Devlog 1

CONSIGNEE

Lorraine Scanlon was a woman with too much time and not much to do with it; sure she loved pottery and checking out mystery boxes online, but her husband was away most of the time, and her son Kenjiro had none of her interests. That’s when a mystery box arrived with a disturbing surprise inside; the desecrated corpse of a teenage girl. Feeling responsible and hoping it will bring her life meaning, Lorraine goes on an interactive quest to bring the killer to justice and let the girl rest in peace whilst bonding with her son along the way.

Genre and Inspiration - Point and Click + Mystery:

Point and click adventure games, such as The Secret of Monkey Island are a rough approximation to what I want to achieve; a linear set of stages with a large amount of interactable items and characters to talk to per stage. Much like The Secret of Monkey Island, players won’t be discouraged from trying out absurd item combinations, as many other games in the genre actively punish players with a game over or mocking remarks. This genre has the best gameplay system for my game, due to how it strikes a balance between intractability and decision-making, whilst remaining relatively simplistic to code. 

The second genre - mystery games - is what people consider a “tonal” genre as opposed to a straight up gameplay one, as there are plenty of mystery games with completely different mechanics; from the “walking simulator” The Vanishing of Ethan Carter with its fairly simplistic movement controls, to Heavy Rain, which focuses more on quick-time events. However, many other games such as the Nancy Drew series and The Wolf Among Us take the point-and-click adventure game as their primary inspiration. However, most of the time, these mystery games only use the items as clues rather than ways to solve the puzzles in the game. As such, I wanted to put a spin on that concept and have the items and clues gathered to not only solve the mystery itself, but also help the player progress. 

There are two other inspirations for my game concept; the first of which is the existence of mystery boxes: parcels that you buy on shadier online marketplaces (namely wish.com). These are more often misses than hits, and are less like a goodie bag, and more as a hybrid of bartering and gambling. The second inspiration for my game is the real-life occurrence of the corpse found on Randonautica - a website that directs users to randomly generated locations which contain something with a user-chosen theme. On June 19th, 2020, a group of teenagers were using the app with “death” chosen as their theme, and travelled to the coastline of Seattle, before discovering suitcases at the coordinates. There have been other cases of the app leading users to grim locations, such as the dead body of a recent shooting, or to a car that swerves and barely misses the users. 

Target Audience:

My primary target audience is aimed towards the mystery game crowd; I feel as if mystery games get a bad rap, and as of such, there haven’t been too many that have been released recently. However, I believe that a fun mystery always proves to be a memorable story. Sex-wise, due to how mystery games and shows tend to have a higher female playbase, I designed the themes presented to be more maternal, such as the main character being a late 40’s woman, as well as the primary theme being motherhood and how it can either bloom into something beautiful, or come out twisted and horrid. That being said, however, I don’t wish to exclude any potential male players, so to make up for it the player character, Lorraine, has a very lovable and cheery personality that rubs off on those that she meets. In addition, I included the character of Kinjiro, who is meant to be relatable to the men who wish to spend more time with their family but can’t due to being overwhelmed with work. For the age demographic, I aimed towards an older audience for a couple of reasons: the first was that due to the darker themes (as well as literal teenage murder), I want the game to be enjoyed more by adults rather than younger people. As for the second; mystery games don’t tend to appeal towards teens, with the exception of those who enjoy them ironically (case in point, many Nancy Drew games are only known for their unintentional comedy, rather than their story). That being said, I also want to pepper a light amount of dark humour throughout the course of the game, for two main reasons; 1. Many people such as myself often deal with dark situations by either joking about it, or making unrelated jokes to help cheer it up, and due to knowing where to draw the line from personal experience, I’d be able to ensure that the jokes don’t go overboard in how morbid they get. 

2. Considering how bizarre the situation the player gets in, as well as how the game’s aesthetic is very out-there, it wouldn’t be realistic for the characters in the game to point out how odd their predicament is and make light of it somewhat. The game will also be disability-friendly, as I aim to make the visuals and controls easy to understand.

Game Treatment:

You play as Lorraine Scanlon (スカンロン ロレーン ); a 49-year old pottery fanatic, who is sent a box that contains a dismembered body, to find out where the body had come from, you (and from the help of your son, Proenzo [though he prefers to be called Kenjiro, スカンロン 縣次郎]), the two of you search for the murderer. In each scene, you’re presented with a myriad of options that you can investigate. This ranges from other characters you can talk to (usually one every few scenes), items you can take, or puzzles that you have to solve. Dialogue with characters will present a list of questions that Lorraine can ask the other person, with particular questions resulting in new clues that get added to her notebook, which can be looked at by the player at any given time in order to help solve particularly hard puzzles and determine who the killer is. In addition, whilst it isn’t likely to be fully implemented into the project due to the amount of time available, I also plan to include a “karma-esque” system, where depending on the answers, the more likely you’re geared towards arresting the proper killer. Puzzles themselves will typically be riddle-based, or are an obstacle for Lorraine to overcome, usually by using items that they got from either that room, or a previous one. Unlike other adventure games, however, where the intended solution can be incredibly vague at times, the solutions to these puzzles will make logical sense, and whilst some will need some thinking power, they won’t be impossible to solve.

The length of the game won’t be too long; about 30 minutes or so to play through, though it may vary depending on how well players are able to solve each puzzle. 

Others: Aside from Lorraine and Kenjiro, I wanted to have some fun creating some characters that would fit in with the story. For the caucasian characters, I named them after - or based them on - French provinces and cities, whilst Japanese characters used kanji with unique lettering and meanings behind their names. In addition, I intentionally made Kenjiro and his father’s name have a similar sound as to how western nobles would name children after themselves.

臘山 釁二郎 Rouyama  Kinjiro - Lorraine’s Husband, who is called over to work in Japan.

兼冨 and 奧賢

Kanedomi and Okukata - Kinjiro’s workmates that help provide technical support in tracking the package

Madagild “Gilda” Jhingree - the teenager who was murdered and mailed to Lorraine. Bellac Jhingree - the father of both Madagild and Paris. I want him to come off as meek in order to draw suspicion towards him, as those feelings might be considered guilt. Brittany Choiniere - the woman who murdered the teenager. Her motive stems from jealousy of her sister, adulterous love for Bellac, and a twisted desire for being a mother; a dark reflection of Lorraine. Baby Paris Choiniere - the son of the (dubiously consensual) affair between Bellac and Brittany.

Auverie - the wife of Bellac, and one of the initial suspects.

Concept art of Proenzo (left) and Lorraine (right). I wanted Lorraine to resemble a typical “crazy old lady” who is into niche activities such as crochet or collecting plates with pictures of cats on them. In addition, I wanted both to pass the silhouette test - a rule in character designing to make sure character designs can be recognisable just from their shadows alone, and I figured that the combination of their pointy noses, abstract hair and kitsch dress choices could help with this issue.

A rough idea of the layout for each possible scene, with labels for each feature: 1. A rough approximation of how large any human would be on the screen. In this case, Lorraine is in view. By selecting her, you’re able to get a hint that might push the player into solving the case without outright stating what the answer is.

2. An example of objects that are visible on the screen, which can be interacted with using the panel (6)

3. This is the inventory list, which contains a collection of items that the player has collected on their journey. If the player wants to use the item on an object in the scene, they can do so by clicking on the object in the list and then clicking it on the item they want to use it on.

4. A profile that shows a portrait shot of who is talking.

5. The text field; this will not only be used by NPCs when they are talking, but it will also be where item-related text, or even the player’s hints and dialogue options will show up. 

6. The interaction panel; there are four basic types of interaction can use:

          i) Talking will allow Lorraine to talk to any character that is present in the current room, or, give the player a hint if they are stuck on a particular room

          ii) Use will either allow the player to use the object straight away, or to combine with items in the menu (3) to use on items in the scene.

          iii) The Read option will allow the player to read the description of any collected or room item, giving players a hint as to what to use next.

          iv) Move allows the player to collect items and move them and add them to your inventory. However, this name is tentative, and will likely be changed to “collect” in order to clear up any confusion towards its functionality.

My current game project, RoentGen, currently has graphics that I had made myself, providing a rough framework for what the graphics for Consignee would look like. Whilst the game’s setting is much different to the one of RoentGen’s, I want the bright colours and unique backgrounds to stick out more from the other games that are being made. Furthermore, it would allow me to focus on an art style that I am comfortable with, and wouldn’t take too much time to learn.

References:

6 Baffling Puzzles From the 90s We Still Haven't Solved. 2015. [video] Directed by M. Channell and A. Farrant. England: Outside Xbox.

Bay Area News Group, 2020. Landlord accused of murder; Randonautica led teens to bodies. [online] Mercurynews.com. Available at: <https: www.mercurynews.com="" 2020="" 08="" 26="" landlord-accused-of-murder-teens-on-an-adventure-found-the-bodies=""> [Accessed 29 August 2021]. </https:>

The Dark World of Randonautica. 2020. [video] Directed by N. Crowley. New York State: YouTube.

Heavy Rain Norman vs Scott. 2017. [video] Directed by Bricks. YouTube.

Keating, G., 2007. Online mystery games are back from the dead. [online] Reuters. Available at: <https: cn.reuters.com="" article="" us-column-pluggedin-idusn0519932220070106=""> [Accessed 29 August 2021]. </https:>

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - TINKER TIME!. 2015. [DVD] Directed by J. Caddick. England: YouTube.

The Wolf Among Us - Gameplay, Playthrough - Part 1 - THE BIG BAD WOLF!. 2013. [film] Directed by F. Kjellberg. Sweden: YouTube.