The game takes place on a very Quebec City inspired street, where the jet lagged player character wakes up earlier than usual and decides to find and order from a bakery with their very rudimentary French skills. 

Place: The setting is winter in the early morning (~6am) and bitterly cold with a moderate amount of snow in the streets and sticking to the architecture. The main character decides to visit a small bakery on the street. Besides the bakery interior is the mostly dark storefronts of businesses that haven’t opened yet, businesses with a few lights on as they open up, and greenery areas. 

Things: The player has the opportunity to interact with the text and signage on businesses as well as interact with dialogue from the bakery clerk. In typical store or merchant fashion, the player has the opportunity to interact with the bakery items on the menu. The player has an amount of money but has to work to acquire items through understanding and communicating. 

People: The player character is a foreigner who has never been in the city before. They may reveal their unfamiliarity with the cold as well as their early morning grogginess. Besides the main character is the clerk at the bakery who the main character has to communicate with. 

Style: For surface level art style, the game will draw inspiration from the environments of Disco Elysium, which has been described to feel reminiscent of the Expressionism and Impressionism movements. While retaining the painterly look, the game intends to lack the overt dreariness and grittiness that is imbued into Disco Elysium, instead reinforcing the comfortable loneliness and quiet of an early morning and the picturesque nature of it. The game will prioritize the color contrast of cold, gray, and slightly dreary snow with the weak glow of each closed business and of course the bright glow of the bakery. A stretch goal for the visuals of the game would be that it manages to make the player feel cold. The visuals will be done on the backdrop of a 3rd person camera and in semi-realism.

Gameplay: The game will mostly involve calming exploration and finding the bakery. The other form of play is the “translation” minigame of understanding signs and dialogue. 

Moodboard

Clip of the way snow wisps down roads/walkways and through the air (would like to include this look): https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxlOErZ1nssmJId7TmUDn-CWVY6zaE_BlK

Concepts (Exploration and Minigame)