For this post I’ll try to show the process for defining where the game takes place.
My original idea was to have it to be set in a small US countryside city with a very small population where you would live the main character’s life through a full 24 hour cycle.
I started to do some concepts for his house and surrounding area until I realized it was just too filled with space that is not needed for gameplay.
This made me question why such a large scale in the first place. What are the concepts I want to convey? What if I start with something as small as possible? How small can I go?
A room? An apartment? A house? A building?
After some tests I decided to go with a house, so I started with a big 3 bedroom house occupying a first floor and a basement (you can see the basement hatch in the living room).
Further in development, about 10 months ago, when I finally started to get the mechanics and story to work I realized it still felt too big.
Going even smaller would allow me to have a richer environment and add to the claustrophobic feeling I’m going for, so I decided to go with a cramped 2 bedroom apartment.
So far I’ve kept this layout and am really happy with it. It’s not too small nor too big. Further in the development hopefully these decisions will be more clear.
I’m not a game developer or programmer but as a fan of videogames I often think about concepts i would like to see realized. You just hit one of them pretty good. I think it’s pretty amazing and to confine the space and time is a good idea for the project. When i thought about my groundhog day game ideas i would have set it in a samll town with a 24 hour cyle just like you did in your first concept. Some thoughts of mine about how to design around repetion was to gain control over other people with diffrent abilities and influences after doing certain “quests” within the day. Anyway I love to see this concept to be explored in a game now and hope it will be successfull and inspiring to other developers.
A comment from 2021 😀
The trailer is amazing and I can’t wait to play it once it is online. I believe that the only thing I can do now is to check out everything about this game from sketch lol. I am very glad that you guys have made it !!!
Hope you guys can see my comment and check the very first DevLog when you start the whole project, there must be a unique feeling!