC feature for ‘Heavy Rain Chronicles’ I haven’t played Heavy Rain or the DLC so I watched this youtuber play but as it is only just a feature of it not as the main theme of the game or the DLC. I don’t want to use quick time events as I as a player find these a little jarring to the experience of my game play. The way the game has the Taxidermist work in the house gives me some ideas on where I will but her work area and her living area. Also the game having human taxidermy could be something I have the villain of the game use as the incentive for Florence to destroy her formula. Does she keep her friends alive or does she destroy the thing that keeps them alive to prevent. The overall feel of the DLC really got my heart pumping,

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Next I looked at games that used creation or item combination as part of the gameplay, game like this includes Dead Rising 3, in which the player creates certain combinations of items to kill zombies faster or in odd ways. here is a gameplay from TotalBiscuit. I can’t get through the game because of a glitch with my game file so I watched his gameplay. The game itself if in the style that I want (3^rd person view) but the way this series uses saving is something I really hate, I like to be able to save frequently and with many places to do it, this is where I use my postboxes as they are something that you’d see dotted around commonly. One of the problems I’ve found (and that the youtuber found) is that once you’ve created the most powerful items in this game you have pretty much won the game in a sense because everything dies so quickly. For my created items I want there to be a limit on the amount of powerful things you can create, for instance you could create a rare large creature and only be able to have one in your party and you wouldn’t be able to get it again until the creature died.

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Lastly I looked at the fighting style from Final Fantasy 10, out of all the turn based combat I have always found this one the most engaging, I'm not sure why because a lot of FF games feature this style of combat, maybe because the 10th one is my favourite. This is a video showing the combat style of the game, I love the clean way it looks and despite being quite old by the other games comparison, I love the way you can see the player attack order, and how certain moves affect the way the fight pans out. Also I love the music in the fight scenes, so jaunty and gets you rather perked up. Would love to have perky music like this in the game

Game Research - The Lord of the Rings - War in the North/Witcher

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-lord-of-the-rings-war-in-the-north/user-reviews

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-witcher-enhanced-edition/user-reviews

Few videos with game play and reviews of the games I wanted to look at further, not sure if I will use much from these as I am still pretty sure I want to emulate Final Fantasy 10, Fable 3 and Tomb Raider.

Lesson - Game Study

Going to look into 3D games that have 3rd person view as this is the type of game I am looking to create. http://similarsam.hubpages.com/hub/games-like-fable-2 I began my search here by looking into games like Fable as this was the first game I looked at when planning 'Magical Taxidermy Girl'.

These are the games that I have heard of but not played, that I want to look at further ...

• http://gameslikefinder.com/the-bards-tale/ look at the humour style. Also that 'Your journey as The Bard is narrated over by the narrator who doesn’t hide the fact that he doesn’t like you.' I would like to use this aspect in MTG like she is reading you the story of what happened over her journey.
• http://gameslikefinder.com/witcher/ - maybe less so because the combat is different. maybe because of the open word. Also the 'unique focus on alchemy that could lead to you poisoning yourself' element could work well in a game about chemicals and taxidermy.
• http://gameslikefinder.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-war-in-the-north/ I like the look of the comment 'Solid combat that doesn’t get old.' also the way it uses 'Advancement through the game is split up with several city hubs and villagers where players acquire information, quests and supplies before continuing on their journey.'
•  http://gameslikefinder.com/neverwinter-nights/ This game has a lot of game time with 50+ hours playtime, I would love to have this aspect in the game, also the ability to have players create content would be pretty cool.

Overall I think I am more drawn to 'LOTR War In The North' and 'Witcher' so I will check out reviews on these games before I get to play them.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-witcher-enhanced-edition
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-lord-of-the-rings-war-in-the-north

((insert reviews about Witcher here))

((insert reviews about LOTRWITN here))

Bridewell Museum

I forgot to make a post about our groups visit to the Bridewell Museum http://www.museumsnorfolk.org.uk/the-bridewell. This place was amazing and gave me so much insperation, I didn't realise it at the time but this place would be the main place I got all the ideas from for my taxidermy studio, in paticular two peices would become the main focus for the studio. These were, a golden sheep suspended on a pulley above a glass display and the other a complete victorian pharmacy.

 This is the dress that inspired me to create Florence's shop keepers outfit!

 

We were asked to create an image using items from the Museum. This is the image I made using the sheep on the pully but instead of being above a cabinet I thought it could be a taxidermy creation station where Florence creates all her work. The Pharmacy was the base for the studio and the shop was the base for where she served customers. Despite not being very technically correct it was my tutors favourite piece out of the group which made me very happy!

 

Concepts for character/creatures

As I have already had a basic idea what Taxidermy Girl was going to be I have to change a lot of things so I don't get stuck staying with the same image. There are certain things I want to keep, such as the hair colour and the style of dress she is wearing, however I want to make her fit with the clothing of the period I have chosen. I started with the three main outfits she will be seen in.

The first is the basic idea for her normal clothing, using the mutton leg sleeves I saw in various images in my mood board study, it looks very middle class and professional to me, I think I will keep these colour, If this was a full game idea I would have several of these as buyable options like with all of the clothes Florence wears, giving players a little more chance to customise their character.

The Second is the clothing she puts on when she is creating taxidermy, the player can do taxidermy in their work clothes or their traveling clothes but Florence will complain about either her professional clothes getting messy or will say that people will look at her weird if she gets blood on her traveling clothes.

Done a quick portrait of what I want her to look like, then done a few hair styles, I really like the hair down so thats the style I stuck with

I made a basic concept of her standard adventuring outfit chosen from the colours I really liked the most, a lot of the colours were just too vibrant for me and although I liked the red one

Mood Board collection

Here is a selection of mood boards, I will add more to the blog if I can think of any more research to add.