Background

Style inspiration

I always enjoyed watching audio-illustrations from the youtube channel CSLewisDoodle. The videos always helped me visualize the concepts easily and I really liked the style (I think the original pictograms were syled off of Gan Khoon Lay specifically), specifically the white-on-black outlining of stick-figure pictograms.

Technological Inspiration

I wanted to see if there was a way I could use this style as inspiration for making a game. Thankfully, the general concept I was going for had been done before, in the 1-bit game Return of the Obra Dinn. The style I want is a little bit different (and more of the focus was on the use of dithering rather than the outlines), but the overall tech direction is similar. Some of the technology used is very helpfully documented in Lucas Pope’s dev logs, so even though he made his game in Unity (and I am hoping to do mine in Godot), I will be able to at least use many of the techniques and stand on the shoulders of this giant.

Story Inpsiration

When I was young, I remember me and my brother playing this flash point-and-click game of The Pilgrim’s Progress which was more moving than you would think for a game like that, but there was something about it that I still remember yet can’t quite put my finger on why I do. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s fitting for this pictogram-based game to have a story-telling method of metaphore or allegory. Using personifications of different challenges and issues you run into along your journey, to represent everyday challenges.

Gameplay

Despite being arguably the most important aspect, it is the area I have the foggiest idea for. One direction I was leaning towads was having it be somewhat like Playdead’s Limbo as a 2.5D platformer. However, I would like a little more in terms of gameplay mechanics in the game than that, so I guess this is something I need to ponder on.