Imagining Egypt

Although it has been a while since my last post I have done a significant amount more research into the culture and some of the layouts of ancient Egyptian tomb architecture. I have looked at books to do with this and one book that I am reading at the moment is Imagining Egypt by Mark Millmore which gives a very simple yet insightful look at some of the myths that the Egyptians had about their Gods and also a lot about their culture. It also goes into some detail regarding clothing and many other aspects of their everyday lifestyle. All of this information will be necessary if i want to make a successful recreation within my game world.

An Overview

The game I want to make this year will be a survival horror as I have always been a huge fan of games like Silent Hill and Alone in the Dark. As well as having the enjoyment to create something that I am really interested in, it will provide interesting challenges such sa creating atmosphere and evoking emotions within the player.
Here is a basic overview of my game idea, this is not the final idea and it might change a bit over the upcoming weeks but this is what I have so far. The story will be based around archeology and the discovery of tomb relics as well as the explorations of the tombs themselves. The story will begin with the main character Edward exploring an amazing new Ancient Egyptian tomb with his team of archeologists, however all is not as it seems and on the tomb lies a terrible curse. After finding the main burial chamber Edward realizes that his team has completely disappeared (not thought up how this can happen as yet, but there will be a reason) and he is alone in the depths of the complex. The aim of the game will then be to get Edward out of the tomb and the surround burial complex. At first look this seems a relatively simple game with a predictable story however, the curse will manifest itself in different ways throughout the game, environments may change to help or hinder the player’s progress.
One of the main points about this game will be that a lot of the focus will be on the environments and not on the character, although there will be a certain amount of character development, it will be more driven towards using the environment to your advantage.
The game will have a very strong sense of psychological horror; there will not be lots of gore lying around like in Clive Barker’s: Jericho as personally, I think this was ineffective at causing fear within the player, however there maybe some occasional places where you find a fellow archeologist killed. The game will most likely be targeted at player age 15 and above, and I hope it will appeal to both genders due to the horror aspect of the game play over the gore factor (I need to do some more research into this perhaps in the form of a survey.)

So far ...

In the weeks prior to setting up this blog I have been getting together all the ideas for my games story and setting as well as some idea of the mechanics and how it will play. I have written out my ideas on the all areas of my game in a mini game bible. This contains all the aspects of the game that I want to consider in a small amount of detail just so I can get a basic overview of what I am trying to accomplish.

In the beginning....

Hi, my name is Geoff, I am currently a student at Norwich University College of the Arts (NUCA) studying Games Art and Design, I am in my BA year and this blog will serve as the dairy in which I record all the steps that I make during my progress throughout the year. During the first term I will be doing research in to my subject area which is Ancient Egypt. This will mostly consist of visiting museums and gathering secondary resources as due to the instability of the country at this time visits to thier monumental accomplishments will be risky. Please feel free to post anything you think may be of use or helpful to me throughout the course of the year, this is my first blog and im still getting used to it but hopefully that wont take to long.