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Week 29: Presentations

So, the presentation is over and I thought I may as well post it on here to clear my head as I've been panicking I said the wrong things on the wrong slides and arghhh.

I was thinking about doing my presentation on a project we've been set this year, such as Off The Map or the Dichotomy Character, but instead, I thought I'd do it on something even more interesting and adorable. One of my favourite games -Road Not Taken!

Road Not Taken is an RPG/puzzle game created by Spry Fox, a company based in Seattle. Their goal is to make the world a happier place with the use of games! Which you can clearly see, as all their games are pretty damn adorable and Road Not Taken has definitely made me pretty happy.

Once a year, in the middle of winter, your character – the ranger – is tasked with venturing out into the woods to safely return children to their parents or the mayor. Sounds simple? It’s really not. It all seems cheerful and cute, and then you’ll come across a creature that’ll eat one of the children. So not cool.

Lead artist on RNT was also an art director on an MMO called Glitch. As you can see, the Ranger in RNT was clearly inspired by the Smuggler character in Glitch.

Main character – staff signifies a ‘lone traveller’ persona.

The hooded character allows everyone to relate to it – as at the beginning, you’re unsure of the gender.

Whimsical yet wizard- like – human in nature.

As you play through each year, you’ll realise that your character ages. Dependant on the choices you make early on in the game – for example, you’ll talk to townsfolk and they’ll ask you questions like “who do you take after? Your mother or your father?” this question defines the gender of your ranger when your hood comes off later in the game.

Also, as your character ages and you progress through the 15 year lifespan, people in the town will make comments about your age. Especially the doctor. Of course, 15 is the maximum age, you can easily die before. For example, if you’re running low on health, the red and white spirits will turn black and follow you around until you accidentally walk into one, and die. 

So, as I mentioned in a previous slide, the game starts off seeming all cute. As you progress further through the levels you start to see things taking a turn for the worst…things become much darker, and scarier creatures start appearing. If you’re not careful, you’ll get wisps and other creepy things trying to steal the children. 

Procedurally generated systems may become repetitive  over time so to solve this, the peaceful fields you’re standing in in one area may change to an icy cavern as you reach the next area. The change of terrain is a helpful progress marker and can indicate what new challenges you, as the character, are about to face.

I’m not a big one for stylisation – I think it's because I find it quite hard to reproduce myself and prefer to take a more realistic approach when designing. However this game absolutely stuns me, it’s incredibly beautiful.

- Individuality of the art style

- Paper cut out animation-esque

The developers have said that the underlying message of the game is “living the best possible life you can whilst on this Earth” but if you've played the game you'll know that it really means – work until you die. So basically an accurate representation of game art!