This is the first post on my Developer Diary of my Bachelor Thesis, a game currently under the working title of “One Armed Samurai”. The topic of my bachelor Thesis is “Experiments in perspective, perception and the feeling of reality”. The genre is horror, focusing more on an feeling of uneasines rather than jumpscares.

The goal is to create a demo or proof of concept showcasing the mechanics, ideas and in asmall degree the planned storyline. The Game focuses on a non linear driven narrative which intertwines reality, dreams, personal and someone else’s memories. Playing around with the idea that our understanding of truth is driven by perspective.

The Narrative itself will be puzzling and confusing, but clearly setting marks and hints on how to decipher the different plots that take place.

Motivation 🔗

Our understanding of what is real relies on our perception and once we have accepted something as real, it is in our nature to cling to it and defy rational reason. I have experienced this first hand growing up in a sect. How do you confront someone that is committed to a subjective reality that doesn’t match the real world? I believe that video games, especially role playing games, are inherently well suited for such a task, to delicately guide someone to a mentality that allows looking at things from a different perspective.

Character Design 🔗

The Main Character, Yusuke, only has one arm, but due to auto rigging limitations of Mixamo I have created him woth two. The second one has a separate material slot which will make it invisble in the game.

Usually I would not consider this a priority at this stage of development, but in context of the Bachelor Thesis, it is important to deliver a sense of style to deliver an idea on how things might be in long term.

Inventory 🔗

A key element of game design is to create problems which the player can solve withing the bounds of the rules. A core problem the player is confronted with is the limitation of only having one arm. This means the player will not be able to do certain actions at the same time. For exmaple is the first inventory slot reserved for large Items or actively using an item by equipping it.

Perspective 🔗

The game is first and foremost played in a top down third person perspective, but for several things will switch into first person, with point and click like elements. These switches allow for interesting story segments, as the player no longer knows for certain which character he is controlling. This switch can also be sued as a transition into dream and memory segments.