Gamebook adventures are books where the protagonist decides what happens. “Paths” is our attempt in capturing this feeling inside of a 3D game world. The player becomes an adventurer who roams through the forest slaying creatures and trying to survive as long as he can.
- Collaborators: Marlene Mayr, Alexander Grundner, Florian Schmalzer
- Software: Unity
- My Task Areas: Concept, UI and UX
Gameplay Demo
Concept
This demo is based on the adventure gamebook Forest Of Doom by Ian Livingstone.
Feeling
We tried to capture the gamebook feeling in various ways:
- narrator guides you through the world
- fighting mechanics use visual dice rolls
- start screen animation resembles a book
- interface is made of paper
Player Path
The most important decision we made dealt with player guidance. Should a path be blocked after the player passes? No - you could turn the book’s pages back just as well. But we did decide to give the game some linearity by saving interactions. The game saves states when the player passes an NPC or a certain result has been reached during the interaction. When the same spot is revisited, none or a different action may occur.
I analyzed the digital version which is available on Steam. Story branching can be visualized as charts, such as flowcharts, or layout out on a map. Especially in an RPG-like game, this helps to get a better overview. Environment artists can theoretically reuse the map, however, due to the short project duration the map was not directly replicated in our demo version.
Fight Mechanics
We didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we took the fighting mechanics from the gamebook and applied them to our game. This means that the dice rolls are compared against the enemy and affect the game depending on both opponents’ skills.
Credits
- Voices: Juwan Royal (Narrator), Alejandro J Arias (Wizard)
- Music: Adrian von Ziegler - Ótroðinn