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As Above, So Below

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Objective

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Conceptualize and create a text-heavy game based on the overarching theme of survival.

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My Roles

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Narrative Design

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Duration

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7 weeks

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Platform

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PC

Game Details

As Above, So Below is a text-based survival game that focuses on resource management, acquiring skills, and forming relationships.  It takes place in a dystopian future caused by large corporations that have fixed themselves as above the law, and operate however they please.  This leads most of them to commit actions that benefit themselves, no matter how it affects the rest of the world.  Living in a world of consequence and crazed by a need for purpose, The Character develops a goal of revenge against the crystal towers.  A text based game, the player must make choices and develop skills to better survive out in the dilapidated wastes, among those maddened or jaded by unchecked brutality.  They must trade, fight, explore, and use skills to gather the materials to achieve their goals.  All while under the constant threat of death: one mess up could mean death for you, forcing you to restart the whole game.

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Design Timeline/Process

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This was a small development window for us, especially for the likes of developing a game and within the context of a class that already has other focuses.  Since the formation of the team, we had abut 7 weeks to conceptualize the premise and genre of our game.  Due to the diverse mindsets and interests of everyone in the group, the ideas generated varied wildly.  From takeout delivery with absurdism twists and step-by-step minigames to create fashion accessories, we ultimately settled on a text-based genre of game based on they keyword "survival" given to us by our professor.  The text-based nature of this idea was deemed more plausibly feasible considering our time and skills as a group.

Inspirations

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Oregon Trail: A staple of text-based games, Oregon Trail was a natural inspiration for us.  While we wanted to develop a deeper experience story-wise, text-based scenarios with inventory management accompanied with rudimentary visuals of the surrounding area made an inspiration that we looked back to often.

Darkest Dungeon: Being a turn-based dungeon crawler, we didn’t see Darkest Dungeon as an inspiration for us gameplay wise, but was an inspiration for us mechanically wise.  The game’s resource management was well thought out and something that we thought was worth studying.  Darkest Dungeon also had a procedurally generated room and hallway map system that we considered vital to the gameplay of As Above, So Below.

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Concepts/Development

We had a lot of fun generating concepts of the game.  The story, gameplay mechanics, and UI experienced lots of iterations, with little regard to our available time and manpower.  Standing with factions, random base raids, both chosen and unchosen attributes affecting skills/choices, and physical map manipulation was all discussed, and more.  However, once we actually started developing the game, we quickly realized that we kind of went off a bit much with the concepts.  It was very unlikely we would touch on all our ideas, so lots of them got scrapped.  My job was in the writing, so I wrote some story events, with branching choices leading to differing outcomes.  Some trees come with skill checks and others require items.  To build these trees, I utilized Twine, a game engine built primarily for text-based games.  The main project was in Unity however, so we had to find ways to integrate the two systems to work in the game. 

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WARNING! - The events that take place in these scenarios contain acts of violence

sexual assault

and death. 

Proceed with caution!

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Twine Files
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Unstable Reactant Heist

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Small Settlement

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Beartrap

Distressed Civilian

Lost Kid

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Game Result

While we have functional parts of the game implemented, such as the UI and systems adapting to the skills the player has, as well as the ability to go through the dialogue trees and the skill checks required, the game currently stands as unfinished.  And due to more projects with better opportunities coming up recently, it may be a while if at all when As Above, So Below will be finished.

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Reflection

In retrospect, this game was a unique experience.  Enjoyable, absolutely.  I loved the concept of the game and with every idea we made the more excited I became about it.  And while it did hurt when we had to scrap these exciting ideas, it did teach me that during ideation, one should consider the realism of the ideas generated considering the time and hands available.  This also gave me experience about working with people with differing goals and aspirations.  The downside of making everyone develop a game is that most won’t have an interest in the project.  As a result, I learned about how to deal with the undesirable side of group work, and make something meaningful out of the situation.

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