Because we are a small, dedicated team, with limited resources, we have to be smart about how we go about investing these resources. Taking this in mind, we have decided BAND MATES will be developed in three stages. Each one building on top of the previous one, and focusing on different aspects of the overall target experience.
STAGE 1: THE MUSIC
As the name would suggest, this stage is all about developing the music making tools.
Included Features
- Music Creation
- Local & Online Multiplayer
- Music Sharing
STAGE 2: THE BAND
Stage two adds all the band creation and customization features to the game, their own Jampsaces, music videos for their songs. Making your band your own. Thai goes beyond just creating music, it’s about creating an identity behind the music.
Features
- Band Customization (Character & Instrument Props)
- Jamspace Customization
- Music Video Creation Tools
STAGE 3: THE STORY
Stage 3 adds the “Story Mode” or campaign to the game. We understand many players would benefit from a guided experience. So we wanna be able to provide that for them, after al it falls in line with one of our design pillars, making the game accessible.
We’re leaving it for the last stage, cause designing a story mode is like designing a whole game in itself. A story mode includes a guided tutorial, challenges and objectives to reinforce the learned features, a narrative to pull the experience together and provide motivation and identity, and an overall objective to let the player know what they’re trying to achieve: be in a band a be successful.
Scott Pilgrim VS The World is a huge inspiration for BAND MATES (more on this in an upcoming blog post). So we will probably draw inspiration from its “winning the battle of the band and a record label deal” narrative. I say probably because you know where these decisions will go once you actually start the development process, that’s a big part of the fun, and what makes the design good, being able to change features as you iterate on them.
Features
- Story Mode / Narrative Campaign
- Challenges & Objectives