Week 1 - Defining the Idea

During the first week I defined the core idea and design of the game. Also, I did 2 different prototypes to be able to visualize and feel what I was going for.

The idea I chose was a game about a child that is grounded and is trying to reach a room in the house undetected by their other family members. I was inspired by the old colonial house my grandparents have back in Colombia. If you don’t know them, imagine the house from the Disney movie Encanto. The rooms in these houses are huge and interconnected. I want to create the experience of a small child moving around a house where everything is bigger than them, even more than it usually is.

With the core idea defined I started a Game Design Document that contained a brief description of all the core elements I envision the game having.

The aspect I struggled the most was defining a camera that created the feeling of being very small. While prototyping the core mechanics in UE5 I had problems making the camera behave how I wanted. For this reason I chose to make a quick prototype in Dreams for the PS4 as I know how to control the camera more easily with it. Once I did it, I felt confident in my concept and spoke with the programmer that is working with me to check they agree to it and ask her about roughly how much time each feature would take. With this done I made the first planning of the 10 weeks I had for making this project.