Design and development of a three-dimensional open world exploration game

Abstract

Advances in hardware not only made possible the creaAon of more ambiAous games, by impulsing the way they’re produced and consumed, but also a growth in the people who use it professionally, with the appearing of indie games, games focused on innovaAon and created by small teams with limited resources. UnAl the laEer half of the 2000s the market was preEy much supplied by high-tech AAA games. Thanks to those hardware advances and the liJ of digital video games distribuAon plaKorms (like Steam) the figure of indie games developers started to be profitable. They were in a shared spotlight with the AAA games. Proof of it are the financially success of indie games like Braid and Minecra<. [REF 14] The key that lead to the success of this games was their innovaAon in mechanics and storytelling. Indie games bring new mechanics and topics AAA games can’t take because of the revenue risks those innovaAons suppose. Indie games have less to loss (in some aspects), so they can be more personal/poeAc. Their innovaAon focused mainly in the power of interacAvity: video games can explore tropes and topics with approaches that other mediums such as films or books can’t. [REF 11] [REF 12] Both big companies and indie developers are influenced by all these past fiJeenth years of evoluAon in video games, focusing now into involving more personally the players with the game world, for example by shaping the story in funcAon of the players decision or not imposing an order of exploraAon of the world. That’s something visible even in the new Zelda game coming next year, were players will be able to explore all the dungeons in any order. There’s no first or last dungeon. [REF 13] Game world. Players nowadays look for a greater experience, an experience which allow them to feel part of the video game universe outside the act of playing it. They consume video games not just by playing, but also talking about them in social networks, buying and making merchandising, wriAng new stories about them… Being that probably the reason why transmedia (being able to consume a saga via different products of mulAple mediums) financially works so well in sagas like Star Wars. [REF 15] So, it looks crystal clear that storytelling and game experience work different nowadays. Knowing how studios shape those aspects and knowing why they work like that is the key to innovate, something specially important for and indie video game, giving the fact that innovaAon is a need for standing out in the market. This Final Degree Project works in the main and basic components of a video game (narraAve, gameplay and graphics) with the effort of creaAng an innovaAve and unique game experience who could work as well as other indie games does nowadays. [REF 16] The Project amplifies the knowledges of the degree by taking the most innovaAve tropes in game design and storytelling and applying them in the producAon of the gameplay, narraAve and graphic idenAty of a video game: - For the gameplay, it works in the creaAon of an open world with the main mechanic being the free exploraAon of it, like other games as Dark Souls do. - On the side of the narra*ve an emergent narraAve is developed: the story a player experiences is based in how he plays the game, based not only on his decisions but also in the way he explores the game world, uniAng this way gameplay and narraAve. - The graphic iden*ty has been developed in a cartoonish style with the purpose of being in harmony with the characters and story of the work, which is made up of diverse 3D and 2D assets. - The 2D assets of the graphic idenAty form the User Interface. Several icons, texts and buEons have been designed and implemented inside the project in order to make the experience immersive and communicaAonal with the player. - Lastly a series of assets, as a cell-shading shader and a day night cycle, have been implemented. Implementa)on of them plus different scripts has been crucial in order to make all the assets playable: choose opAons while speaking with characters, interact with objects, programming an AI… Despite being all of these aspects from different disciplines, they complemente between themselves as they are essenAal in any video game project, upliJing the person in charge of them by its development. With this project the main purpose aims to amplify the knowledges seen during the course of the degree.