It Takes A Village

Duration of work: 2 Months
Tools Used: Unity, Photoshop
Roles: Game Designer, Level Designer, Artist

It Takes A Village was a prototype I created with one other developer. I had large plans to further develop the game, but as the other developer stepped away from the project due to personal reasons, I could not continue work on it. I learned a lot from this project and still completed a large amount of design work on it.

It Takes A Village would follow Mikkel, a young boy escaping from his home with his imaginary friend Mike keeping him company. I wanted to create a combat system that did not necessarily focus on violence, but provided an intersectional system unique to each encounter. Mikkel would traverse through his village as an outcast, with the player influencing the story through their choices inside and outside of combat. 

Enemies had two stat bars that affected the outcome of combat. The first was an emotion bar, which could cause the enemy to either gain strength, lose strength, or flee/end the combat. The second bar was a health bar, which was affected if the player took a physical route during the combat.

The initial plan for the combat offered eight actions. Each action would be tailored to each enemy, affecting them in different ways, but generally following these guidelines in design:

Threaten: This causes the enemy to either become intimidated and lose strength, or become stronger due to underestimating Mikkel. This would be influenced by context and the player's dialogue choices before the combat. 

Cower: To child enemies, this would cause their strength to increase. To adults, it causes their strength to decrease. It also prevents an attack being taken by the enemy that turn. 

Appease: This causes the enemy to become kinder to Mikkel, and lose strength. Both adults and children feel bad for him. However, aggressive actions next round increase in damage, as enemies are caught off guard. 

Punch: This causes physical damage to the enemy. It also makes them angrier, increasing strength. 

Distract: This lowers the strength of the enemy, and increases the chances of the player being able to flee.

Provoke: This makes the enemy weaker, as Mikkel can find weak points. It increases physical attack damage for Mikkel.

Item: Mikkel starts the game with a knife. Using this knife has major consequences, and the player will be asked if they really want to use it. In some cases, Mike will step in and prevent the player from using it on certain important NPCs. It will do large amounts of damage when used, and make the enemy weaker.

Other items can heal Mikkel, such as food and medicine.

Flee: The player can attempt to leave the fight. This will only be an option if the enemy is weaker. 

Mikkel has the same stats as the enemy. Each enemy would have unique actions, with a smaller range. 

Designing the village

The aim of the game would be to progress through the village and towards a road leading to a larger city, led by Mike. As Mikkel grew up sheltered and controlled at home, I wanted the village to feel huge. A ginormous world, the child has rarely been to. An exciting trip, hampered down by the reason the child is finally free.

The housing of the village would be typical of rural Ireland, with stone walls sectioning places off. Houses closer to the village and centred around it would be terraced. Upon arrival at the village, Mikkel is greeted by the houses. He can peer over the walls, observing gardens, farmland, children’s toys, and such. Running through the village Mikkel encounters a multitude of people. 

Exploring the housing-estate-like areas will introduce different children who recognise Mikkel from school. These estate areas are at the entrance to the village which ensure the player is taught some level of combat before delving further into the game. The idea of the children harassing Mikkel is that they never spoke or interacted with him in school, instead drawn away from him by their parents. Mikkel never did anything to them. 

Going through the town square is the market. There are plenty of vendors there, offering fresh fruit and vegetables grown from the surrounding landscape. Mikkel can attempt to steal from these stalls, and will trigger combat if he fails. Mikkel can find a small coin on the ground and make a wish in the fountain. The player can choose what he wishes for.