Game Design

For my proposal, I will be using an old game concept I created but never made any actual assets for. I’m very excited to get the chance to flesh out this idea that I’ve had and see it come to life! Players take control of Meeko, the Grave Reaper of Burrowsville. The town is a spooky and autumnal place, with an extensive graveyard that needs to be tended to. For this course project, I want to focus on the main character’s home and the accompanying field, which contains the gravesite, some farmland, and a secret alcove in the woods.

Player Objectives

The player’s objectives are to upkeep the gravesite, collect resources, sell farm goods, craft items, meet villagers, and explore. It is a slow-paced life sim and farming sim style game. 

Game Mechanics

There are a few basic mechanics to the game. During the daytime, Meeko can pick up trash or weeds, dust off dirt and cobwebs from graves, use tools to dig, mine, farm, or chop wood, craft upgrades, and make friends and trade with villagers. When night falls, the graveyard comes to life as skeletons rise and form a night market! Their personalities and prices depend on how well their tombstones are tended to. 

These mechanics, similar to the objectives, come from the original concept, but I will most likely adapt to pick a few that work best for the game design and can be easily achieved since I have minimal coding experience.

Characters and Key Objects

Meeko is the most important character, as he is the protagonist. He’s a shy black cat, so he usually hides behind a homemade pumpkin mask. He lives alone a short ways away from the main town and prefers to make friends with the skeletons in the ground.

The Skeletons are silly and fun, using the night as a time to celebrate before going back to sleep in their coffins.

Frogatha is an alchemist frog in a secret alcove in the woods surrounding the gravesite. She can be visited to buy special potions and spooky decorations.

Game World and Setting

The game takes place in Burrowsville. The world of Burrowsville is a mysterious realm in an unknown time period. The residents of the town are either animalistic or monstrous, but also adorable and cute. The architecture, residents, and technology are not modern, more medieval, with a heavy emphasis on autumnal aesthetics.

Gameplay Highlights

The main gameplay highlight would be skeletons coming out of their graves at night to meet the player. Another highlight would be finding the secret woods where the alchemist’s shop is located. As someone who enjoys exploration in games, I would also say a highlight would be the environment and level design, allowing players to explore the town and its villagers.

Intended Audience and Appeal

The intended audience for this game is people who love Halloween and autumn as much as I do, as well as those who like cozy farming and life simulators like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. The appeal is mostly through the aesthetic and character design, with the mechanics reflecting a lot of classic farming sim games.

Game Style & Player Experience

The game style is slow paced and calming, with no player death or enemies to worry about. The player experience is getting immersed and beginning to love the characters and really feel as if they’re interacting with the world of Burrowsville. 

Art Style

Stylized and cartoony, there’s more in depth explanation in the next section!

Concept Sketch

Art Style

The art style is a stylized cartoony look, similar to Animal Crossing, Tunic, and Death’s Door. The color scheme will be very autumnal, like Stardew Valley’s fall color palette. The whole environment has a spooky atmosphere as well.

Associated Visual Elements

The visual elements will be reminiscent of medieval style fantasy, with lots of simple wood and stone structures. There won’t be any modern forms of technology, so tools will be more primitive and the look of structures will be a bit off or askew.

Mood

The mood will be calming and relaxing, with vibrant colors that are implemented in a way that is a bit softer so as to not be too harsh on the player’s eyes.

Light and Color

The lighting will be very golden to add to the fall aesthetic. There will be harsher shadows, especially since the time of day will be around golden hour or sunset. The color scheme will be vibrant, but not super saturated, with the main colors being orange, red, brown, green, and purple.

Shapes and Lines

The shapes and lines will be relatively soft. There won’t be many harsh lines in the environment or character designs.

Textures

The textures will reflect a cartoony style, with a lot of simple colors and not too many miniscule details.

Player’s Perspective

The perspective is 3rd person, with either a free roaming camera or preferably having the camera locked to one point of view, similar to Animal Crossing.

References