This entry contains the information I relayed during my interim project pitch at Kingston University. It will feature the slides of my presentation as well as a short paragraph for every slide that further explains it if needed.
The story of the game ties in heavily with the gameplay and the journey which players engage with over the course of the game. While the inciting incident is a disaster that blows the entire town of Waning Heights, Idaho into the sky, the journey downward is defined by the player and what kinds of story crumbs they find on the way. This can even mean missing parts of the more detailed story all together by not finding certain townspeople that could be rescued.
The aesthetics of the game were heavily covered in the last blog post, so this slide should speak for itself. The pictures on the right side are taken from games with a similar art style to the envisioned one for Flight of the Icarus, excluding one that depicts a farmhouse in Idaho.
While the readers of this blog should be familiar with Ike and their parents by now, Otis is a new addition to the cast. He is a friend of Ike’s who can be found early on in the game. From that point on, players can either engage in local coop or play the game in singleplayer mode by switching back and forth between the two depending on the situation. Otis has a few skills that are invaluable for completing the game and is thus required to tag along through the adventure in either mode.
To better explain some of the mechanics shown here: The game is split into two recurring sections, namely flying and exploring sky islands. In the flying sections, players can steer the kite, collect purple goo that will keep them afloat and simultaneously lead them to the next island, evade debris as to not fall out of the sky and eventually either land or miss the next island entirely if having flown absolutely terribly. In case the player has rescued townspeople, they hang on a rope underneath Ike and thus make it harder to safely maneuver. If too much debris is hit, there is a possibility that one of the rescued citizens may fall off the rope, which means losing them forever.
On the islands, the gameplay consists mostly of platforming puzzles and exploration of the environment, which will eventually lead to finding a powerup (discussed in entry 2), which will allow players to progress to further parts of the island. The growing collection of powerups the player has access to as well as the unique abilities of Ike and Otis lead to a growing set of possible decisions as the game progresses.
Talking about progression and choices, in most stages of the game, players will have access to two different islands at every stage of the playthrough, of which only one can be picked and played-through. However, once the game is finished, players can start an NG+ run, in which they have all previously collected items, enabling them to experience the previously unvisited levels with a feeling of competence. In between reaching the surface of the earth and starting an NG+ run, the story will prompt players to make a journey back up and replay the previously visited areas, just that these have rotated or are even still rotating as their gravity becomes increasingly out of whack, which provides new challenges in familiar environments and increases the difficulty on the run up to the game’s finale.
While most of these have been covered previously, I want to further explain the story hints that can be acquired with gifts from the townspeople: Once players reach the earth’s surface, the townspeople that have been effectively rescued will gift the player something that will unlock a room or similar area in their respective level. For example, a postman might give Ike a key to a secret mail room, in which players can find a letter from the FBI to Ike’s parents that demands them to halt their research efforts into antigravity technology immediately under threat of imprisonment.
It is deeply important that players feel that a game is fair to them. This is why balancing is a serious topic, even in PVE-centered games. These are examples of how this fairness and player support will be implemented within Flight of the Icarus.
Due to the game’s structure of levels, it is relatively simple to give players more of the same and add new levels to the game behind a paywall. Regarding multiplatform marketing through comics or a cartoon, it must be noted that the overall style of the game is already cartoon-like, which is why story expansions like these could be a valid way of adding to the revenue stream and raising awareness of the game at the same time.
The final goal of Flight of the Icarus is manifold. While rescuing townspeople and bringing the islands back to the surface are goals, they are also the way to the final goal of confronting Ike’s mother who is responsible for the whole setting in the first place and can be found in an antigravity-propelled rocket at the very top of the game’s world. This level tests all the skills the player has accumulated over the course of their journey and eventually asks them to chose between forgiveness and revenge.
Optimally, the game should be played through twice, once in NG mode and once in NG+ mode, to play all the levels and find all the story beads that are hidden away at first.