A lot has changed since the last post. We are well under way into development now and there's been a lot of marketing changes.
Diving right in, the name of the game is no longer Vacuum Vault. After several meetings with the team, the leads decided the name wasn't marketing enough, so one of my biggest tasks over the last two weeks was to help come up with new names for the game. Not just for the title, but for our main character, and the name of the vacuum gun itself. In the end, we decided on Eira: Echoes of Egil for the title of the game. I realize this kind of sounds like gibberish, but for a little context; Eira is a derivative of the Nordic goddess Eir. The goddess of protection help and mercy. We wanted our character to remain fairly androgynous and we thought Eira fit that bill pretty well. Egil actually also comes from Nordic mythology. Egil was a Nordic viking that upheld honor and family, making it the perfect name for Eira's grandfather in game. And since most of the game the player will be searching for their grandfather, Eira Echoes of Egil was born.
We've also been preparing for our greenlight presentation, which is a presentation to show our shareholder to see if they actually think our idea has ground and enough proof of concept to back it up. This has meant nonstop planning and rapid iteration on our part. Which is something I've been used to, but the first time I've done it as the "lead" audio designer. Making an Audio Bible and audio pipeline for the other team members to utilize is a novel task to me, but one that I was excited to try. I also had to make a sound asset list for all future sounds in the game, and work with the other designers to help formulate a sound direction for our game. So far its all come together though and our greenlight presentation is this week.
Working on these docs had me reflecting on my job as a designer. Because I'm more or less the only audio designer on the whole team, now more than ever I realize how important it is to communicate my design with everyone else as clearly and concisely as possible. Which really is the essence of what designers do. Either they are communicating their game ideas through mechanics and theme to the players, or they are communicating principles and concepts across different disciplines to make sure the team is all on the same page. Communication is something I feel fairly good at, but I'm hoping that this project exposes me to even more experience doing so.