Inspiration
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1. Grounded
Grounded is a cooperative survival game that my friends and I were addicted to during the summer vacation. The game starts with the player's miniaturized body proportions and designs many interesting mechanisms, making its gameplay experience unique. So I wondered: if the player were a giant, what kind of game could be created?
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- Grand Canal
The Grand Canal Museum only started operating at the beginning of this year, making it a very new museum. Therefore, compared to traditional museums, it has introduced many interactive educational installations for visitors. These installations have simple interaction methods and are not particularly game-like, but when placed in a museum, if they can be well integrated with the educational content of the exhibitions, they can achieve magical effects.
On one hand, interactive installations give visitors a sense of participation, not only deepening their impression of the exhibited content but also making the visit process less boring; on the other hand, the knowledge and environment of the museum can inject wonderful energy into the interactive installations, giving profound meaning to simple game structures and making them much more attractive.
In the museum, seeing cities light up one by one as the water flows, I thought "wow" at that moment. This also made me think about the symbolic connection between footprints and rivers, and the close relationship between rivers and civilization. Thus, the embryonic form of this game gradually took shape in my mind.
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- Song of the Yangtze River 🎶
You come from the snow mountains, spring tide is your grace You rush towards the East Sea, crashing waves are your might You nurture all ethnic groups with your sweet milk You embrace high mountains and seas with your strong arms We praise the Yangtze, you are an endless source We cherish the Yangtze, you have a mother's character
You come from ancient times, giant waves wash away the dust You rush towards the future, your roar echoes beyond the sky You irrigate the land of flowers with your pure flow You push forward a new era with your magnificent power We praise the Yangtze, you are an endless source We cherish the Yangtze, you have a mother's affection
The tradition of comparing rivers to goddesses has existed since ancient times, and the Yellow River has always been called the Mother River. This vague imagery became the inspiration for my character design.
Map Design
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- Original References
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- Design Sketch
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- Map Modeling
Level 1
Level 3
Level 2
Level 4
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- Design Approach
- The distribution of mountains and rivers and the terrain elevation are built according to real maps
- The entire Yellow River basin is divided into four sections, each representing a different era, with corresponding tasks and storylines
- After the player completes all levels, the path they've walked will connect to form the complete Yellow River course
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How to ensure players follow the correct path! (What's this called, path planning?)
Now we know that the main storyline is: the path walked by the player will become the course of the Yellow River. But what if the player goes off track? I don't want to force players to only walk on a single path in a very rigid way, and considering I want to recreate the real geographical distribution of mountains and rivers, I don't plan to simply block off inaccessible areas with rocks to save trouble. Therefore, I've put some thought into subtly guiding players onto the correct path.
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- Trees
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Tree mechanism: Sharp branches will hurt the player's delicate feet. After several tests, it was decided that stepping on a tree would cause -4hp damage (max hp=100).
不掉血
不掉血
hp-12
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Tree distribution: Trees are placed densely in areas where we don't want players to go. If they go the wrong way, they will quickly lose health and die, thus hinting at the correct path.
这俩图不知道用哪个合适
左边的写实，右边的清楚
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There's always more than one path from point A to point B!
When placing trees, I carefully designed gaps to leave multiple choices for players when deciding their next step, allowing them to reach the destination from the starting point without taking damage in countless ways. I hope this design will make the gameplay process more varied and reduce monotony.
哪个图
合适
就放哪个
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- Water
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- Clouds
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- Step Range and Height Limit
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A story of a giant creating the Yellow River