Negociant
Negotiation prototype | 2 months
2021
Intentions :
Dynamic negotiation
Pitch :
As a traveling merchant many adventurers come to your stall everyday in search of unique weapons and ancient relics. You covet unique items too and the best way to get them is trading with adventurers !
Personal project
Designer
Prototyper
UI
Unity - InDesign - Illustrator
Context
During my 3rd year in Game Design at Rubika, I had the opportunity to work on any project from scratch that I’d like. The goal was to improve my skills and knowledge on topics and specialization that I’m aiming for. I had 2 month to choose and make a complete concept document and then 1 month to make a proof to show that the concept could work.
Design
I wanted to make a new kind of game. The idea of being a traveling merchant behind his stall and trading with passing adventurers really interested me. Based on this fantasy, I developed three intentions :
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A game based on bartering. Trading without any currency involved, only object to object exchanges.
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Having unique objects which have their own lore and properties
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Making a dynamic and deep negotiation system at the core of the game
I made several iterations to find a good base system for the negotiation.
The goal was to have the feeling of being a merchant with items to exchange while also having potential to develop mechanics based on this feeling. In the end, I decided to simulate this feeling by having the player’s items placed on the stall at the bottom of the screen while the adventurers would come at the top.
Then I greatly took inspiration from trading in the real world and chose essential parts of this activity to develop the core mechanics.
I wanted the player to learn the adventurer’s tastes and needs by discussing with them and observing their behavior. In the prototype, the player needs to actively observe the adventurer’s gaze represented by a cursor hovering items placed on the stall to learn what category of object he is interested in.
Additionally, the player can ask the adventurer about his items and learn some of his needs.
Then, an essential part of negotiation is to bargain. I interpreted it with arguments the player should make to persuade the adventurer that the object is very valuable. He must take into account the information he gathered on the adventurer to choose the argument accordingly.
The player can ask the value of the items that the adventurer possesses and if the player makes him reach a certain interest level compared to this value, then he can conclude the exchange.
Lastly, to emphasize the feeling of being a merchant, I wanted to have multiple adventurers coming at the player’s stall at the same time. This aspect add a time management challenge where the player needs to take care of several people at the same time and sometimes decide which adventurer to let go.
Prototyping
With the little time I had to make a prototype (1 month) I was able to make the core gameplay but not make a full gameplay loop.
I made the prototype on Unity since I’m very efficient on this engine.
During the prototyping phase, I had to work a lot on the UI. Since the mechanics are unusual, I didn’t want the interface interaction to interfere with the main focus of the game : the negotiation.
Conclusion
After finishing the prototype, I got different feedback from several students and they were positive. The core gameplay works and it challenges the player like I intended. However, the time pressure that the game creates is too important and would need more iteration to be more enjoyable.
In the future, I would like to continue this project in my free time and design the entire gameplay loop.