Welcome to Project Cobalt! This project is a continuous experiment where I will try to build out my "dream game" by breaking down each mechanic into it's base implementation while keeping extensibility in mind. By deliberately choosing to not follow a strict timetable, I can be free to learn and expand on this game in a way where end quality takes a precedence over production speed. That way I can employ these skills in a more timely manner going forward. 

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So what is my dream game?

Out of all my years playing games, two genres have always stood out as my absolute favorites; Bethesda-style RPGs and FPS games. After being in college and learning to analyze game design more effectively; I have come down to this list as my absolute favorites:

Half-Life 2: Dated? Sure. But to this day nothing beats the level of polish and atmosphere like this experience. The tight and extremely well paced flow of events is what holds me more than the gunplay most of the time. The aspect that I want to emulate however, is the game's aesthetic design. Visual work like the texturing and lighting, along with the various soundscapes of Half-Life 2 always invoke something in me that I can only ever describe as malaise; and that dreary trademark Valve feeling is the atmosphere I want to invoke.

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Dark Souls / Elden Ring: FromSoftware is my favorite studio. All of their products offer a feeling of scale, attachment, and pride that I cannot find replicated in other action games. In the case of Elden Ring this is due to its size narrative ownership. For Dark Souls I'd argue that its level design is what makes it hold up. For Cobalt; there are three areas I want to replicate: the tight but interconnecting world architecture, the adaptable and iterative leveling system, and the empowering boss fight set pieces. 

I think it's important to note that a fantastic example of what boss fights can look like in an FPS, is the game Ultrakill.

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Yakuza 0/Kiwami: How can we make open worlds more engaging? How much space should be aesthetic or filled with content? Expansive maps with 100s of quest lines, indicators, and points of interest are always the goal, right? After a decade or so of watching AAA games push the open world into bigger sizes, more quests, and more NPCs something was lost along the way. Sometimes an immense but fairly quiet world works ie: Breath of the Wild. That being said if your goal is to keep engagement high then why not fill a compact space with as much content that one player could ever need? That's the philosophy of the Yakuza games. In Cobalt; I want to take the world design of Yakuza 0 to keep physical scale low, with engagement high by making efficient use of space. Yakuza Kiwami was the first game to implement an added layer: you could just walk into enterable buildings seamlessly. 

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This is my current analysis/outline of what I am attempting to achieve. This section will change as the project continues. For consistent updates feel free to follow me on Twitter, and LinkedIn!