About Last Summer
- Charlotte Niquet
- 12 sept. 2021
- 3 min de lecture
During our 3rd year, our second big project was to create and develop a mobile game.
Our game was About Last Summer, the story of a little boy who recently lost his grandma and goes to the family house with his parents to sort things out. There, he'll discover the story of his family and his ancestors.
We worked as a team of 8 (4 Game Designers and 4 Game Artists) for around 5 months.
Synopsis:
May 1968, France. Noah, a French young boy just lost his grandmother, Alice. His parents and he travels to the Family House in the Alpes.
There, while his parents go through the house, he decides to explore the old house. Up in the attic, he discovers ancient objects that once belonged to his ancestor Pierre, a sailor who traveled all across the globe.
Among the dusty maps and chests, he finds a strange little pyramid. And to his greatest surprise, the ghost of his great great great grandfather appears to him.
At first a bit shocked, Noah finally learns of his sailor ancestor, resolving little puzzles someone set up in the attic.
And thus, through the house and various mysteries, Noah will meet several ancestors and discover the secret which involved his ancestors and late grandmother.
Visual Representations:
The Project and my role:
Team:
Game Design: Johanna Bradel, Luc Derain, Quentin Milana, Charlotte Niquet
Game Art: Léonard Bouilhol, Lucas Ernst, Arthur Nicolas, Tanguy Talbert
The main concept was thought by Johanna Bradel, whom I joined to work on the project. We then created a group of 8 students, we brainstormed together, about our inspirations, our intentions, and where we wanted the game to go.
We used Notion as a Game Design Document.
And here is the final Bible.
We all had our own roles, we, as Game Designer, worked on the gameplay and mechanics, and we created many of the game's systems. Johanna and I also worked on the level design and designed the enigmas of the game.
My other role was to work on the story. I created and developed the characters as well as their backstory, and wrote most of the dialogues. It was a very instructing and enriching experience. Since our characters are all sorts of explorers, I had to read and research a lot on various explorations histories (like Alpinism, Archeology (mostly in the Mediterranea and in Egypt), Sailing expeditions (like the Antarctic/Arctic Explorations).
I loved writing and creating the characters and trying to make each of them speak with their very own persona.
Here is the excel we used for dialogues; and here are the characters' stories
We had a very emotional subject to work on, talking about a grandmother's death, as well as meeting with various ancestors who all had their own life and maybe tragedies. And in that regard, I think the most interesting thing to write was the final letter of the Grandmother, which the player can find at the end of the game. It's rather lengthy, but I deemed it was important, to convey the right emotions as well as a sense of realism.
I hope you'll enjoy following Noah in his adventures and the discovery of his family.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me! 🌸
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