Heart Echoes is a Role Playing Game where you will build meaningful relationships with the townsfolk using the construction of bridges as a metaphor.
This project was design and developed as a proposal for the College of Arts, Media and Design of Northeastern University as a one of the winner for the Art+Design Project Grant. This videogame is still in development phase!
Synopsis:
You’ve just arrived in a new place. Unfamiliar, maybe even a little strange. But it’s also a chance to build meaningful connections with the people around you. The culture is different, and at first, it might feel like you’re on the outside. Still, every person in the town has a story to share. You’ll get to know them through a thoughtful puzzle minigame: a conversation where you build a bridge between you and them.
The puzzle’s progression in the conversation is by turns. One turn the player, one turn them. In each turn, the player will initiate the conversation by talking or engaging in certain behavior. Then, they will see if they liked what you did and react accordingly. If they liked it they will build the bridge with you, if they don’t, they will try to destrot it. After that, they will keep giving some new prompt for the player to continue the conversation.
Between the player and them there is a tilemap with empty tiles. The player needs to fill this gap in effort with thm to connect and build a relationship. There would be Talk, which builds 1 tile, or Actions, which will show 3 possible ways to engage in a conversation, which will have different effects in your tile map and how the character will react in the conversation.
Genre: Puzzle Role Playing Game (RPG)
Software: Unity
Project Type: Solo Project
Development Time: 8 Week
My Role: Game Designer, Programmer, Writer
Gameplay:
The way the tiles behave is that the bridge will grow meanwhile there are adjacent tiles to build or the player can build upon tiles to reinforce the bridge.
My Responsabilities:
- Design and iterate the concept of what it means to build a relantionship and how does that aligns with bridges (endogenous fantasy).
- Design and develop the arquitecture of the turns system, actions, reactions and sequence through the game.
- Write the story and character development through the conversations.
Creative Process:
This was the path I took in my creative process. I started with a paper prototype, exploring the core puzzle mechanics of building bridges and experimenting with how the turn-based system would work. Each bridge’s shape and size is unique, reflecting the character you’re connecting wit, —each one telling their own story through the structure you build together.
This is how I envisioned the UI: I first sketched it on paper to explore the look and feel, then recreated it digitally to bring the design to life.
