Grind Quest: Digital Prototype Feature Treatment

So as many of you may know (well that is if you actually read this thing, which I still doubt there is anyone other than my TA) you know that in my program we are required to make a game every year and this year is no different. My team, Wrecking Ball Studios (it was either this or Biscuit Hammer which wasn't happening), is creating a 3D side scrolling platformer called Big & AI-ME, where you play as a big foot like character with this little tiny robot companion who are trying to save the world from evil robots (Honestly I think it sounds like a bad movie plot but alas I was out voted in my group full of boys who clearly don't know a good game when they see it, I MEAN I JUST WANTED TO MAKE JILLIAN'S HAIR ADVENTURE WHICH IS SUPER AWESOME BTW BUT DAN HAD TO OPEN HIS BIG STUPID MOUTH AND INSULT AND BELITTLE MY GAME IDEA IN FRONT OF EVERYONE CALLING IT STUPID AND RETARDED AND SAYING THAT NO ONE WOULD WANT TO PLAY IT WHICH HE'S WRONG CAUSE A BUNCH OF PEOPLE LIKED IT.... but whatever moving on).

 Now some people may think making a game is easy but it really isn't, there are so many things that go into making a game and a lot of concerns that need to be addressed in order to have a working and fun game. For my current team and game, I have no doubt in my mind that we will be able to produce a game but whether it looks good and is actually fun to play well I'm a little worried about that, which is actually going to be this blog's main focus.

This Year's Game: Big & AI-ME

So in the above image you can see a kinda of sneak peak at our game's main and side character, Big and AI-ME. Now in this game evil robots have taken over the world and the humans have developed AI-ME, a little robot with one goal to shut down all the evil ones with his destruct code, who runs into Big after robots have attack his forest and he is looking for some payback. They team up together to fight the evil robot army and save the world (I personally don't like this idea at all, I feel like its cliche and tacky. It was basically the boys desire to have robots and big foot in our game and being the only girl in the group I was quickly out voted). Below you can see some concept sketches of our main and side characters:

MY CONCERNS:

Now I've sort of made my peace with our game idea and have accepted that I'm always going to be out voted in my group and will probably never get to make Jillian's Hair Adventure but I'm a little worried over our current game.

• The Story
• So I'm a little worried about how the story will factor in to our game, especially since it is a very story driven game. Personally I have a feeling that our "writer" is going to botch the story and make it either stupid and really strange or is going to make it completely 2 dimensional and boring (cause he says he is such a great writer but I did so much better than him in Creative Writing so I doubt it).
  
• The Aethetics
• Now I'm a fantastic artist, I've even won an award at the Design Exchange competition for my art and designs so I have no doubt in my mind that I can produce some fantastic game assets, but even though I can produce nice stuff to look at not everyone in my group does the same. Now I understand that everyone has their own talents and maybe art might not be one of them but I'm more than willing to help if asked. Like one of my group members ask for my opinion and tips to make his model textures better looking which was great cause after some advice on what to do they now look awesome, however our main character doesn't look as good as it could be which I can't fiddle or edit since it's part of my group member's assignment (even though I wish I could fix it so badly, like seriously!! It's messy, a weird yellowly colour instead of a more tanish colour like I suggested, the shading and highlights are weird and unnatural among other complaints I have). Personally even if everything else is amazing I feel like if our graphics aren't up to par it will take away from our game which I'm really worried about.
  
• The Gameplay 
•  This is one of my main areas for concern right now because our gameplay right now is to be honest BORING. You and walk through the level, jump and punch and enemy which is about it. Who cares if we have a beautiful game with an awesome story if the actual gameplay sucks, like seriously what a waste of potential! I wanted to include double jumping, climbing and maybe even crawling but all of those ideas where shut down, not even a maybe but just a no. I didn't care if we implemented it in this semester or next semester but I really wanted to add to our gameplay a bit cause right now it's boring. Personally if anything was going to kill our game it's going to be the boring gameplay and I'm really worried about what is going to happen.

Personally I feel like this game was a bad idea from the start but I'm hoping that we can add some interesting things into our gameplay so the entire game isn't just running, jumping and punching otherwise I don't think our game will be the best we can make it.