Origins of The Future Project
Where did it all come from?
Infinite Level game discussed: The Future Project
Ah, yes. The million-dollar question that nearly everyone asks. “Where do you get your ideas?” I thought I would try to answer that question in regards to The Future Project in advance. Though, in actuality, the exact inspiration will always be different from one game to the next. In the case of this game, much of the inspiration was quite literally “I want to make a metroidvania.” For those unaware, a metroidvania is a type of game that focuses on exploration and progression via the acquisition of new abilities. They often share characteristics of platformer and even open world games, so while they’re not truly open world like you might find in a game like Grand Theft Auto, they’re also not as linear and straightforward like Crash Bandicoot. In a nutshell, metroidvanias fall somewhere in between linear and open world games in terms of level design. Finally, the sub-genre gets its name by combining the Metroid and Castlevania games, being the two games that essentially pioneered this sub-genre (specifically Symphony of the Night, in Castlevania’s case).
The main idea, then, is to open up the world more whenever a player acquires a new ability. You can see this happening in The Future Project’s gameplay video from the start, where the player is confronted with a cactus-looking tentacle that swats the player too quickly to simply walk around. They have to find a Strafe ability a few rooms away to get past this obstacle. Once they do that, they have much more world to explore. Later on, they’ll acquire Missiles which will let them defeat enemies more easily and give them access to completely new worlds, not to mention any hidden goodies that they can find. And these are just two examples that could be found within the first few minutes of the game. Imagine all the other items they can find as they explore…but I better not get too carried away. Got to save some surprises for later.
Image credit: True Achievements
So, back to the original question. I said my primary motivation for making The Future Project was simply a desire to make my own metroidvania. But there’s been a few other elements at play. For starters, the metroidvania is an excellent format for doing environmental storytelling in. Play any metroidvania, and you’ll find that most of them do a good job of communicating their stories via the world around the player. Whether that be NPCs giving cryptic dialogue, or mere visuals that tell a thousand words, metroidvanias encourage the player to explore the world for both new abilities as well as interesting stories. The Future Project’s story is in an interesting position, as its worlds are just simulations and not real places. So instead, the story about what’s going on in the “real world” is given to the player via the comment blocks found throughout the game. Though, the in-game dev team behind The Future Project almost certainly has a few creatives, so they may drop little nuggets about the various game worlds as they go along. For their own amusement, of course.
Whenever I start a new game, I make it a point to select a few games that I think have executed on the things I’m trying well, and learning from them. And the first influence is probably pretty obvious…Metroid Prime. Since revealing this game, I’ve had a few people jokingly comment that this is basically my version of a Metroid Prime game. While the goal is never to copy, there’s no denying that Metroid Prime has been the biggest influence on The Future Project. I specifically took note of how it approached its world design and how it incorporated the player’s abilities to expand that world in interesting ways. It also has been a helpful reference for whenever I’m struggling to come up with an interesting enemy for a new world, but those moments have been far rarer. There’s been other minor things that made their way into The Future Project too, such as making the game’s UI appear on the AI’s visor or the fact that the player’s weapons fire projectiles, and not bullets like I so easily could have done.
Image Credit: ShackNews
Another source of inspiration (and this one will be less obvious) were the Bioshock games. In Bioshock, the player can acquire new weapons and abilities that enhance their combat ability. These aren’t usually being used to open a new area, but it gives the player a new option for eliminating foes. New weapons have an effective range and overall purpose (Ex: shotgun is for up close brawls, machine gun suitable for multiple enemies), and the new abilities called Plasmids (or Vigors in the case of Bioshock Infinite) can allow the player to place any number of debuffs onto the enemy. Bioshock is obviously not a metroidvania in the traditional sense, but I believe some of the same philosophy is present in the gameplay regardless. As the player progresses, they can better utilize the environment around them to dispatch enemies in interesting and creative ways, and their reward for doing so is the feeling of being a clever player. The feeling of discovery is still present, but it’s handled in a different way.
After settling on the idea of making a metroidvania, I had the idea to mix the gameplay of both Bioshock and Metroid Prime. In writing, it sounds a little out there since the two gameplay styles are pretty different. But I have found that, in practice, these two types of games play off each other very nicely. Get a new ability, and not only can you now explore more of the game world with that ability, but it can also be used to take care of enemies more easily and creatively. Players will certainly start off simple in the early part of the game, with just a basic movement set and weapon given to the player at first. But over time, they’ll acquire more abilities that will let them do cool things in the game, whether that be leaping across large chasms or completely annihilating enemies that used to give them trouble. And that’s just the stuff that I can come up with. I’ll be curious to see how players use some of these fancy abilities to perform things that I wouldn’t have even thought of.
The alpha gameplay video shows off the more “Metroid Prime-ish” aspects of the game. In the future I aim to show off the “Bioshock-ish” side of The Future Project as well, thus giving you a more complete picture of what my game has to offer. But, I’ve got to first do some tweaks, modifications, and outright additions to those mechanics. In particular, I'm needing to finalize the model and animations for those new abilities. Also, when I show this off, I would like to also show off a different area of the game at the same time. After all, what's the fun of showing you the same section of game time after time? Variety is the spice of life and, in this case, game development. Besides that, working in a new area of the game will simply be a nice change of pace.
Until next time!
-Lance T.