Joana Costa Cunha e Almeida

Senior Technical Artist

At the start of the week I took a chance and tried to build my first proper combat arena. It’s a first draft, trying to figure out what even works.

Playing Final Fantasy Tactics, it’s notable that these arenas are structured through chokepoints where units can block other units, leading to difficulty getting where you need to, as wells as bunching up units conveniently to be blasted away by magic in one go. Another common, though not a constant feature, is a difficult to traverse center, which can often be used as vantage points, but more often than not forces units to walk around it, encouraging play across the whole map.
FFT also has very asymmetrical maps, which makes them look more naturalistic and leads to interesting encounters, however they are by nature unequal, which works best in a singleplayer experience (though that hasn’t bothered the PSP release of FFT, which implemented a multiplayer versus and co-op mode).

Scramble Quest does not play like Final Fantasy Tactics though, so I’ll have to adapt the learnings and see what even fits for my purposes. So far height has no influence, so a vantage point would do nothing. blocking a passage doesn’t quite work, since characters don’t occupy a whole tile of space. Meanwhile SQ is going to have players chasing each other a lot, meaning it may be good to have a lot of places to hide behind and run around. Lots to consider and try out.

Something major I noticed though, was the consequences of not letting the players control the camera. It’s not too much of an issue for knowing where your characters are, since they feature outlines that are shown no matter what. However I found that there’s elements of the map that can be hidden behind other ones. Tall trees obscure viable paths. High plateaus hide ramps to get onto them. So, I’m thinking, tall objects need to be further in the back, where they can’t obscure anything, while smaller details should be more in the front. The arenas themselves should likely be structured so that lower heights are in the front, and higher locations are in the back. It can also represent an opportunity though, to give advantage to a player that is more willing to explore the map, or risk using a path they can’t properly see.

On the MGZsheroes side of things, we had our mentor matchmaking! There were few game-focused mentors there, but it was still fascinating to talk with all of them. They were all there driven to support us on our way to founding our companies and brought their own perspectives, from finance, managerial, production, marketing, etc.. Everyone had advice, insight, or tried to think of contacts that could help us. Afterwards we submit our preferred mentor picks, and we’ll see who we’ll end up with. I’m really excited for this. I’d had a mentor in the past, but at the end I realized that I came to it without any particular needs, just hopes for the future and no path to get there. It was nothing a mentor could help with, though I’m still thankful for her time and her insight. For this mentorship though, I’m actively working towards building something, and am gathering all the help I can towards my goal. Even while I’m still learning how to ask people for help, I think this time at the very least I know what to ask for.
As building a studio becomes more serious, I have also started looking for co-founders. In particular I’d love to have an experienced Artist and Programmer to back me up. I want to be able to entrust those aspects without second thought to others to be less spread out. Though I also desire the fresh insight and input of other people. I’m excited for what surprising things other people can bring into this idea of mine.
For that purpose I also looked into local financing options. I just don’t want to risk or be a drain on anyone’s finances at all. This work has to be sustainable.

The Film- und Medienstiftung NRW also organized a summerfest! I’ll admit, I’m not a party person, the noise was a lot for me to handle, but it was interesting to be in an environment with so many people from various media branches. Specially film/tv if I understood it right. But the highlight was having a chance to hang out with my fellow Sheroes, and getting to know them better. We usually only meet for seminars, so we don’t really get to talk much beyond the topic of why we’re in the same room together. They’re an impressive bunch, and I can feel a bit out of place, but you know, impostor syndrome and all that. So yeah, it was a lovely evening with nice people.
Oh, and there was wonderful ice cream with a variety of toppings you could put on yourself. Marvelous. I miss it.

I swerved hard and away from level design for the rest of the week. Something I care immensely about in games is story. And this story is supposed to depict people who grew up in a world that is trying to recover from and prevent the violence that has plagued the past, not unlike our own real-world experience.

I’m not under the illusion that what I’m going to say through my story is in any way ground breaking. I’m not a grand thinker or writer. But I’d be remiss to not do my due diligence in researching the circumstances from which what I will say are derived. I’m a child of the European Union through and through. Born around the time the Berlin Wall fell, the east and the west reunited. Grew up and lived in several countries in Europe that were living through immense optimism. A growing union, neighbouring wars and its refugees, a single currency, free movement. Defining features of my youth growing up largely outside my home country.
Of course the history behind what I lived wasn’t unknown to me, but as said before: due diligence.

What struck me the most, was that I was looking at a generation looking for a solution against nationalism. Many looking for disparate yet similar solutions. But also the same aging generation, so focused on unity and peace, was the one that stewarded the world into war or at least grew up among nationalism. Now they disregarded the needs of the youth, even while they focused on community. Baby boomers rebelling, not inheriting, but taking the world. An interesting comparison to the current times, when again we’re rebelling against an aging power structure that disregards the youth. Though this time those in power have forgotten why the world has its current shape and why it needs to be upheld, how desperately their predecessors fought against nationalism and for unity. It’s disheartening to know that ideals of cooperation are so fragile and can erode with the passage of time, as those who experienced the worst case disappear from the face of the earth.

The other thing that jumped out at me is that the European Union could not become a union without the support of those outside it. Of course the US was instrumental in building Europe not only back up, but sharing with it structures that support many states working together. The goal always being that we’re stronger together, no matter on which scale. We’ll be there for each other when the other suffers. Community.

Phew, so political, and yet it’s just the forces that shaped me.