Notes for Design

Overview

Parchment is a Japanese art style inspired platform game in which the player has to guide the character, both through his physical and spiritual world, up a mountain to reach enlightenment.  The player must morph the environment by switching between the two worlds in order to progress. This gives the player the role of the divine intervention as they choose to change the world in order to allow the character to develop.  The main graphical theme for the game is that it is painted on a scroll like parchment in a water colour style similar to that of Japanese art.  The objects/character will then sit on top of this background layer also in a Japanese inspired format.

Tile sets

There are three major graphic tile sets required for this game.  These are:

• Physical state tiles
• Spiritual state tiles
• ‘Safe’ (both world) tiles

For each of these types of tile there should be one repeatable set – for any length of platform, and also a single block tile which can sit alone. As well as this the tile sets also need ‘door’/wall object graphics which can be arranged vertically rather than horizontally.  Finally there is the moving tile which will need a tile graphic for both the physical and spiritual world.  This all boils down to the following list:

• Physical
• Repeatable
• Single
• Vertical (door/wall maybe even both?)
• Moveable(maybe)
• Spiritual
• Repeatable
• Single
• Vertical (door/wall maybe even both?)
• Moveable(maybe)
• ‘Safe’ (both world)
• Repeatable
• Single
• Vertical (door/wall maybe even both?)

The tiles for the physical and spiritual states should be distinctively different, but the safe blocks should also stand out as out of all the blocks, it is these the player will need to recognise as important because they behave differently.

Character

The character will be a monk that the player takes on this journey of enlightenment.  The character should most likely be wearing cloak of some kind, preferably full length (for animations sake).  Representation of the current state may be portrayed by the character’s hood or robe colour?  The character will need a number of animation states, which will need different sprite sheets for each of the worlds if the character is changing majorly in design:

• Walking
• Jumping
• Standing?

Objects

The main secondary mechanic is to follow the ’object of enlightenment’ (? = the glowing floating ball) to reach the end and gain enlightenment.  The ‘ball’ acts as a guide/hint as to where to go next and encourages the player to move on through the level.  The ball will need a physical and spiritual representation – probably a glowing ball (spiritual) and a butterfly (?)(physical).

Checkpoints are also important objects in the game that represent both saving and safe points in the game as well as being the beginning and end of various stages of play.  The checkpoints should return the player back to the physical/safe state when the character comes into contact with then in order to replenish their ‘spiritual life’(?). The checkpoints could be some sort of torch object which becomes lit up when passed (or some other representation) to demonstrate that is has been activated. This object could be represented differently or the same in both worlds. Key objects to design therefore are:

• Object of enlightenment (physical state and spiritual state) *animated
• Checkpoint (quick activation animation?)

Background

The background graphics are based on a parchment or scroll.  We will therefore need a parchment graphic and also a texture which can be overlaid in game to create a paper texture effect. The texture should preferably be repeatable to save on memory space.  The parchment edges may also need to be repeatable in order to create the scrolling effect as the character/camera moves. The environment is based on climbing a mountain so it may be possible to include in the background image an amount of basic mountain environment graphic if this seems appropriate.  The background will need to also have two states for the physical and spiritual worlds and should be represented of these states. We ultimately require:

• Spiritual background graphic (parchment based)
• Physical background graphic (parchment based)

Graphical Effects

There are a number of graphical effects we have devised.  Firstly to represent the spirit time running out we will use a fade out effect in which a parchment image will be faded in over the main levels to make it look as if the graphics are fading off of the parchment.  This means we will need a blank parchment graphic we can use for this.

Another graphical effect we have devised is that of the draw in effect, such as that in Paper Mario World, which can be done in After Effects.  The aim is however to create this effect using Flash techniques only and will require separate graphics of line and colour if it can be achieved.  We would therefore not only require the graphics as listed above, but may also require some or all of these to then be separately saved as line and colour for when we wanted to use the effect.

Menus/Screens

As well as the main level there are also other aside graphics that will need to be constructed.  Although we are staying away from too many menus we will need a logo for the game and preferably a logo for the team. We also intend to have the instructions inscribed on the parchment which will need to be included as possible background elements and so a font will need to found for this.  We have not yet designed the start up of the game and so hopefully we will not need too many graphics here, it would be best if we could use elements from the other graphics (tiles, background elements) to set this up if required.  Similarly we will need to use graphics to create the final presentation of the idea which can also hopefully rely on in-game graphics.  We will also need somewhere to show the players score/results so a textual graphic at least will be required for this. The key extra elements therefore are:

• Instruction graphics(?)
• Game logo
• Team logo(?)
• Score text/graphics

Future developments

There are a number of possible ideas for future development of the levels within this game.  These include:

• Swapping world via moving through edges of the environment
• Dropping checkpoints (?)
• Graphically leaving your physical self when you switch
• Bouncing clouds
• Separate levels
• Collection spirit rocks