Brainstorming and research

The Unidos HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH Jam 2024 just started last Friday. I’ve spent the past weekend brainstorming and researching ideas for the submission. Here are some ideas I’ve considered but I will not be pursuing:

• A collectible card game based around alebrijes
• A cooking game around a taco truck ran by a retired lucha libre legend
• A flying game around the quetzal and colibri birds

Instead I want my game to be around the Aztec myths of creation and feature Quetzalcóatl. I recently visited the Teotihuacan monumental site and was impressed by the feathered serpent pyramid and all its decorations. I have several reference images from that trip and I’ve spent the weekend researching the creation myths of the different mesoamerican people. For the gameplay, I will take inspiration from “snake” games but I want to introduce some twists with obstacles and adversaries. I also want to explore other ideas around control, speed and asymetric strategy like in the mesoamerican games like Komikan, Patolli or Bul. I’m working on a draft GDD that I will publish in a followup post. For the art and aesthetics I have not been able to team up with any artists yet. I’ve been looking at sources for inspiration and assets to use and I’m currently very interested in either reusing parts or take heavy inspiration from the aesthetics of the codex Laud. I believe this will also add some interesting and education elements to the project.