Sprint 1
Creating the Idea
When we first started working as a team, we immediately went to work on finding our strengths and weaknesses through our SWOT Analysis Chart (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, & Threat). We quickly learned our team of seven has a diverse range of individuals including programmers, writers, musicians, and artists. We quickly learned our main threats were with creating a 2D game and a heavy multiplayer based game so we crossed those off as potential game ideas and instead diverted our focus to a singleplayer narrative driven game based on our strengths. As we began to come up with ideas for our game we found everyone having vastly different ideas but all under the same genre of horror. With the genre determined, we began to come up with ideas for a game that didn't blend in with other recent horror games. There was an objection to the idea of a weapons system as it waters down the horror elements if you can fight the enemy. The idea of a horror game set at a boarding school came into existence as we wanted the location to be something you don't traditionally see in horror games. As we continue to expand upon the idea, we wanted music to play a crucial role, not just for atmosphere but as a gameplay mechanic. Soon, B.A.D. Institute was born with the name immediately setting the tone of what to expect.
SWOT Analysis Chart
Programming
For our first sprint, we wanted there to be a playable demo of B.A.D. Institute. This required us to create core mechanics within Unity to allow time for playtesting. Enemy AI, hiding, movement, and interaction were the focal points of our first sprint as it was the foundation of our game.
Narrative
For our first sprint, we needed to establish what exactly our game is about and create a finalized story. We knew we wanted a horror game set in a boarding school, but what's the story? Skinwalkers became one of our earliest ideas and helped solidify the antagonists of our game through the idea of tackling Navajo mythology which hadn't been popularized in video games yet. With the antagonist and location determined, our story begin to mold as we wanted our protagonist to be a foreign exchange student, a unique way for the player and protagonist to feel out of place. With characters determined, we created our basic story of a student waking up in their dorm only to realize the campus is overrun with Skinwalkers. With our basic story out of the way, we began to delve deeper into creating a story with twists and suspense. We soon shifted our focus into creating a start and finish for each level and then use collectible papers to expand upon the lore.
Level Design
For the first sprint, the level design team was focused on creating the entire campus of Brightwater Art & Design with each of its buildings. Interiors and exteriors were designed with a linear yet challenging approach, allowing players to tackle different situations in regards to escaping. The level design team sketched out top-down views of every location before building the maps.
Audio Design
Our audio design team spent the first sprint creating the soundtrack for the game. With the horror genre and story already determined, it allowed this team to take a creative and independent approach to creating B.A.D. Institute's ominous soundtrack. Eight songs were created for the game using SoundTrap and Logic that expands upon the horror of the story to create tension through music. Beyond the soundtrack, the audio design team also began working on creating all sounds used for the game with the main focus being on a constant heartbeat.
Art
The art department was split up into different areas: environment design, character creation, and concept art. For the first sprint, we focused on creating concept art for our game and designing the variety of characters that the player can come across. Our concept artist spent time in designing how the world will feel and basic appearances of the enemies while the character creator fleshed out the designs further. The environmental design team worked to make levels feel more crowded and claustrophobic.
Early Skinwalker concept art
Level 2 (Library) concept art