BIRSA FLYING WrishiGames Saptarshi Bhattacharya

Target Audience: 6 years and above Gamer Type: Casual Gamer, Core Gamer Target Platforms: PC and Mobile Genre: 2D Platformer Number of Players: 1 Projected Release Date: February 2016

HIGH CONCEPT STATEMENT

This is the story of a tribal boy, Birsa, looking for his little brother in the jungles of Bengal, India, after their king is overthrown, their village is burnt and the villagers taken as slaves by Aryan tribes. The player plays as Birsa, who follows trails of the Aryan tribes through the deep forests, solving puzzles and fighting wild animals to get across a dangerous path.

Birsa can run, jump, climb and throw projectiles. He uses all these skills to continue on his path against all odds. Danger lurks in every corner of this forest. The steep hills, deep river waters infested with crocodiles, big mosquitoes and tigers. Birsa has to fight win against all of these potential causes of death, to find his brother.

As the player controls Birsa helping him cross the forest, he will experience fear, loneliness, sometimes serenity and finally happiness, along with Birsa. This artefacts in this game is inspired from illustrations and music of the Santhals* and other tribes of north east India. This game is going to be the first game which will use the tribal arts and music from India to form the basic artefacts of the game. There are very few (perhaps none) games that are set in the stage of dense mangrove forests of Eastern India and its history.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santhal_people

FEATURE SET

- Story based on ancient India

- Tribal Art and Music

- Simple gameplay

- Simple and clean actions for the characters

TEAM ROLES

The team will comprise a designer and developer.

The designer’s job will be to create artefacts for the games like characters, backgrounds, actions as well as level designs and puzzles. His job would also be to create storyboards for the game.

The developer’s job will be to put life in the stories and characters and set the game in motion. He will also be responsible for testing the game.

Since this is a one man project, in all probabilities I will end up playing the role of both.

THE COMPETETION

Although there are thousands of story driven 2D platformer games, one game in particular should be mentioned in the context of this game. Limbo. A game about a small boy who wakes up in a forest and runs on a path find his sister.

Birsa Flying has a similar story. But the art forms, expressions and game play are going to be completely different from that of Limbo. The music and scenery of the game will produce an entirely different ambience and feeling.

INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY

The art of this game is inspired from tribal illustrations of north eastern India. The modern 2D platformers are mostly inspired from European art forms. The characters, stories and scenarios essentially thrives from a western understanding of life. With this new form of illustration and music it will give the player a different kind of feeling. A feeling indigenous to a different unknown land.

The tribal art forms here expresses elaborate occasions like festival, war and natural calamities in a flat space with very simplistic forms. Perspective is ignored and prominent colors are used in these paintings. For this game this art form will be thoroughly studied and we will discover ways to move this forms which makes it interesting for the player.

We will be creating the scenes from of the dense mangrove forests on shores of Bay of Bengal for the first time using this art form. We will also create small puzzles for the player to solve to proceed in the game.

SCOPE MANAGEMENT

In order to complete the project in time with little resources that we have, whole story is going to be 3 chapters long. The tribal art form is very simplistic. The actions of the characters are going to be simplistic. Variety in the action and interactions of the characters has to be sacrificed to complete the project in time.

Green Lights:

- Simplistic tribal art

- Simple actions

Yellow Lights:

- Designing elaborate sceneries in time.

Red Lights:

- Gathering music for the game

- Less experience in developing 2D platformer games

Timeline:

- Storyline and storyboards: 3rd November, 2015

- Artefacts for Chapter 1: 15^th November, 2015

- Development for Chapter 1: 22nd December, 2015

- Artefacts for Chapter 2: 22^nd December, 2015

- Development of Chapter 2 : 31^st December, 2015

- Artefacts for Chapter 3: 31^st December, 2015

- Development for Chapter 3: 15^th January, 2016

- Testing: 25^th January