I tackled the 2nd part of the concept pitch/document. This included the high concept, premise and story synopsis, USPs, gameplay features and content, target platforms, target audience/customer, competitive analysis, risks, development team and proof of concept, most of the boring stuff.
Some of these are pretty simple to answer and some require paragraphs. Like I know the target platform will be for PC. I’m a PC gamer, and yes I have a controller for certain games, but at my heart PC is master race. Same with development team. It’s just me. I’ll drop both the formatted and unformatted document below so you can see my process. I posted the previous version that hard part 1 to the concept document done in a previous blog if you’re interested.
I have no idea what to do for proof of concept, I don’t necessarily need this. I won’t be creating a full on prototype but I’ll adjust the game as needed as I make it.
The last few days I didn’t work so much on Heaven’s Gate. I’ve been doing a ton of research on everything I’m also going to be doing outside of game development. Last month I signed up for SkillShare because looking for an actual job takes time and is exhausting, and I can work on other things in the meantime. The classes that I’ve bookmarked for myself includes:
Starting a blog
Writing
Growing a business
Branding
Using social media to the best ability possible
Designing logos (yes, I’m still struggling with a logo design I love)
Making money as an artist
Creating a business plan
Time Management
Productivity and procrastination
I know that this blog post is short, but it’s short and sweet! I’m being productive with this project and it’s good. There’s really no need for me to go into detail about these topics individually though. Because the beginning is all about setting up for success, I may as well go far and dive into topics that I have limited knowledge about or know nothing about at all. I’ll have some work done for the concept document by the next blog though, so keep your eyes peeled!
This weekend I took a break, I just didn’t want to do anything. I was waking up extremely late, at noon or later, and not getting a lot done with my day. However, today (Tuesday) I got up at 9:30am. Definitely a two coffee day.
So the plan for today. I need to actually create some logo designs on paper and potentially pick one out to choose for my company. I have some ideas in mind already. I also need to practice some programming, apply to actual jobs, and watch some SkillShare courses on creating a blog and get some advice about what I should be doing.
Alright, now that I’ve drank my coffee and am awake more or less fully, time to get started. I really am not feeling art today, I doodled a few logo designs and was not impressed at all with what I came up with. So I’m going to move onto a pitch and concept document. These are for the concept pitch when talking to investors, etc. For me, it will layout all the things I want to add to my game.
I wrote out the pitch which answers 4 questions:
What is the game?
Who is your audience?
Why buy it?
What is the purpose?
What I wrote down goes into more detail of each, and I’ll share what I have so far.
It’s not finely formatted, that will be done later when the whole concept document and GDD is created.
Please note that if you do download and read ANY of my content, including blogs, documents, images, art, etc. do not use it without my permission first. Plagiarism is huge, especially in the world of living online. You may reference what I have, and if you do so please link the exact page where you got it from.
I’ve decided to create a blog post every Tuesday and Friday.
Time spent: Logo Designs: 1 hour Concept Document: 3 hours Blog: 1 hours
Today and yesterday I started planning out the development process for Heaven’s Gate. I’ve also started working on a Twitter account and a discord server for anyone interested in it. Maybe it’ll be huge, who knows?
If you’re interested in following the Twitter or joining the Discord server, please click the buttons below! I’ve worked very hard on the Discord server and I’ll be posting any and all updates in both locations.
Now that I have somewhere to write and document everything, it’s time to come up with a development plan. I referenced several documents and PowerPoints available to me that I saved from school, specifically a class called Project Management. Essentially, the plan. I need to start off with a strong foundation to make this project a success. Briefly going through and skimming the whole course, I wrote down from start to finish the things that I would need to complete. I find it easier to write things down by hand and reference them than some Word document.
Supposed to say Agile/Scrum
Before the GDD (Game Design Document) I need to research free software to use for concept art and creating pixel art. With these different parts of game development written down and in the order I want to do them in, I now need to work on them one at a time from top to bottom. Today I’ll work on the company and branding because I know I already have an idea in mind for what I want to go with.
Company
My game will be published under this company name, so for me it’s important that I put some time and effort into it to make it a company that represents me. I’ll need a name, slogan, logo, mission, values and a vision. Creating a company isn’t necessary for a game, but if I create more games in the future other than this one, I can use the same company and people who followed and were interested in Heaven’s Gate, can see that I’m making another game. I can keep the followers. I want people to look at Heaven’s Gate and my company and go “this is a solo developer focused on learning and sticking to it” and I want people to understand and acknowledge it as such. I’m hoping that with this as well, it’ll create some loyalty from people that are genuinely interested in it.
The name for my company will be easy for me. My online ID is Coldcake, so I already know I’m going to be naming it Coldcake Studios or something along those lines.
For the logo, I want it to be focused on a cat or a cake, or a mix of both. I need to come up with a few designs for a logo that I think represents my company and it’s values. I want the logo to be memorable and have a professional and clean design.
Insert logo photos here
I have no idea what I want for the slogan. Whenever I imagine a slogan, I think of really old 90’s commercials on a box TV with a cursive script. Not exactly what I want. It’s a game development company, so something along the lines of playing games. Maybe changing the whole scene on it’s head (ambitious but I would like a really cool slogan). Here’s the slogans I came up with in order so you can see my thought process:
Play the game.
Changing the playing field.
Changing the playing game.
Changing the playing scene.
Changing the scene.
Making games and killing enemies.
Changing the scene, playing the game and killing it.
Changing the scene and killing it.
In the end I decided to go with “Changing the scene and killing it.” because it’s a clean and elegant slogan, and shows that we’ll be creating new games with new ideas and concepts. Not only is it a strong slogan, but it also creates a huge expectation for the company, which is what I want. I want to be able to challenge myself and create work not only consistently, but with quality. I might change this in the future, but for now it’s good.
Choosing values for my company I can choose easily. Because this company will essentially be just me, I can choose what is important to me as I create this game and what I need to keep in mind when things get a little tough. I’ve chosen to pick three core values: perseverance, education and positivity.
The mission statement can build off of the company values. “Coldcake Studios was built based off of a passion for building games and creating self-learning opportunities. We want to create emotional, compelling and exciting stories, worlds and gameplay for everyone to enjoy. “
The vision statement is where a company wishes to be in the future, so I’m not sure this really applies to me. The mission statement already defines my company and the values that it holds, so for a company that will just be a company for one or two games only made by me alone, I think having the mission statement only is good enough and a vision statement isn’t required.
Time spent: Development Process: 1 hour Company Identity: 3 hours WordPress Website: 2 hours Blog: 2 hours Discord Server: 2 hours
All started off with an idea I had about a year ago now, when I was still in my 3rd year of school. I passed the idea by a couple teachers before getting started on it. So, here we go.
Heaven’s Gate is about getting to heaven, but first needs to pass a test – by killing the Gatekeeper that guards the gate to heaven. The player will wake up in an unknown place and has no idea how they got there. No memory at all. Greeted by the Gatekeeper, who explains who the player is and how they died. Player is now in the Void, the space between Heaven, Hell and the Living. In order to get to Heaven, the player needs to prove they’re worthy. You can do this by gaining gear and abilities by progressing through the main storyline, completing side quests, killing monsters, running dungeons, roaming the world and buying items from NPC shops. You can upgrade skills and abilities by spending points you earn through levelling up. The Gatekeeper is the final boss, meant to be extremely difficult, even with mediocre gear.
I’m imagining a super dark game, open world concept, made of pixelart. I want an open world concept so the player can go wherever they would like to, when they would like to. Of course certain areas will obviously be harder if the player doesn’t get new gear, so I’ll be able to lead the player through certain areas.
I want the Void to be like a “spirit realm”, like LoZ Twilight Princess. I want it to be similar, or identical to the real world, that way the player will be able to explore buildings in cities and towns along with the typical settings such as forests and caves. All the NPCs in the game will be spirits, who are the people in the Void who have attempted to defeat the Gatekeeper but gave up and have attempted to live in the Void, as they did in the regular world.
List of Things to Work On
Now that I’ve hashed out my idea for the game, it’s time to list things that I need to work out and write them out in more detail.
Heaven's Gate 