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| Animation frames for John, daddy of the Bergson family. Image from Gamasutra (article by Amir Fassihi of Dead Mage) |
My bedtime reading on designing a narrative-driven roguelite.
I reviewed Children of Morta last week for LadiesGamers. Had difficulty with the final verdict: Should the rating be “I like it” or “I like it a lot”? If crudely placed on a 5-point scale, those ratings would be 3 and 4, respectively.
Ultimately I said “I like it,” based on comparison with other games I’ve reviewed for LG. Because of the art and excellent implementation of narrative development in this roguelite, I would have liked it “a lot.” But however admirable the design, CoM's fun factor—incredibly subjective—didn’t earn “a lot” in my books.
I went to bed with a slight unease over this verdict. That same evening I had read articles by the developer, Dead Mage, about the challenges of designing CoM. I stumbled across these articles while trying to find out who the wonderful artists of CoM were.
This bedtime reading didn’t change how I felt about the combat not being particularly fun. But my reading confirmed positive things I said in my review, about why this roguelite is special.
So, almost as compensation for my lacklustre verdict, here are links to my bedtime reading. If you enjoyed Children of Morta, or are generally interested in indie game development, check out the full articles—particularly the Gamasutra posts.
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| Procedural generation of "rooms". Image from Gamasutra (article by Hamid Saeedy of Dead Mage) |
Gamasutra – “The design challenges of Children of Morta”
Here, game and narrative designer Hamid R. Saeedy shares what the team did right and wrong during CoM’s development. This, and other articles, helped me appreciate the difficulty of designing procedurally generated maps and coordinating that with narrative development.
Other points of interest for me:
- “Family”, a unique selling point for CoM, proved an
effective draw on Kickstarter. Though it was a key pillar of the game’s design,
this was not the initial concept. Rather, the initial concept was a band of
strangers meeting at an inn, retelling past adventures! Quite a change.
- Saeedy explains how they created a sense of family—through cutscenes, thought bubbles, micro-events in the dungeons (where an extra Bergson would show up briefly to assist in combat), and skill-tree unlocks that benefit the whole family.
- Addressing the unexpected amount of time spent on the 7
playable characters, Saeedy says, “In fact, we took on loads of expenses for
each of the playable characters, both from a narrative perspective and their
fighting styles. Half of which we could’ve spent to introduce more variety in
enemies, bosses, challenges and also in-game events." Indeed, a pity we couldn't have seen more types of enemies.
- Much streamlining and trimming had to be done. For example, one of the scrapped ideas was a cooking system. Players were supposed to gather herbs in dungeons to complete Grandma’s recipes and have Mary cook them, granting buffs. In the end, this was simplified into two menus: Uncle Ben’s Workshop and the Book of Rea.
Gamasutra – “Making family matter”
Team lead Amir Fassihi talks about family and the pixel art, two of CoM’s biggest draws.
Think pixel art is easier to work with than 3D? Well, it takes a lot of work to animate 2D character movements too. The high-resolution art was a great deal of work for only two artists. In addition, quite a bit of time was spent just on loading art assets onto the Unity engine.
Gamasutra – “Post-mortem: Children of Morta”
Team lead Amir Fassihi shares his list of what went right and what could have gone better in development.
Among the things that went right were developing in-house tools to serve their needs and having a publisher’s feedback and marketing/community assistance.
Among things that went wrong were late re-dos of the UI
and story, having not paid enough attention to them earlier. With the UI,
testers were having difficulty making sense of what the game was communicating. Thankfully, that was fixed and the UI is now great!
TechRaptor – “How Dead Mage created art for Children ofMorta”
Austin Suther interviews Amir Fassihi and artists Soheil Zarghami and Arvin Garousi. Besides the art, they address what was involved in procedural generation of dungeons.
Indie Obscura – “Children of Morta: A pixelated masterpiece”
Morgan Shaver interviews team members Javid Najibzadeh, Reza Hooshangi, and Arvin Garousi. Apart from the art and procedural generation, this article delves into the composition of CoM’s development team and challenges for a small team.
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What was meant to be finished in 6 months took 5 years. But the hard work put into Children of Morta shows.