Hi! Welcome to Earl the Tomb Robber Devlog number two!
Today, let’s talk about what this game is and what my goals are as a game designer and writer.
Most of my life I’ve been an adventure game designer. In the 90s I fell in love with Lucas Arts graphic adventure games. Before too long I was making my own adventure games in FLASH and that led to a career at Telltale games where I continued to develop and explore what narrative driven games could be.
At the same time, some of my favorite games to actually play were 3rd person single player action-adventure games! Tomb Raider, Uncharted, the latest God of War games, and smaller games like Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Stray and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice are some of my favorites that I never get tired of playing.. And because I’m “THAT” kind of gamer, I generally play in Story Mode! Not sorry.
I’ve always wanted to make a game like that but most of my professional experience was with adventure games with deep roots in their Point and Click origins. Instead of allowing that to be a hindrance, instead I hope to use that knowledge of interactive storytelling as a strength and make the kind of game that I really want to play. A game that takes the exploration and adventure elements of the action games combines it with the challenge of puzzles and narrative choices that traditional adventure games offer.
Narratively, the themes of this game are more personal, dealing with what it’s like to feel like a broken person. What kinds of things do we do to cope with isolation and loneliness? How do we go about discovering who we are as a person? This is my personal journey as well as Earl’s (and maybe by extension… the player’s?”). It’s a journey that I’m currently on, so I don’t know what the answers are yet, or where this will ultimately lead. Making this game is sorta like drafting a map as I go.
In future devlogs I play to go deeper into detail on the actual building of the game. I have a few ideas for upcoming topics, so let me know what you’d like to see next!
- Origin of Earl
- Combat Systems
- Upgrades
- Costumes
- Building my first level From Prototype
- Writing vs programming mindset
- Jung & Neche philosophies?