BRIGHT! project : Game design II

For Game design Semester II, we are assigned into a group of 4 in order to create a game with this brief in our mind, "As part of your Studio II you are to create: An Interactive Digital Game (a Hero's Journey with a Modern Twist and/or moral dilemma) to promote healthy relationships in young people."

In my group, cue in Isaac, team producer and leader. Pae, team artist. Iason, team software specialist and Michaela, team writer. Our main plot of the game was created by Isaac and Michaela which came up with the idea of having a young girl facing with problems and seeking the help from other and moreover to find the most suitable answer to solve the problem.

Since this topic is very sensitive, we approached it carefully and done some researches from the reliable site about the issue.

Bright was born out of the initial concept of either a day or a week in the life of a young child. Each time of day or each day of week, our protagonist was to face a dilemma while trying to make it through to the end of the week. We needed the overarching schema of a hero’s journey – initially we were having the protagonist get home from a day of living. But currently, we still don’t have the main drive behind our character. We still need a strong, final objective. We will get there.

Anyway, let us talk about our protagonist: Clara.

She is a young girl, possibly twelve. She is kind and radiates a brightness and sense of hope – which is what propels her through the game. We played with the idea of different ‘superpowers’, eg, Clara being able to literally produce light as a metaphor for the lightness that she is capable of. Even the name Clara relates to lightness:

“In Latin the meaning of the name Clara is: From the feminine form of the Latin adjective 'clarus' meaning bright or clear. Also distinguished. Famous bearer: Twelfth century St Clare (or Clara) of Assisi founded the Poor Clares order of nuns.”

Here is our first brainstorm of the level in the game.

We continued to hold on to the idea of lightness - and created Bright.