dot.GRID

Working on this project was one of the best experiences! The teamwork was great and complementary since each member´s skills were needed to reach the final goal. We really enjoyed working together and creating our new videogame concept... and we hope you like it too!

.Market Analysis and Elevator Pitch

The Pitch:  Selkie, friend of the sea is an underwater adventure puzzle game with the main topic of helping the marine life in distress. In order to do so, players will need to use the strength of their seal form as well as their human form wisely. 

Market Analysis: There aren’t so far many games that are underwater based. However puzzles can be compared to the app game of Dokuro and game flow to the game Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. 

.Our Main Character

Our main character is based on the scottish mythology of selkies, therefore the name. It was mostly inspired by the movie Song of the Sea and we just loved the idea of being able to transform from one kind of species to another.

We have shown and asked several people to test and review our game concept for gender neutrality and the results are...

There was once a family of seals that lived happily under the sea… Until their habitat got damaged, polluted and an unsafe place to live in. However the youngest child of the family was not a common seal, she was a selkie, with the power to become a human every time she shed her seal skin and went to the land. That’s why her parents made the hard decision to send her to live with a kind family of humans, who would raise her in a safer environment on the land. 

The selkie grew up with her human family. She loved them so much, still she could never forget about her seal family… She truly missed them!

Years passed by and the selkie started to hear the call of the sea. She decided to embark on a journey to find her family and make the marine environment a better place to live in! 

.Storyboarding

For overall game

Titlescreen

First time starter will be directed to character selection (girl or boy) and naming

First time starter will also be able to view the intro story 

Afterwards the player will enter the first level on the first map

Main Gameplay starts

Once it’s over the player will able to view their score result (at that point they can either choose to continue or restart the level)

After that, the player will be back on the map and the next level will be unlocked

For gameplay interactions

The overall movement will be steered through the up, down, left and right buttons or a digital joystick version of it

In your seal mode you can tap the right lower button for a short dash

In your seal mode you can also tap the right lower button to change it into a song button, with this your seal can calm down distressed or aggressive sea animals (will be also used as a part of future puzzle levels)

In order to transform from the seal mode to human mode, you’ll have to tap the upper right button which is also the display of your oxygen

In your human form your oxygen level will steadily decrease and can only be holded if you change back into a seal

In your human form you can interact with bigger objects, boxes or tools by holding the lower right button. The interactable objects will all be marked with a faint circle that will be filled if you interact with it.

In your human form you can tap the lower right button in order to collect the trash in the level

.Learning Outcomes 1

This one is the map background of the level stages. Each map background will show the basic settings of the levels on it as well as subtle hints to their environmental issues. With the world map button players will also be able to check out small descriptions of each map. For example the first one is called “Blue Coast”.

Blue Coast: Even though the vast sea dazzles in a shiny blue, it will still be inevitably influenced by the humans due to their close living habitat.

Other maps that are planned are...

Dying Coral Reefs will be about the coral bleaching that is happening.

Industrial Waters will be about the water pollution from industrial waste

Black Gold will be about the oil spill 

Melting Glaciers will be about the current global warming

.Learning Outcomes 2

The learning outcome about the awareness of trash underwater is handled way more directly here. The player can directly collect the trash in each level and have a significant impact on the end result: the 3 stars will only be filled if they collect all the trash within the current level.

The stars system:

1st star: achieved by completing the main quest within the level (saving the sea animal in distress)

2nd star: achieved by collecting all the shiny pearls withing the level (there are 3)

.Learning Outcomes 3

One of the main learning outcomes is spreading awareness about different sea animals within the endangerment status from threatened to endangered+. It will be achieved on one hand by saving the sea animal in distress in the levels (may they be trapped, hunted, ... etc) and on the other hand having a small information card about them. The information card will be collected in a book that the player can view anytime they want. The further the player comes the more information cards they can unlock! So...

.Ideas

Goals:

We want to design a game that seeks to fulfill one or more targets of United Nations’ Sustainable Goal 14:

To protect, restore and promote sustainable use of aquatic ecosystems

Conserve biodiversity and provide info about it (the player will get to know about the different animals and plants that live in the sea, especially about the ones that are in danger of extinction)

Enhance the life of animals in the sea (we will focus on animals that are in danger in each level)

Make our oceans clean

References: 

While thinking of some ideas, we’ve talked about animation movies and games that have connections with the sea as a theme and that we might take inspirations of:

Selkies - Song of the Sea

Ponyo

Finding Nemo

The Red Turtle

The River Spirit

Club Penguin - Ice fishing

Game Title: Selkie, friend of the sea

Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, Edutainment

Gameplay Idea:

One of the main challenges is to save sea creatures, especially those who are in danger of extinction. For example: some turtles got stuck on a plastic ring and you’ll need to find a way to free them.

Learning Outcomes: 

Our target audience will be conformed by young adults (students, young workers) between 20 and 25 years old. We have created two personas to have a better understanding of our future gamers:

(Picture might be changed later)

Name: Anna Marie

Nationality: Austrian

Age: 21 years

Occupation: student - Business Management

Hobbies: reading novels, going to the beach during summer holidays, traveling

Story: Anna Marie is a very active and outgoing person. She loves doing sports, reading novels and traveling to warm places during summer to relax at the beach, swim and have a good time with family and friends. She is currently doing her bachelor´s degree in Business Management. She wakes up very early, goes to class and afterwards she meets some friends or practices some sport. Then she goes back home to study and do homework. After a long day she likes relaxing while playing some entertaining video games on her phone, just before going to sleep.

(Picture might be changed later)

Name: Marco

Nationality: Italian

Age: 24 years

Occupation: worker - waiter at a restaurant

Hobbies: watching Netflix, playing games, chatting with friends

We have decided which role would suit each one of us best for the project and also which role we should do together (since there are 4 existing roles and we are only a team of 3).

.Game Producer/Manager - Luisa 

Responsibilities - Overall project organization, resource management, market analysis

Skill Set - Good at setting work deadlines and encouraging the group to follow them, experience in producing video games, good at analyzing and paying attention to details

Most Challenging Task - To learn about all the possible resources we count with and the different strategies we could follow, in order to obtain the best results.

.Game Programmer/Designer - Sonja 

Responsibilities - Game graphics design, player interface, player controls

Skill Set - Basic Knowledge with most of the Adobe programs, drawing characters, simple environment designs

Most Challenging Task - Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the medium that the game will be on and making use of it for the control and interface. 

.Game Analyst/Tester - María 

Responsibilities - Game-play analysis, target audience analysis, quality assurance

Skill Set - Basic knowledge in usability testing, surveys, good at analyzing and paying attention to details, basic experience playing video games

Most challenging task - Keeping the player’s point of view despite of being involved in the creation process and being able to find the bugs and lacks of the game.

.Game Artist/Modeler

Is a common role that will be shared between the three of us, since we all like to create art. Our responsibilities here will be to create concept art for the game, the game graphics and the screen design.

Weaving Tides is the current game project from the indie game studio Follow the Feathers. 

Creators : Follow the Feathers 

Languages: English and German

Game platform: PC / Mac

Mode: Single player

PEGI: 7+

ESRB: Everyone

Genre: Adventure

Category: Dexterity / precision / motor skills

These are 6 rules we’ve made for a smoother flow of teamwork between us. We might still stumble onto troubles while working, so in order to avoid most of them. We’ve done our best to establish some ground rules.                 

Let’s work hard!  +.*.｡(❁´◡`❁)｡.｡:+*  

✦ To put deadlines and respect them.

✦ To plan group meetings.

✦ If you have any problem just tell as soon as possible to the group.

✦ Try to begin early for handing in the tasks, don´t leave everything for the last minute!

✦ Upload everything you do/ collect to the Google Drive.