Project Overwiew

HEIST is a turn-based top-down strategy game and this is how we came to it:

Choosing preferred (Sub)Genre.

During the beginning of the study year, all the students were tasked to pick our favored genres from a list. This was done to bring together like-minded and similarly interested students together to work on the same game together.

The following block (quarter), the teams were created based off the genre selection above and everyone in the team was ready to work on the same thing: A Turn-Based Strategy game.

Additional constraints.

Additionally to the genre being locked down, we had to pick from several Theme & Moods, Visual & Viewpoints, Features and Settings.

1980S
Aliens
Alternate History <– Chosen Theme
Cats
Cyberpunk
Detective
Dystopian
Fantasy
Funny
Magic
Medieval
Military
Mythology
Nature
Robots
Space
Surreal
Tactical

2.5D
Clay
Comic Book
First-Person
Isometric <– Chosen viewpoint
Minimalist
Pixel Graphics
Realistic
Stylized <– Chosen visual
Voxel
VR

Class-Based
Crafting
Deckbuilding
Gun Customization
Hack and Slash
Physics
Procedural Generation
PvP
Stealth
Tabletop
Team-Based
Time Manipulation <— Chosen Feature
Vehicular Combat

Aztec Gardens, 1450 CE – Mexico
Batavia Mutiny of 1628
Berlin 1989
Bioluminescent Deep Oceanic Moon, 2156 – Europa (Jupiter’s Moon)
Deep Sea Mining 2050 Kawio Barat Phillipines
Dolle Mina women’s rights 1970s
Dutch Resistance WW2 : Teenage Assassins Freddie, Hannie, and Truus
France 1500 Tapestries La dame à la licorne
Garden UK Allotment Present
Gas station Midwest USA 1950s <— Chosen Setting
Heian Period Japan
Indonesian War of Independence
Interdimensional Cat Café, Present Day – Japan
Junkyard Detroit USA 1940s
Khmer Empire 802–1431 AD (Cambodia)
Kitchen Oxford UK 1970s
Majapahit Empire 1293–1527 AD (Indonesia)
Norman conquest of England 1066
Shipyard Chittgagong Bangladesh 2020
Space Race US-USSR
Submerged Island Nation, 2156 – Maldives
Theatre London Vaudeville 1880-1890
Victorian Industrial Skyports, 1887 – United Kingdom

The creative constraints we went with were:

Alternate History
Stylized & Isometric
Time Manipulation
Gas station Midwest USA 1950s

How did we choose them: As we have a large team, 28, we divided in smaller groups that looked over individual constraints and later created small prototypes in strike teams to demonstrate fun.
The team then voted for the most fun concept mechanically and aesthetically.

Actual Constraints

As time and discussions went on alongside prototypes and playtests, the current constraints fit more in the following “tags”:

Alternate History + Funny
Stylized + Realistic & Partially isometric (top-down)
~~Time~~ Dimensional Manipulation
Fueling Space Station, retro-futuristic 1950s (combined with the Alternate History)

These changes were made to keep up with general perception of time-manipulation, change in reference games, changes in scope and overall player fun.

The concept we wanted to work on didn’t translate “time-manipulation” efficiently and we moved towards dimensions and creating rifts in the multiverse rather than in time.

Our main inspiration for the mechanics changed from Slay the Spire and Tactical Breach Wizards to Wasteland 3 and Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.

Finally, we changed art scope to a lower one as multiple timelines meant a vast difference in environment, whereas the multiverse allows for asset reusal in levels. Taking inspiration from classic shows like The Jetsons, the artists found a retro-futuristic style more fun and fitting with our trouble-making, dimensional-warping thieves.