Moriko

Duration: 3 months, Sept-Dec 2019
Role: Project Lead and Information Architect
Tools: Miro, Trello, Microsoft Teams, Onedrive, Microsoft Excel (Online), Unity

Moriko is a third person adventure game concept inspired by the 1997 animated film, Princess Mononoke. The game features a sequel story revolving around the descendant of the protagonist from the original film and references current climate change issues.

Project Management

My role as the project lead included:

Creating and managing the project roadmap
Setting up and managing spaces for file sharing
Hosting and setting agendas for weekly sprint planning meetings
Setting weekly objectives for the team
Documenting tasks using Trello
Following up with individual members of the team between weekly meetings

Information Architecture

Story writing & storyboarding

As a narrative game, the story was at the heart of the project which provided direction for the game. Due to the limited time for the project, the main concept of the story was structured and explored, but the focus was only placed on the first levels.

The original story had a strong message on deforestation with the use of spirits and gods. The sequel story Moriko extends this concept to a world with four gods of nature- fire, water, wind and earth. Each god represents one of four levels in which the player is required to perform a set of tasks to “save” the gods from various scenarios in order to advance and complete the game.

Storyboards were used to plan, visualise and communicate the story and gameplay which provided an efficient way to communicate the story with the rest of the team.

World Map

The original film was extensively analysed to create a close depiction of the world map for the game. A rough sketch was first produced, with reference images and descriptions added to each area.

A more detailed version was then created that included positions of the huts in the village, a sketch of the Earth god, positioning of waters, trees and some small obstacles. The map was used to design the terrains and the UI designer also used them to create a stylised version of the map to use in-game.

The world map guided the design of the terrain, including the layout of the buildings in Emishi village, visuals of surrounding areas, the distance between areas and the positioning of landscapes.

Characters list

A detailed description was created for each character included in the game, more extensively for the primary character and central party. This provided some background information and visuals ideas for the animators and programmer when creating the models and animations- including a backstory, appearance and behaviour descriptions. The characters reflected the new storyline and was designed based on references from the original film and current climate change issues. Details including their clothing, time period (i.e. lack of plastic presence) and behaviour was carefully considered.

Taxonomies

Stages Diagram

A stages diagram was produced that showed the progression requirements for the earth level, including actions required to advance in the game. It also details the changes in interactions with characters and surroundings depending on the stage they are in.

User flow Diagram

The user flow diagram sets out all the possible routes the user can experience, including instances where they may defer from the main task. This helps prevent unexpected behaviour that could cause errors during gameplay.

This format was the most effective method to communicate the story and gameplay with our programmer.

Areas and items chart

A list of core characters, items and interactions were listed per area in the Areas and items chart. This provided a clear goal on the artefacts we aim to produce for the demo.

Terrain Design

Using reference images, scenes from the original film and the world map, the terrain of the game was created using Unity. To ensure the style and sizing of the environment is consistent throughout the game, the programmer provided a set of curated assets that are reused in other areas of the game.

Video demo

A short demo of the gameplay from the first level.

Reflection

The project was a success in providing a visually appealing demo of our concept. The information architect work provided was sufficient for the requirements of the project in the given time frame.

There are several areas that were still lacking for a well-rounded proposal for the continuation of this project:

Complete structure on how the Earth level will fit in with the rest of the game
Complete storyboard for the Earth level
User flow that can guide where the end of the Earth level would then lead to
A plan on how other areas of the world would fit in with the current map
Plans on cut-scenes and animation style suggestions
Some initial ideas on creating side quests for a more comprehensive universe

These would guide the next steps in the project.