Pre-Production

Wandering Spirits is an adventure puzzle game developed by myself (programmer and build master), Liah English (artist and scrum master) and Callum Haydon (artist and development team member). Each team member brings a unique perspective and set of skills ensuring a well-rounded approach to the game development process.

Documentation

As the programmer I havecompleted the initial draft of our game design document (GDD),  detailing the necessary information of the game such as mechanics, narrative, progression points and the order of importance for each element added to the game. Additionally, I have also begun to make the technical design document (TDD) to detail a more in-depth description of the mechanics and technical elements to better break down how that will likely work later in the development process.

Our art design document (ADD) has begun to take shape, establishing an overall visual style and aesthetic direction for the project. The artists have outlined key areas of inspiration primarily from Studio Ghibli movies such as Howl's Moving Castle, with secondary inspiration from other games such as RiME and Eastshade.

Figure 1. "Wandering Spirits, Look Development Research", created inside Miro (https://miro.com/)

Level Design

Level design is a key responsibility that I have during this project, I have sketched out the initial idea for the gameplay cycle that the player will experience, with key mechanics being introduced to the player as they play through the level. I have created the initial greybox using primitive shapes in the game engine.

Figure 2. "Initial Gameplay Loop Ideation", presented as part of the team's Pitch Presentation

Engine Mechanics

Rudemantery versions of the most important mechanics have been created, such as a mesh-swapping system that will be used when the player takes photographs of destroyed environmental assets to restore them to their originality progressing through the main narative in a way that utilises environmental storytelling through the core mechanics of the game.

I have also begun creating the different persistent data implementations that will allow the player to save and load their characters data and location at any point, having that data be carried over so that it can be saved between play sessions.

My responsibilities as the build master for this project have lead me to set up version control for the project using GitHub, initially trialing the use of GitHub and its limitations with peer artist Callum who has expressed interest in working in-engine as part of the art requirements for the project.

Concept Art

The artists have been exploring and researching visual styles as part of their early art design document production and producing early design thumbnails and concept art, as well as the technical implementation of assets within the project. This has included the destruction iteration of 3D assets in Autodesk Maya, experimenting with the use of Chaos inside of Unreal Engine to reverse the state of assets.

Wandering Spirits DevLog by Spencer D Sayers / Edits by Callum Haydon

Game Art Content by Liah English & Callum Haydon