Spirit of the God Kings

Game Links

itch.io: https://theotgames.itch.io/spirit-of-the-god-kings-final-cut 

Gamejolt: https://gamejolt.com/games/spirit-of-the-god-kings-final-cut/912825 

Expanded Concept & Design USP's

The walking simulator genre is a great way to tell stories, but the genre is often criticised for its slow pace. I wanted to take what makes the genre special (crafting an embedded narrative accessible to a wide variety of players) and fuse those with puzzle mechanics that invoke traits of classic tabletop games for a fun but modest challenge. Wrapping all that in the context of the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt isn't something you see in many video games. 

Overarching Design Problem (from testing)

Due to my lack of technical knowledge on AI programming, I needed to tackle the issue of creating a game with traditional tabletop-like mechanics and the incorporation of a grid in which the user doesn't have a traditional second AI player to win or lose against.

How That Problem Was Tackled And Overcome

I looked into the structure and mechanics of single-player tabletop games and digital games that incorporated grids or grid-like structures such as Threes! and Minesweeper. The common theme was having the grid itself being the second player, helping me craft a gameplay mechanic around the notion of 'the grid as the enemy.'