absense
Project Management, Game Design, Narrative Design, Level Design, Prototyping, and User Testing
PROJECT CONTRIBUTIONS
THE SOLUTION
Absense is a 2D platformer about a ghost that must chase the trace of its lost memories by maneuvering through the Void, a dimension where obstacles can only be seen mirrored in the parallel the Land of the Living below. Unlike Limbo and Mario, the player must navigate invisible obstacles through mirrored dimensions to collect pieces of his soul.
Absense tells the story of Eric, a man in his early 30s, who enters into a coma after a car accident. He is trapped in a realm known as the Void, between life and death. To escape, you must evade Shadow creatures who aim to keep you trapped, and search through his memories to collect pieces of his soul. Absense is about memories, and what we love most in life, and the horror of being separated from them.
CONTEXT
This project was the culmination of the Foundations of Game Design course as part of the Masters of Digital Media Program in the fall of 2016. Our team of 5 consisted of two artists, one programmer, one designer and animator, and myself as a project manager and designer. We assembled to create a low-fidelity vertical slice of a new game in two months, from conception to delivery.
THE PROBLEM
how could we tell a story about memory, loss, and death through a PC platformer?
-
Five low-fidelity levels for the 2nd chapter of the story
-
Design document with plans for full development, as well as an art bible, tech bible, and the narrative narrative framework.
THE RESULTS
THE PROCESS
Discovery Phase
As the project manager and a narrative designer, I led the team through the ideation and discovery phase. Inspired by the wave of narrative games by indie developers like Life is Strange and The Stanley Parable, we were fascinated with neo-noir stories with an emotional core. Knowing our time constraints, we determined that we wanted a 2D high-contrast, black and white visual design akin to Limbo or Night Sky. Our team was an eclectic group of individuals with artistic, film, or literary backgrounds. Inspired by our artist Marina Roselli’s work incorporating scent design into art installations, I pointed to Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time as an example of a story that used scent as a window into the memories of his youth, and how senses tied the experiences to the themes of the story.
Design Phase
With these somewhat lofty inspirations as a starting place, we each ideated and presented storyboards. Many of our ideas involved dark, uncanny and familiar settings like homes, but we determined as a group that we were uninterested in traditional horror genres for this project. Maria Herrara, one of our designers, came up with the idea of a story about a dead character who had to recover pieces of himself, which would only be found through the scents of his memories.
From there, I developed a narrative framework, character and story background for a 5 chapter game, each revolving around a different piece of the character’s soul: nature, home and family, friendship, the interests and activities he loved most in life, and love. These pieces also tell the story of Eric’s life, from the moment of his car crash off a highway near a forest and his escape from the scene of the accident, through a forest that moves him backward through time, to his childhood home. The next four chapters tell the story of Eric’s adolescence and the love of his family, his friendships through school, his love of art and music and literature, and finding his wife later in life.
Production Phase
Our team then ideated on each level and determined which ones we wanted to present in our prototype. Once we agreed on our deliverables, we created a work breakdown structure and roadmap to delivery. We first built and iterated on building the core mechanics and loop. It was important for us to get the right feel for the user in the basic action mechanics by manipulating and testing the velocity, acceleration, and jump height. We then were able to build and add on features like obstacles and hazards in subsequent tests.
We created a progression map based on the narrative design to aid in future level design.
Once the story structure and mechanics were established, we determined our prototype would focus on chapter 2. The pipeline was broken down into game and level design, art, sound design, animations, and programming. After weekly internal tests and three user tests, we were able to deliver the game on time.