Making the Identity of a Game

A little over a month ago, I released the demo of my game Farewell that I've been working on since January. It was months of hard work since, except for the music, I do everything on my own. Once I released it, I started thinking about how to go about the second demo. Originally I thought it could be ready by the end of this year, but today I see that it's impossible, and it better be. Today I want to talk about why it's better.

Little Context

I was collecting feedback, making hypotheses and approaches on how to go forward. I was proud that the narrative had been liked and eager to continue it. At the same time, I knew that the weakest point was the combat, so that's what I wanted to work on the most. My approach then was the following: to keep bringing out updates improving mainly the combat with what is already there, and at the same time write the Demo 2 script. That was the original plan until I fell into a little frustration, what do I do with the combat?

I didn't know how to approach the combat, what to add, what to take away, what I was aiming for in the future. I even thought about tearing it all down and starting a new one in a different way. I was already thinking about prototyping and testing dozens of different fighters, but I decided to talk about it first. I have a couple of friends who work in the industry who I respect and admire a lot, and I told them about this conflict. What came out of those talks was something deeper than just what attacks to add to my game, but rather "the identity of the game".

The Identity of the Game

What do you mean? How is this achieved? After thinking about it a lot, I believe that this identity is achieved when EVERYTHING that makes up your game revolves around what you want to tell. It sounds simple, but I mean not only the story itself, but the mechanics and their interactions, the challenges you set, the level design, the art. It may sound obvious, but I think when you're so focused on working on your game it can get overlooked.

After these talks I realized that I was failing, I was far from what I wanted. The art of my game: I didn't think it based on what I want to tell, but it's what I can draw with my abilities and it looks visually good, but..

What is it telling? Why is that art and not another one? 

The same thing happened with the combat.

Why is it a turn-based combat? why are the attacks aimed? just because it's fun? and what does it have to do then with my game?

I realized how badly I was designing things, and at the same time how much I was missing. I was about to start working on the second demo when I realized this: what sense does it make to be working on the game I dreamed of since I was a kid, the game for which I studied a career and worked for several years if I wasn't doing what I wanted? My dream is not in itself to make a game telling a story, but to take advantage of the medium we have, a playable videogame, to transmit that story, in ways that a book or a movie could not.

From this, I decided to do two things:

• Write the whole story, so that everything I put together revolves around that.

• Design a combat that complements what I want to tell, and not just be fun.

Summary

This creates a big dilemma for me, because if you read correctly, I'm talking about writing and designing, not programming or producing. My fear is not to be advancing with playable or visible value for a while. In part I know it's the best thing to do, I know rationally what I want to do, but also the fact that my budget is limited and time is finite doesn't help. I maintain that if there is something I want to do in this life is this game, so if it takes 2, 4, 8 years I will be here working on it, because the worst thing that could happen is not to not finish this game, but to finish it and not be satisfied just because of fear and panic.

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And you?

Did you consider the identity of your game?

How did you solve it?

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