The topics we will approach in this Devlog:
We will talk mainly about how the idea came up and how we made some decisions for our game, like gameplay and mechanics, our camera style, what our game would be about, etc
How the Idea came up
With this project, we were told to create a 2d game. With this, we could do so many things, but we all had the same desire (ok not the developer but we ignored that part): to do a game related to cats!
We ended up choosing the idea of an humanoid cat as it would open doors for us to a more female audience, something that we agreed from the beginning as being one of the ideal target audiences.
From there we brainstormed what kind of game we would make:
- Hidden Objects: It would probably be too simple for programming and too much for art, we didn't want to do something like “A building full of cats” but something more like a sidescroller where the character has a scenario and an object would be hidden in the scenario, for example, a character trapped in the garden and needs to find the key to unlock the garden door.
- Story-based sidescroller: We also thought of something calm where the character would walk around somewhere, for example, a village, while the game's focus would be narrative, talking to NPCs. This idea did not attract our attention enough.
The foundation for our game came from the evolution of the Hidden Objects game conversation. We looked for games and one that especially caught our attention was “A Little to the Left”, a puzzle game about organization, something that perfectly appeals to a more female audience, which as I mentioned before was one of our goals.
Sidescroller or Top-Down?
It was a point we discussed a lot, mainly because the idea of Top-Down was something we needed to idealize and outline to understand how we would make the game. A sidescroller would be easier, but a Top-Down would create a different immersion for our game. It was a doubt that we had even though we quickly decided to move forward with the Top-Down idea.
This was an important decision for us to understand better what would we do, by this point, we knew we would do a Top-Down about a cat, probably a humanoid depending on our game content, and probably too a puzzle game. With all this brainstorming we came up with our first concrete idea.
A cozy game where our main character, a humanoid cat, organizes a house and completes small puzzles to completely renovate and tidy his house. Meanwhile, it would be interesting to have narrative elements in the game.
These narrative elements would be introduced subtly in the small puzzles, while the character was arranging books on a shelf the character would mention something, or while organizing a drawer, etc. In the house, we thought, as it was simpler, the main furniture would already be in place as soon as the game started, sofas, furniture, etc.
To Sum up
Moving Tails will have a cozy atmosphere with fun little puzzles, these puzzles will unlock the game's narrative by showing us short stories or memories. With that, you can enjoy the slow pace and the cute details in the game.
