About:
Whale is an Underwater Narrative Adventure title.
In this deep-sea journey, an angry spirit has stolen the sun, plunging the world into darkness. Descending through the depths of the planet, players feel the rush of freedom as they explore the open ocean and join forces with a magical whale to restore balance and light to the world. Encountering remnants of a long-forgotten civilization along their journey, Whale will ignite the curiosity of its players as they search for clues among mysterious ruins to decipher riddles of the past.
I worked on Whale with a team of 8 other individuals for the span of 6 months, in order to develop a prototype that could be used to apply for further funding. During this time, I was responsible for transforming a proof-of-concept, containing just the 3Cs, into a vertical slice prototype that would demonstrate the core gameplay, feeling and message of Whale. I drafted several narratives, one of which we developed into a full 9 part story. I designed several puzzle prototypes, enemies and mechanics as well, one of which requires optional use of a microphone to perform Whalesong; a method of communicating actions and commands to the AI companion whale named Boon. I also designed and produced the trailer, as well as all design and pitching documents. Whale received funding from OMDC but was put on hiatus due to further financial constraints.
My Role:
Game Designer &
Production Assistant
As Game Designer, I was responsible for:
► Aligning the varying ideas and design directions of whale into a single cohesive vision.
► Conceptualizing, designing, and developing new systems and levels, including the whale AI system, Enemies patrols, Puzzle systems, and more.
► Communicating design ideas to peers using visuals, graphs, and prototypes.
► Collaborating with programmers and artists to test and validate design ideas before implementation
► Prototyping & testing game features, in-engine, using Unity & C#.
► Writing the game narrative, characters, and themes.
► Documenting all game elements, systems & designs on Confluence.
► Playtesting & managing quality assurance for all features, while balancing and tuning mechanics.
As a Production Assistant, I was responsible for:
► Managing all outgoing & incoming communication for the team.
► Outsourcing contracts with sound designers and voice actors.
► Seeking licenses for purchasable assets and content.
► Building various pitch-decks, presentations, and applications to acquire funding from grants and publishers; most notably for CMF & OMDC.
► Designing and producing the trailer, as well as the demo.
Design Goals:
Whale had a clear vision with plenty of inspiration and research on what would make it a great game. We used 3 Pillars to hone our focus on what Whale would be.
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Bond with Boon - We wanted the player to feel like they had a living & breathing companion through their adventure. We developed the design of Boon the whale to be simultaneously independent and cooperative with the player. His AI patterns would reward the player for engaging with him when solving puzzles and taking care of his needs; feeding him, emotionally supporting him when he's under stress, etc. Boon would also explore on his own if not called upon to aid in tasks, guiding the player to clues and notifying them of potential threats
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Environmental Storytelling - The story of Whale is seldom told through spoken word, outside of cutscenes. The ruins and murals left behind on the walls of the fallen Lumerian civilization would tell the story of their rise and fall, as well as their core beliefs in harmony with nature. The player would naturally uncover these parables as they went around the levels, exploring and solving puzzles.
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Underwater Exploration - Under the waves exists a borderline alien ecosystem. We wanted to fill the world of Whale with as much life and color as possible, providing the player with plenty of incentives to poke their head in every nook and cranny. We added teaming schools of varying fish, forests of kelp and coral, and organic rock geometry that would create interesting coves and spaces to explore. We added extra lore, enemies and "sun-pieces" ( a power-up item for Boon) in these spaced to entice the player to check out as much as they can.
Post Mortem:
Agile Development & 3C's
Whale was the 2nd project I worked on at Future Immersive. The challenge behind Whale was that it had limitless potential and possibilities for the direction of the game. This ironically is not great because limitations and constraints are what define a game and direct its development. Our team had many different ideas about the gameplay and narrative direction, and only a 6-month deadline to get a demo, trailer, and pitch ready to apply for funding. during this time, about 3.5 months of development time was spent in debate and sometimes argument on what the game should ultimately be. We pitched ideas ranging from environmental activism - with the whale helping to clean the oceans and bring awareness to pollution issues - to surrealism - where the player ventures inside the whale, Monstro style, and discovers a world within its spirit.
Had we not stuck to an agile development pipeline, we would not have been able to finish our demo and trailer in time. We could not afford to NOT develop the mechanics and features while still being lost on core themes and narrative structure. During our time of uncertainty, we still focused on making a FUN player controller and sticking with our 3 pillars. We kept honing on movement mechanics for the player, as well as controls for Boon the whale, and continued to prototype puzzle elements, despite not having a theme applied to them. We tried to perfect our character, camera, and controls as much as possible throughout the development pipeline. Once we had come to a consensus on a narrative and themes, which we created by taking the best parts of the various ideas we had, we began crunch time on applying our ideas to our demo. Aligned and synergized, we cranked out a tremendous amount of assets and features in a very short amount of time.
I will always remember that there is always work to be done. Even if one part of the game is frozen in uncertainty, other parts can be readily iterated and honed, so long as you have your core pillars to rely on.