Parliament

You play an owl. Consume prey and fend of predators in a third-person rogue-like based on the real-life ecosystem of an owl.

The Owl Idea

It originally started as a joke made from someone on the team accidently typing “hooting” in our design doc. I laughed at initially, then had the “wait a minute” moment. Proposing that we build our rogue-like game around an idea was a foreign, but very novel concept. During my research, I discovered so many parallels to the owl’s ecology that lined up with our design goals. It simply made sense and enabled us to present a unique perspective of the genre.

Prey would serve as our stat boosts and resource for stamina and health. Predators would serve to grant abilities and present the real danger of an owl to the player. Of course, we took some liberties (the bear boss comes to mind), but kept it grounded enough that everything felt believable. Using real world research on owls kept the project grounded in reality and enabled our creativity to present a compelling product.

Building Environments

One of the many hats I wore in this project involved level design. I thought it would be interesting to make the levels based on everyday locations like a campsite, or a remote forest. This helped emphasize the real-world implications of our game design, providing familiar feeling elements to the loop. Doing this also helped me explore the human element and our impact on nature, showcasing a logging site and adding a car in a level that will immediately kill the player.