Throughout the long process our team had for choosing a game, we finally game up with a concept that we all greed upon.

Within any group, it can be difficult to make decisions, especially when members on a team can be stubborn when it comes to letting go of ideas they came up with. For our team, we decided on a game in which one of our designers came up with through a pun: “Rouge-lite”, the rogue-like game.

Rouge-lite is a turn-based dungeon crawler in which the player character controls 4 golems that kill monsters in order to use their parts to create makeup for a wizards tournament. Makeup in this world is significant because it is the main source of power within the world. Our core gameplay concepts consist of methodical gameplay, constant progression, and makeup being integral to characters within the game. For a game such as this, it was important to do research in order to understand how to create this game. Our teams research consisted of what ingredients went into certain makeup products, different styles of makeup, makeup throughout history (application and ingredients), and makeup within different cultures.

Research for this game was very important because we wanted the content to make sense with the gameplay, as well as understand different cultures makeup application in order to not appropriate any cultures. “Rouge-lite” is game this is meant to be light-hearted. This is why we didn’t want to create a lot of different ideas and elaborate content within our game. In today’s world, makeup is incredibly important within the fashion industry, and is something that thrives within the lives of those who want to grow their popularity. Makeup in today’s world in compared, judged, and exploited. This is also why we wanted our game to be more light-hearted. In the real world, makeup is serious, but for the purposes of our game, makeup is silly, and show players that makeup doesn’t always have to be serious.

The main way we chose to show how makeup was a light-hearted subject matter within our game was by having there be an application process for the golems to wear the makeup products in order to give them higher magical powers. We have 4 golems with human-like proportions that are textured to fit within dungeon aesthetic, that also wear silly makeup. Other ways we chose to represented light-heartedness within our game was by having the mechanics be on the similar side, but still having there be an in-depth gameplay loop. Our aesthetic for the game also helps the users understand this game is more light-hearted because it will have a painterly-like art texture style with simple low-poly art assets.

All of these topics were talked over thoroughly within our team meetings. It was important for us to have a well thought out idea that would help the users experience a fun, light-hearted game, while still being within a turn-based dungeon crawler game.