![]() Roguelike, Roguelite, Hack n Slash or ARPG!? The family angle was something that caught the attention of many of our backers that’s how a narrative-driven roguelike centered on a family named the Bergsons was able to surpass its goal on Kickstarter. This was the concept of “family” which was the result of many a brainstorming session. An element that would be our unique selling point. But what we lacked was something to hold together the narrative and the roguelike gameplay and emphasize this unique mixture. Some of which were already made: In fact, our art style was reminiscent of impressionist palettes and most of our animations gave the player a certain “anime” vibe found in the works of Miyazaki. They would meet each other in an inn and while there, something evil would occur forcing them to band together and go on a heroic journey.īut the Kickstarter campaign needed unique elements. The book would retell the story of total strangers who would unite around a central plot. So, players would see the book in-game and realize that they’re reliving the stories within it. Initially, the game was supposed to be narrated in a book. Now let’s go over how the Bergsons came to be. This kept us busy well into the final months of development. And since we needed the Bergsons to be a family, we had to portray their relationships in an authentic manner. This alone pushed our character development process a step above the class-character of RPGs. To this end, we required a form of permadeath for the playable characters, so the game had to flow without a checkpoint system.Īn important keyword used during the Kickstarter campaign was “family” and the fact that each of the main characters would be a part of it. ![]() ![]() This meant that the players were going to experience the story in between the procedural levels and the Bergsons’ house. We wanted to stand by our promises of delivering a heartfelt story about the Bergsons and at the same time revisit the core elements of rogue-like games. However, while Diablo set itself apart by breaking the genre norms to incorporate real-time combat and balance out permadeath, CoM tries to achieve the same by returning to some of its classic roots. CoM owes a lot to pioneering games like Diablo. But there was also the retro and stylistic art of the game that depicted the Bergson family in the midst of a fictional world where their adventures would take place.Īfter funding was secured, it seemed like the game wasn’t going to be a mere roguelike or hack ’n’ slash. As one of the designers on Children of Morta, who was added around the first quarter of the project, also the narrative designer and writer for the game, I will try my best to run you through our design process and the challenges we faced along the way.Ĭhildren of Morta (henceforth referred to as CoM) was born in 2014 (almost five years before its final launch) through crowdfunding and like many of its peers that sought funding on Kickstarter, it too presented a basic idea that was almost oxymoronic, namely, a story-driven roguelike. ![]()
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