Production (beginning to alpha)

Now that we had the macro design in our hands, we focused on translating game loops into actual mechanics.

This step represented an interesting challenge and it was then that we realized that something more was needed to give solidity, meaning, and personality to the action of the players. This is how the totems were born: stable elements that transformed the progress of the players into concretizations of power, threatening the adversaries.

At this point, we were finally ready to start prototyping. At first, we proceeded to develop a “paper” version of the game (I put the word “paper” in quotes because back then we were working remotely due to Covid, so we used a board game simulator for PC).
Meanwhile, the programmers had begun to implement an early version of the map with territories that could be conquered by the cultists.

From this moment until the end of the alpha phase, we continued to iterate on defining mechanics and combining them into dynamics, providing clear documents and following the programmers step by step.

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Production (alpha to beta)

We have concluded the alpha and started the beta production phase with all the features included in the prototype.

Only one aspect had not yet been implemented: the abilities of the deities. We waited for the beta to insert the skills, as we wanted to test as much as possible the game elements we had put together to be sure to ask the other departments something precise and as definitive as possible: we knew that the abilities, being very different from each other, they would have required a lot of time and specific effort, they were features that required elements that we could not reuse elsewhere.

In the beta phase, we worked mainly on UX (feedback and readability).
In this respect, we had to face a big problem: we had decided to populate the map with 3D models of themed buildings, but that made the game really unclear.
I quickly realized that a bold solution was needed to solve this problem: I proposed to take the models off the map altogether. Armed with all possible soft skills, I communicated the matter to the artists, who proved to be sympathetic. This move turned out to be a success: now the game was much more understandable.
We managed to deliver a completely visually changed beta version: no more models on the map, no more camera movement, and an almost final UI. The result surprised both the clients and the teachers.