With Gravetide my goals were to improve my skills in both the Unreal Engine and visual scripting as well as demonstrate my design skills by implementing the Kishotenketsu design philosophy. When building Gravetide I really wanted to put an emphasis on having a reason behind all the choices I made, even down to the placement of enemies and hazards.

Kishotenketsu is a 4 part narrative structure often used in literature, it consists of Introduction, Development, Twist and Conclusion. I went about using this in the game design process by having mechanics introduced to the player one at a time throughout the levels following that structure of introducing the player to the new mechanic in a safe environment. Then I would develop that mechanic by having the player need to actively engage with that mechanic to progress. Then onto twist in which the mechanic is used in a different way to show they can be used or interacted with in multiple ways. Lastly is conclusion in which I would have the player engage with the mechanic in a challenging scenario to test their understanding and handling of the mechanic before moving on to the next one. Each mechanic introduced would be present in the ones introduced after outside of the introduction section of the mechanic.

An example of this in action would be the moving platform i have within the game. The introduction to them is in a way that the player can interact with the mechanic whilst not needing it to progress. Then into development where the player must now actually use the new mechanic in order to progress. The twist for this mechanic was to have the player jump from moving platform to moving platform rather than just riding from point A to B. Conclusion has the player using the platforms to navigate whilst avoiding obstacles that the platforms would move the players into if they didn’t act to avoid them.

I let my passion for retro-inspired games shine through in the design choices I made choosing visuals and audio that evoke a sense of nostalgia.