Post Prototyping Idea: Twig

In the four weeks of prototyping, ideas were put on the table almost always to be rounded out. No idea came fully formed, just more round than others, and the team spent the last month working with ideas with varying levels of splinters. Early ideas where ruff and in a week only so much can be done, so while better those ideas still had a few sharp corners. However, with time things got better, the team chose more manageable projects culminating in our best work during the polish week for Twig. Now as many pointed out Twig shared more than its fair share of similarities with other games so something had to be done. That was the first thing that made this our best work, that we all realized it needed work. Time wasn’t spent convicting team members that the idea needed work or defending themselves about the quality of the game. No, we all knew more work had to be done and in a direction, we didn’t intend on going.

When we did move forward it was with the feedback we got in mind, namely how we used wind. We had originally planned to use the wind in the form of a free form gliding mechanic that allowed the player to cross greater distances. However, when we showed this feature off it was meet with middling responses. Many of our collages disliked the idea of a float ability as it made movement less precise and didn’t really add anything. So we took this in mind, along with one of the fixes for this problem and retooled how floating and wind works. In the current build, the player can only ride the wind in certain sections instead of in free fall. This we found lent itself to better controls and game feel but also allowed designers to create more interesting levels. Now that the wind was something you had to work with we put more focus on how wind interacts with the player. How it picks them up, how they travel with them how things like temperature or size of objects effects the wind. Far more interesting and varied ideas then what we were getting when the wind was just a static ability in the player's tool belt.

Now it's apart of the world, apart the player has to dance with, finding the correct timing and patterns to get across rather than just pressing one button after jumping. This opened a ton of new doors creatively as now the team could center their ideas around one central new mechanic and all the things it can do. It really is amassing having just one simple idea like “What can wind do” can do for the team. It gave them a foundation to structure new ideas around, a foundation that they made, that wasn’t forced upon them so ideas came naturally after that. What also helped was that we all had variations’ of what a platformer should play like. I, for instance, come from a Mega Man Zero background where the focus is less on platforming challenge but removing enemies efficiently. This made the project a little unfocused at the start but as we trimmed and refined those differences really helped shape Twig. For instance, while we are moving away from a Mega Man style formula, we are keeping sub-weapons in the forms of other leaves that give Twig new movement abilities.

Finally, I like to end on my own contributions. Now, as the producer, your not always going to have the best ideas. If you did you’d be the designer, but they’re still ideas and even if you’re the only one on board with them, they get the conversation moving. I found that my best contributions to the team in these prototyping sessions were planting idea seeds. The focus for me wasn’t for my idea to be the one we go with, but the one to set the tone. To get the team thinking along one line and if they liked it they keep going and if they didn’t I throw down another seed and see if it takes root. Sometimes new seeds would get thrown out by the team and that is when I knew I was doing my job right. I have always understood that to be a producer you need a light touch. To heavy and the team feels too pressured to do anything of quality, to light and nothing gets done. Yet in that middle ground is where I try and keep myself, where I am the start of ideas but not the end, necessarily. Just the person who has an overall picture of what the product will look like, but the forethought to be able to modify that picture as needed.

All of this together made our final week working on Twigs prototype one of our best. This was the culmination of three weeks of trial and error. Of growing as both creatives and team members. Of finding what makes our ideas unique and worthwhile to play. As well as finding how I fit into everything as a functional member of a creative endeavor.