Some of our initial concepts:

1. Town full of what seem like normal people but when photographed are zombies or banshees or some other monstrous entity. Player must find out what is behind all of the people turning.*

2. Point and click, narrative driven, puzzle adventure game set in (some cool run down looking setting), narrative told through items left in the world.

3. Puzzle platformer in a long sequence like Inside, Impending doom with something always slowly chasing you, must find your way in time.

4. Cultists trying to make their following larger, you play as a few cultists and you try to promote your brand through, fliers, memes, rallies, onlyfans, war crimes etc.

5. Survival horror-- element of “a fate death cannot save you from”

   • When the monster gets you -- and it WILL get you -- you respawn shortly after. The idea is to try and get through the level (town? Spooky world?) without getting caught in an infinite loop of death (dying over 3 times within 30 seconds or something).

6. Platformer-- Cool pretty magic lady sends you on quest thru cool spooky world, you have to fight thru cool monsters n stuff only to find that spooky boys are good and pretty magic lady is bad, then she like turns into cool monster.

7. Witch game, combat system based on potions and or spells, but transactional-- you need to have X thing to make potion or spell, so you have to go gather it. Evolves from running away really fast from little monsters to running at big monsters guns blazing. Your girlfriend is a monster??? Kiss a monster??? Comes off at first as trying to “save” her from being a monster to just making it so she’s not in pain but still is a cool monster.

8. Teenager exploring an abandoned asylum on a dare but it turns out there are many secrets.

9. 0G platformer where the player must explore derelict space station to discover what happened and make it to the escape pod or something, threats and platforms with unique mechanics provide difficulty and problem solving opportunities.*

10. *You're the keeper of a lighthouse after the previous keeper disappeared, and there’s a list of rules that you must follow or else you go boom and you don’t want that.*

Why they did or did not make the cut:

1. This first concept was one of the final two we picked to create presentations on for showing to the executive team. We went into this process with the idea of doing something spooky, and this seemed right up the alley. However, after thinking the concept over more, we decided not to go this route because the camera mechanic was a little to intensive for scope, and the idea as a whole was less thought out.

2. This was a lovely idea, though most of the team wasn't particularly drawn to it. The idea was simple, but also seemed like it had been done in some form a few times. We also decided that we wanted a more interesting movement mechanic and gameplay.

3. This fit into some of our game ideas, with an sense of doom following the player at all times. An idea we really liked was to evoke a strong reaction from the player, maybe emotion, and to make the overall experience fun and cool. Again, this idea wasn't particularly thought out my itself, though definitely inspired some aspects of the more fleshed out ideas.

4. This was a very funny and enjoyable idea, though we didn't particularly have a vision as to what the gameplay would exactly look like. The idea is intriguing and entertaining, especially for audiences above 18. It's fun, but a good meme does not a great game make.

5. Similar to the last idea, an impending doom follows the player, but this time it's inescapable dread that no matter what, will get you. It's a cycle you can't escape, and must adjust to, which would be a switch up to a player used to trying to not be caught ever. It was one of our more popular concepts, though others were more feasible/interesting as a whole.

6. A popular plot device is having a plot twist where the player discovers that they've been lied to/have been working for the wrong side the whole time. This is one of the main points of this idea, and isn't a bad idea, especially with pretty magic ladies involved, but was ultimately cut to try and not be repetitive. We also decided along the way that we didn't particularly want to involve a big plot twist.

7. The transaction potion aspect of this game is interesting, and the idea that you have a monster girlfriend is quite nice. The mechanics and ideas behind this game are lovely, however it was eventually ruled that it would be a little out of scope for this program timeline.

8. Idea was not particularly fleshed out, and was more of just a basic concept compared to some of the other more thought-through ideas, so it ended up being cut in comparison.

9. This idea was different than the others, and was thought through after some of the initial process, but the movement mechanics were interesting and ended up being iterated upon and added to the final project idea. We liked some more of the mechanics over the story/setting, so we evolved it!

10. This is the baseline for our current project! We had originally started with this base statement as an idea, and it was one of our first two core ideas. After we decided we weren't entirely satisfied with how the concept was at first presentation, we went back to the drawing board to see how we could change/add to it to make it more suit our preferences and needs. We were successfully able to come up with a more thorough concept that everyone was excited to work on, that includes similar 0g movement from the previous idea, along with a more intense narrative but simpler art style. Excited for the future!