Dance Among the Stars (2024)
Game Designer
THEME
Space, ocean, rhythm
PITCH
In a world where sea and stars match and where rhythm and music are ubiquitous, Aster can’t keep the rhythm anymore. Guide this tiny anglerfish through this environment to find a way to enlighten their bulb and let them shine again!
CONTEXT
For our third year of Game Design among the ESMA, we had to prepare a game concept for the beginning of the year. This concept was then presented in front of a jury that had to choose five concepts out of all the students.
PRODUCTION
To conceptualize Dance Among the Star, I started from two of my favourite game genres: rhythm games and turn-based games. The universe around came quickly in my mind while the story came naturally during the conception.
Game Design
As said before, Dance Among the Stars is a mix between rhythm games and turn-based fights. These fights still are based on the rhythm! This way, the game has two main loops: exploration and fights.
Exploration
The exploration takes place on a grid with a top-down view. Beside the map’s limits, the players can go wherever they want and whenever they want. If they are moving in rhythm, they will gain a buff if they start a fight.
Fights
Fights are turn-based with a front view. If the players touch an enemy during the exploration, a fight will start. With the exploration buff, the players gain the initiative and start the fight.
During fights, they have a few attacks in their deck that bring small gameplay variations. The players can choose their own deck among the attacks they unlocked.
Narrative Design
In Dance Among the Stars, the players must guide Aster -a small anglerfish- to find a way to make their light shine again. They progress in a world where music and rhythm are ubiquitous, so each of their moves that aren’t in rhythm will be suspect! The other creatures will try to stop Aster, thinking they are an intruder!
CONCLUSION
Working on Dance Among the Stars was a really fun experience, if not one of the funnier I had to experiment. First, because the themes were directly appealing to me since I could create anything I wanted -as long as the concept was good. Then, it was really interesting because I was the one putting limits on the concept. I had to think about all the production needed for this and what was theoretically possible or not.