Little Snoville Demo

For my unity project, I wanted to try and design a detailed little village. The end goal was to develop a tiny scene where players would be placed on one end of a deep valley and follow a path over a river and through the woods into the village at the end of the path. The original idea also included more sounds (aside from birds chirping) and a waterfall. Due to time constraints, however, these had to be cut. What worked was how detailed I was able to make the little village, placing candles, pots, pans and even a little dinner set up with a fork and spoon. If I had more time I would have also put in more trees and customized the terrain around the village to be a little more forest like. What didn’t work though was the bridge. I put the bridge in fairly happy with myself but didn’t find out until my final testing that the player model would disappear through the bridge and drop into the river. As a result, I kept the bridge for the sake that it looked nice, but avoided walking on it for the demo. I would like to know why some objects had physics and others (like the bridge) did not.

Thought Exercise:

I have a couple ideas of how I’d like to tell a story with what I’m nicknaming “little snoville”. The first would be something to show what living in a little village might be like throughout the year, creating several scenes showing the difference a year might make. For instance make another map with the town covered in snow and darker lighting, followed by another map where the village is brightly colored and if you go outside it, flowers are blooming and there’s even a wheat field planted, and maybe a few other things here and there.

The second story idea, is more inspired by games like Zelda, using this little village like a tutorial hub. You would have a series of mundane tasks to complete (retrieving things, gathering things etc.) Whereby it was leading to some sort of final task before you are asked to go on your way out of the village for some sort of journey.

Finally, the last idea is a little less peaceful than the last two, having you participate in a Viking raid on Snoville (ironic because Sno is Norse for Snow). In this case, I might also build a church (historically they were targets by Viking raiders) and have the player be timed in what they saw as being important in the raid, whether to fight or loot. I was even entertaining the idea of mixing this 3^rd idea with the 1^st, having you see your village get overtaken by snow, getting low on food, and forcing you to go out and raid another settlement for survival. The ultimate idea would be to add the idea of the kind desperation Viking raiders might have been motivated by.