Under the Lake
Under the Lake was a narrative project created during my 3rd year at Sheridan College. The purpose of the exercise was to propose, plan and create a narrative focused piece. I chose to create a full RPG in RPG maker! The project spanned over 4 months and had us follow our own deliverables which we set at the beginning of the semester.
Please note most of the Art and Sound for this project was primarily sourced from free assets through RPG Maker. Everything else was me.
Purposes of this Project
Concepts vs Final Level Layouts
Reason for change:
During the first playtest I got the feedback that the starting home level felt small and hard to move through. This was the opposite of my design intent as I wanted the level to feel empty and spacious to contrast the lavish home it becomes later in the story.
Reason for change:
Originally the quest giver (the black bear on the chair) was the only NPC in the store. I decided to add an employee of the quest giver to separate shop dialogue from his main quest dialogue. I did this as I felt the shop dialogue muddled the messages I was trying to convey, and when separated it made it easier to follow the story.
Reason for change:
The first rendition of this hub level only had three paths, each leading to a piece of the quest objective. During playtesting players found this level boring and straightforward without much room for meaningful exploration. To help remedy this I added a fourth pathway, this way the player is more likely to explore the entire level to find their required objectives.
What This Project Taught Me
This project taught me a lot about scope and not being attached to the work that I create. At the very start of the 4 month project I was already in over my head trying to create a whole game. However, moving through those difficulties taught me how to deal with those situations as a writer. I learned to optimize my writing and create a more efficient word economy for the project, only writing what needed to be said. Additionally, at each of the feedback sessions we held, I learned a lot about not being attached to my work. There were many great suggestions that my peers provided and had I not threw out some of my writing to incorporate them, the project would have suffered.
