Zori | Alan ROBLEDILLO

Zori: Presentation

Pitch:
Embody a 15-year-old teenager beginning their adventure in a world populated by creatures named Zori with whom they must bond to face the trials that will lead them to the top of the Braves Tournament.
Theme: Cartoon
Genre: Adventure / RPG
Camera: Third Person
Platform: PC, Switch
Engine: Unity
Project Type: Personal Project
Team: 2 Game Designers & 2 Programmers

Demo video coming soon

Context

Initially imagined by Tristan TOMASSONE and Alban HYVERT to conceptualize a new version of Pokémon, it is after they integrated me into the team that we finally decided to start from 0 to create our own game and license.

In pre-production since January 2021, it is in April 2021 that we have fully launched into the production by recruiting Charles GINANE as a programmer while we are looking for one or two game artists to complete our team.

This page is subject to change as the project progresses. The current version is that of 04/18/2021.

What I've done:

As a Narrative Designer

Narrative Design

Once our One Page Concept was established, I started to write the background of our game universe. I wrote it to make it as credible as possible, especially concerning the appearance of humans in a world populated by creatures such as the Zori.

I also wanted the bond between humans and Zori to be at the center of our universe as well as our gameplay and built the cosmogony of our game around this central theme. Finally, I didn't go into full detail about our cosmogony, especially about the exact creation of Alia and the legendaries, to give us the freedom to create other legendaries in future sequels to our game.

The Universe Background and the One Page Concept now validated, we quickly started to set up a Bible of the different names and elements specific to our game which I make sure to allocate to each word a description coherent with the gameplay and the narrative of our game.

Based on the Universe I had written and the idea I had of the story I wanted to tell, I took Tristan's original idea of Italy as inspiration to build a draft map of our game that evolved as I wrote the Walkthrough. So, based on the beginning of the map, I was inspired by the cities we had chosen and their history to build our Walkthrough and our Characters in parallel. This image is our current validated map that I used for my final Walkthrough.

Having now a defined Universe, a story idea, and a map on which to rely, I could then start writing the Character Sheets. Through these sheets, I wanted to make it easy to understand the way of being and thinking of each character by writing their main character traits, the clothes I imagined for them, but also their past, even if it would not be explained in the Walkthrough, but rather in the environmental narrative.

I also worked on the character sheets of the parents of our protagonist who, being quite young, still keeps an important link with them, bringing a bit of realism to this story where our young hero is confronted to an adult world.

I also spent a lot of time on the sheets of the Coliseum Champions that I wanted to make mattering and engaging as their role was important for their respective cities. Finally, as for the map, I was inspired by the cities we had chosen for our Champions to build them a story inspired by facts and legends of Italy.

These Character Sheets are still ongoing as Tristan is fulfilling their Teams as he works on the ZoriPedia.

Once all these elements were in place, I started to work on the walkthrough of our game. In this one, I tried to be as complete as possible about the actions of our protagonist, their allies, and their enemies, while allowing me to talk about the different paths the player could choose to take.

Just like the previous documents, the walkthrough went through several iterations following the feedback from the team, allowing me to elaborate a story that is rhythmic and coherent with its universe, its characters, and its gameplay intentions.

In this story, I used 3 triads to tell the story from 3 points of view both opposite and complementary, whether for:

The protagonists:

Marco the energetic young boy who finds a passion for History
Lucia the reserved young girl who gains confidence through combat
The protagonist representing the teenager with a thirst for adventure and discovery that we all once were

The antagonists:

The mischievous Cicero and his thirst for anarchy to bring fun into his life
Julius the wealthy businessman who thought he was acting for a higher cause
Adriano the father who gave up his family and his life for a noble cause

The legendaries:

Ordaligg representing Absolute Order alienating its subjects
Diskaeros representing Total Chaos and creating discord among its people
Libraleum representing Perfect Balance and brought humans to this world to bond them to the Zori and counterbalances the primordial chaos that these powerful creatures represented.

Given my role as Narrative Designer, I also took care of writing the descriptions of the Zori of the ZoriPedia, of the Techniques as well as of the Locations and Places in the Data Tables that we update regularly as we progress.

Concerning the ZoriPedia, my role is to write descriptions and behavior coherent with the universe, the size, and the weight of the Zori previously designed by Tristan and me, based on animals, insects, or mythological creatures related to Italy.

Below, you will find the current versions of these Data Tables.

What I've done:

as a Game Designer

Game Design

As Game Designer, I first worked with Tristan to redesign the initial project by quickly setting up with him a One Page Concept briefly detailing what would be our game, but also what would be its Key Features.

The Synergy mechanic being at the heart of our gameplay and the story of our game, Tristan and I first set out to conceptualize this mechanic. Through Synergy, we wanted to bring the actions of the human protagonist back to the center of the gameplay instead of only focusing on their Zori by making a real impact on the way they take care of their Zori, rewarding them with the Syner-Strike and the Synervolution.

After that, Tristan and I took care of conceptualizing the Exploration of our game by the protagonist. So we wished to put forward the Zori, present in 3D in the environment and with different behaviors according to the species to give more life to our game, but also an additional challenge as for the approach to adopt to bond with a Zori.

To this end, Tristan added a Weather system where each location could vary between different weather consistent with its environment and would also have effects in combat.

Also, to add realism to the relationship between humans and Zori, I added the Mounts mechanic to allow the playable character to discover new areas of the map, but also to be able to move faster on their Zori.

Finally, we also conceptualized a mini-map with a UI that allows the player to know where they are in their Zori "collection" in each area.

Tristan and I then divided the tasks thus, while I focused on the Narrative Design, he took care of the mechanics related to the combat that Alban and Charles are currently developing in Unity.

Once the main Narrative Design was done, I then made a first draft of our Bond mechanic. I decided to make this mechanic interactive and dependent on the player's knowledge about Zori as well as their actions in battle.

So, to add interactivity, I thought of a gyroscopic system with the Zori that would move according to the behavior of its species, but also its stats and items that the player could use, such as Meals.

This mechanic is only a draft for the moment and will change as the game develops.