The game jam's broad theme of "monsters" leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Initially, I struck on the idea of a game in which you mix alchemical ingredients to create a monster. You would then train the monster in a grim version of the Petz/Nintendogs games (in which you'd have a dog or cat and play with it and train it). Finally the monster would go out and battle with your army and eventually die, but hopefully help turn the tide of battle. The theme was around how monstrous we might be to be so easily sending out our virtual armies to die for us. I left that idea undone.
More ideas came and went, all playing with the idea of what monsters are or what it means to be a monster. I love this stage of creation...I'm full of ideas and happy to throw away anything that just doesn't fit. And a lot of ideas got thrown away. Anything interesting, but not for this project are noted and I keep noodling.
There's a lot of tangents that are impossible to really convey, but after thinking a lot about US political media coverage and particularly the disturbing propaganda of Fox News, I came to a game about a plague that is sickening citizens in a city who slowly become monsters. Refining the game design, the part about Fox News ("Pox News") came out, though I'd still like to have that as a side expansion.
We were also playing a lot of Pandemic Legacy Season 2, which helped inspire and inform some of the ideas. All of these ideas congealed into something which I found interesting enough to fully draw out the game design.
Next post I'll get into the game design and the transition from a feature-bloated monstrosity itself to a "minimal viable product".
More ideas came and went, all playing with the idea of what monsters are or what it means to be a monster. I love this stage of creation...I'm full of ideas and happy to throw away anything that just doesn't fit. And a lot of ideas got thrown away. Anything interesting, but not for this project are noted and I keep noodling.
There's a lot of tangents that are impossible to really convey, but after thinking a lot about US political media coverage and particularly the disturbing propaganda of Fox News, I came to a game about a plague that is sickening citizens in a city who slowly become monsters. Refining the game design, the part about Fox News ("Pox News") came out, though I'd still like to have that as a side expansion.
We were also playing a lot of Pandemic Legacy Season 2, which helped inspire and inform some of the ideas. All of these ideas congealed into something which I found interesting enough to fully draw out the game design.
Next post I'll get into the game design and the transition from a feature-bloated monstrosity itself to a "minimal viable product".
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