Developer Diary 01; Welcome Home

As a writer of science-fiction, space is dangerous, for several reasons. Your reader hasn't experienced what it's like out there. You haven't, I haven't. Astronauts have of course. But how do you sell it to ordinary people? How could you make such an incredibly powerful, mysterious and vast concept tangible? The risk is not doing these things for spectacle, not for wow factor or achievement... You make it home. You make it feel like they've been there, in some way, shape or form. You're home, so welcome them.

The player will assume the role of Intergalactic Hired Gun; Jack Kursby. Along side Kursby is his partner dog, Georgie. The two's operation they call 'K&G Services' is located on a privately owned discrete Moon named “Khromos”. Khromos was previously home to a restaurant chain called “Parallax Pizza”. The two converted Khromos's model into their offices and home.

The galaxy will be home to several locations just like this. The point is to display and accommodate vast space with familiarity, coziness, and all together sites that convey past and present life. This is what Georgie And Me is going to be all about.

G&M is a take on the traditional FPS with added ingredients to more-so heighten the experience. This is an intergalactic adventure, a straight-up shooter, where your home is with each other in the vastness of space. Space itself is heavily occupied. Whether it be fast-food, junkyards or abandoned super-markets, it wants to make you feel like you belong.

This is a shooter that will bring Jack and Geogie's pasts and present lives together. It will blast galactic-groove visuals and whisper mystery as you travel location to location, for better or worse.

Developer Diary 02; Creative Understanding

Before I get into the more interesting diaries about characters, environmental building, neat space stuff, etc; I've got to dig deep first into how these things started.

I had to set my mind on a clear path and take it one step at a time, asking myself “What is a game I'd like to make?” So I first thought; “okay, something with a good story.” But I knew even just from that, it wasn't enough to get me anywhere, strongly considering my past mistakes of secluding specific game genres from one another without them bonding together. So then I asked myself; “Alright, what kind of a game would I like to actually play if I made it?”

I knew I wanted to make a shooter, and I knew I wanted to write a great story. I love creating detailed worlds, but I also knew I would HAVE TO approach them from another angle if I were to set out to do what I wanted to achieve. To tell a story, but to keep it moving with enough momentum that gave the gameplay actual stakes with a continual gratifying experience to back it up.

There was a new understanding to be met. There were new rules to write by, to build by, to analyze. These were the things I needed to tackle first. But when I looked back and played the games I was inspired by to craft this new work, these questions had to be asked;

“What does it mean to 'Feel' like a Game?”

“What 'IS' Challenge?”

“What 'IS' Combat?”

“What 'IS' the difference between Challenge and Unfair?”

“What does it mean to HAVE Player Impact?”

These were the very ingredients I had to understand in order to craft what I believe to be this project's core. They were nearly completely absent in my previous project, thus making them even more so important this time around. To focus not so much on “I want to show people how interesting I can make something”, and instead “I want people to have a blast.”

Developer Diary 03; Georgie and Kursby

Georgie and Kursby's relationship is something special all on its own. The absence of traditional affection is what makes for some really interesting story-telling. Georgie may be a small dog, but he's not there to be adorable. They're a team, they know one another fairly well, they jive. I had heard a quote once that stuck with me that represented these things; “A good partner is one you can throw the gun.”

Think of it as partners in crime who have never sat down to talk about their feelings over dinner. The game begins when the two's partnership had been active for some time. But they're also not too far enough into it that they truly know their boundaries. Their resources will be thinned, their individual skills tested. Their 'friendship' may seem sometimes invisible, but their 'partnership'? That's what becomes the force to be reckoned with.

There are many staples to these two's character developments. Each one of them is at a completely different point in their lives. While one is getting over the hill of a traumatic event, one is still living it. It takes the two of them to work their emotions through hell and high water while staying true to the business they're in. And while doing so, tensions rise, revelations arise, and compromises are met. That's who they are.

This duo is the most complicated pair of characters I've ever had to write for. Their statements to one another have weight, their past experiences carry over into their decisions, and their personalities are like the positive and negative charge on a battery. But with that battery, you need both of those charges to work in unison. And that's what Kursby and Georgie do and how they are most effective.

Developer Diary 04; Grasping A Space Reality

If I asked you to imagine yourself traversing in deep space, surrounded by life, whizzing starships, adventure, the whole works; What comes to mind? You'd want it to feel real, right? Now, doing that is a very difficult task to conquer. But what does “feeling real” mean exactly?

G&M's visuals and atmosphere are aiming for a much different approach to that impeccably detailed space some individuals may be thinking of. This is a groove visualized, alternate reality somewhere that merged America's 1960's-1970's conception of the future and contemporary cartoons into its own dimension. Things can feel new but yet familiar, like you've seen them before. This reality must feel coherent, even if it weighs much heavier on the fictitious, cartoon-ish scale.

Coherency, that is the most difficult objective. This new reality has its own rules. It's got to look like it, got to sound like it, got to breathe like it. Players have got to know that they're in a much different world than their own and I've got to do my very best to convince them. Doing this has been my most daunting task yet. If I send you here, will it actually grasp you? How do I make you care about this world? How can I convince you to fall in love with these characters like I did? Grasping this correctly was the challenge.

Developer Diary 05; Understanding Gameplay

G&M is a shooter that will rely on the player to pass through some very dangerous environments. Most of these places are linear, some are more open, gauntlet-like, etc. Delivering independent experiences through these environments is what makes them special. It's the foes you'll fight, the acquaintances you'll make, and the stories that these environments tell.

In this universe, there are enemies that are territorially, mindlessly, and savagely hostile. They come in all variety's; some of them will even become familiar but more evolved than the last time you fought them. But most importantly, in a shooter like this, they've simultaneously got to be fun to fight and offer something refreshing the further your exhibition goes. Learning to approach them from the sounds or movement they make is what I'm striving to do just right.

Every now and then, the player will come across devices in the world that they can use to overcome their enemies. These devices are designed to be simple and fun to use with providing minimal friction to any present challenge and instead offer versatility.

The devices in question should be familiar to the Player if they've played other shooters. There's a currency that the Player will acquire from eliminating enemies; and they can spend this currency at a Vendor for temporary buffs. Every once in a while there will be a “Credit” the Player can use to select a passive or active upgrade to their character for the remainder of the game.

The environment for this matter, is also full of hazard devices that the Player can use against their opponents. They'll come across swirling explosives and acidic capsules, luring traps like bug swarms and electrical coils, and that's just scratching the surface.

To “understand gameplay” is to understand the experience you are trying to define. The more the Player can purposely or accidentally interact with their environment to complete any given goal is what having a fun time requires. Any time a challenge is understood by what devices lay before them, is how proper education of these elements is done.