My game will have a cat storekeeper and a bulldog player character. The bulldog is an adventurer who has found themselves lost in a great forest of maple trees in the fall. The trees tower up into the sky and disappear into mist. The Cat is selling memories and when the bulldog learns the answer to the Cat’s riddle it will tell it how to leave the forest so that it can resume its journey. The forest is lit by gold sunlight filtering in through the crowns of the trees. As far as the eye can see there are only trees, patches of grass, and the occasional outcrop of stone. It is early afternoon and the weather is a bit foggy. If the player looks around they can find a tree showing themself sleeping in a clearing in the real world. The memories that the Cat is selling are what the player must interact with. They are ornate orbs that the player can walk up to and interact with. When the player does this the game will read out what the memory contains. When they have heard enough they can talk with the Cat and it will return them to the real world after they answer the riddle. The art style of the game will be somewhat cartoonish and low poly like the art of Death’s Door or The First Tree. The vibe will be sort of cozy but also mysterious and whimsical. It will have vibrant colors and rays of light illuminating the scene. Gamplaywise the game will be more of an interactive experience like an interactive cutscene only where the player has more choice about what they want to do. I may make it so that the Cat will give players three choices to answer its riddle so that they could theoretically solve it without actually reading any of the memories but the intended route is to interact with them. The main mechanic would be learning about the memories and watching them to answer the riddle. I’d like the player to find the experience thought-provoking or at least enjoy the experience.
Game concept sketch
Reference Images/mood board
This image is sort of like the costume concept that I want my player character to have.
A visual reference of what bulldogs look like.
This is an art-style reference.
This is another art style reference.
This is a visual reference for the way that the forest may look.
A pretty intricate type of orb which I will sort of be replicating the style of.
A visual reference for creating the cat.
A reference of the sort of patterns I may include on the tree bark.
A reference for the way that I want the trees to feel tall.
I want some of the light in the scene to be visible sort of like this.
I want the forest to feel both warm and cold at the same time. While I currently have the time of year as fall I may want to change it to winter but I’m not really sure about doing that.
I really love your concept art, specifically the coloring and composition stuck out the post to me- I really like how you used the foreground vs background. I wonder how the Cat gets their memories and what types of memories they sell?
The Cat collects memories from dreamers’ minds and sells to one memories that they need but do not know they need.
I really like the overall vibe of your concept; the lighting and the colors really makes it feel super cozy and dream-like, which works very well with the memory themeing. How much control do you intend to give the player when going through the memory sequences? Do they just move, or do they make simple (functionally the same with slight differences in flavor) decisions, like dialogue choices?
I’m intending for the memories to be text that the player sees on the screen, maybe voiced if I can. If I have time I’d love to make the memories actual levels for the player to move through as an observer.
I really like the ideas of the cat selling memories and that they aren’t just there to be pretty or flavor text but that the riddles would be based around them. Would there be any aspect of the game that involves the cat stealing or trading for the player’s memories?
The Cat stealing or trading the player for their memories could be an interesting method of telling the player about the player character’s past.
I like the cozy, dreamlike quality of the forest! Are the forest and shop the whole area the player can see, or do you plan on the memory orbs showing any sort of visual glimpse into the memories they contain?
The forest and the shop are the whole area, though I might make a secret area with inverted colors, upside-down trees, and an Anti-cat who will give you only answers with no context in place of riddles.
I love the costume design on the dog! I think the proposed lighting in the concept art is really cool as well. If the cat is talking to the dog, do you plan to have voice acting for the cat and dog or will they just make animal noises?
I love the idea of a dog protagonist interacting with different animals rather than humans in search of magical memories. How are you planning to block the outside areas so that the player doesn’t wander off?
Your concept art is so beautiful, representing just how important the chilling season of autumn is to your concept. Will players be reading memories through dialog, watching them in cutscenes, or play through them?