This is the original brainstorming document for Kirsten's Experience reformatted for easier consumption in Itch.io.

Kirsten Experience Brainstorming Doc

Author’s Notes: Kirsten’s Experience has had around 3 or 4 total rehauls in the past 2 or 3 years. This current iteration will be based off of the last rehaul in Fall 2022. The ideas in this doc are based on the discussions I had with the Narrative and Toddler Dev Teams, on all previous versions of Kirsten’s Experience, on requests from Weez, and on my own knowledge of the character, all of which are subject to change as the game trucks along. If something seems odd here, chances are it was altered after the fact.

Story Requirements

• The main takeaway from my discussions with the Narrative Team was that Kirsten’s level in the main game would be about curiosity.
  • I.e. a child satiating their curiosity, exploration, discovery, whimsy, entrigue, fantasy, cheeriness.
  • Can’t get caught up on the tiny details of her character, like her dinosaur Tronto.
• The Kirsten Experience does not need to show that she saw the Fae take Tobi’s soul. That should be saved for Tobi’s Experience if not for the actual game. This should be cheerful and focus mainly on her.
• Kirsten is the only character with magic in the family, so some hint of that/abstract representation of it should be present, but not a focus. 

Gameplay Requirements

• The Kirsten Dev Team is planning on making a large, open-concept level with a focus on exploration.
  • Players will use magic to animate toys to life and have them do things around the level (nothing concrete, still early in development).
• Weez wants experiences to parallel their level counterparts. I.e. don’t do any of the stuff above that the Kirsten Dev’s are doing.
• The experience shouldn’t feel like too much of a deviation from the other already established ones.
  • Previous experiences range from about 3 to 12 minutes to complete.
  • They’re all on the simpler side in terms of gameplay; in fact they don’t have to be gameplay at all.
  • They’re all being reworked to match the levels they’re paralleling thematically.

Rapid Ideation (Anything Goes)

• Uh what if the level was supposed to be Kirsten’s own miniature mind palace since she’s magical like Aurelia?
  • What if it reused the og mind palace tree set???
    • Hahah might have been purged already, can’t seem to find it but if we decide to go in this direction then I could.
• Should probably be a smaller centralized hub to keep it short.
• To keep it close to the curiosity theme it could have just a bunch of stuff to look at and read like it already does.
  • Could be like a 3D version of the scrapped Angela Experience/Aurelia’s current experience (but way less reading).
• Things should continue to be really big and over the top.
• Maybe more traditional fairies or butterflies.
• Definitely shouldn’t be ‘girly’, more gender neutral toys and stuff.
  • Could reuse assets from the mother’s level.
  • Could check into the art team to see what they’re doing.
• Maybe make a short platforming challenge
  • Jumping from toy blocks and stuff could be neat.
  • Maybe a chibi-robo/Toy Story-esque romp through the living room/Kirsten’s room?
    • Make the player small in a normal sized room, have them explore that.
• Takes .glb files, make sure you get .glb files.
  • Side note make sure the assets we’re using belong to us and aren’t random placeholders.
• Trippy and weird visually; would take extra assets but would definitely be worth it.
• Probably gonna keep the music players, but it would make more sense to make them the music boxes like in Angela’s level.
• Pictures and concept art would be cool to include.
• Maybe the experience could just be a 3D playable bonus menu?
  • Could have a sound test, concept art and dev notes/commentary from Weez.

Realistic Brainstorming

• Kirsten’s Mind Palace

• The experience would just be Kirsten’s own mind palace, taking heavy inspiration from the design/aesthetics of Aurelia’s.

• It could even have Kirsten’s chunk of Aurelia’s palace from the actual game (as a nod to it but not an exact copy/parallel of the Kirsten Level).

• This could act as the first hint that Kirsten is magical for new players.

  • They would see the parallels between the little experience on the site and the hub of the main game. It’d probably make the payoff more fun for those that play through the experiences.

  • The abstractness of a mind palace would also be very whimsical and cool.  

• Would be similar to the current build of the Kirsten Experience in that it would just be a “walking simulator”. Players can jump around and learn cool stuff about the characters from Kirsten’s perspective.

  • It would mainly be an artistic showcase requiring the commissioning of many 3D models and 2D drawings (I’m thinking “memory photos”).

• A lot of the artwork could be cut down by reusing defunct/pre-existing assets and level designs.

  • There’s a lot of assets currently going unused that could be repurposed here, like basically the entire old hub-tree.

    • I would use the old hub in full if possible because it’s cool and mystical and the perfect size for a shorter experience.

    • The only foreseeable downside to this is that Three.js might not allow models with very high poly counts.

      • The current build seems to have mostly low-poly models and I’m not sure if that’s just because they got temporary assets that happened to be low-poly or needed to be low-poly.

      • At least some of these assets aren’t made in house. I’m leaning towards most of them being placeholders, but I am not sure.

    • Three.js takes many different 3D Model types, but the previous Kirsten Devs specifically used .GLB files instead of .OBJ to save space (they seem to save information as binary.

      • Blender lets you export as a .GLB, but that might be harder to do than it looks; I’ll test that on my own before coming to any conclusions one way or the other.

  • This would also ensure that people’s credited hard work is still used and showcased somewhere in the project, even if it’s no longer in the main game.

• This option probably requires the least amount of work on our part.

  • At its core it would just be a map swap/light redesign.

• Curiosity

  • This option relies on the player’s curiosity in the experience to keep them invested, as there is no challenge or immediately attention-grabbing thing to latch on to.

  • Inside out Islands of Personality

• Miniature Platformer

  • The experience would be a more standard first person platformer (a la Minecraft Parkour challenges I guess).

    • This would be way more “game-y” than the other options, and could end up being a lot more fun.

  • This experience would probably be more linear and longer than the other two.

    • There would need to be a significant amount of platforming to make it compelling, making the length pretty long.

  • This experience would be a platformer akin to “Chibi-Robo!” or “Toy Story 2” for the PS1.

    • The player would be really tiny and would explore around a huge world.

    • The “playground” that the player explores would probably be the living room from the main game.

  • This experience would mainly reuse assets already found in-game with only a few new ones.

    • All of the assets from the living room as well as a bunch found in Angela’s level could easily be used.

  • The magic element of Kirsten’s powers could be played into with the size and imaginative wonder of the experience alongside basic things like floating platforms.

  • Curiosity

    • This idea would be less about curiosity and more about imagination and adventure. There would be some exploration (maybe some macguffins to collect throughout) but that’s about it.

• Bonus Menu

  • Would be a bonus area full of interesting things for prospective players and players already done with the game alike.

  • Could include things such as:

    • A ‘mystical’ letter from Weez to the player.

    • Developer commentary from us!

      • Could also be random sentences gathered from everyone working this summer that I scatter around the area.

        • Maybe these could just appear every now and again in the sky or somewhere?

    • Concept art.

    • Screenshots of older versions of the game.

      • Maybe information about older versions of the game.

    •  Sound test.

      • Probably limited to just the main songs in the game if not just 2 or three.

  • This idea would probably require the most “new” stuff to be developed and tested.

    • Maintaining scope would be really important with this one.

    • The new stuff doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to implement since it’s not a major new gameplay system or anything.

  • This experience could also reuse old layouts, artwork and models.

    • It would probably be mostly reused stuff.

  • The “time-to-beat” is as long or short as the player wants so we don’t have to worry as much about that. 

  • We could also potentially lock of this experience behind (a) password(s) given out throughout or at the end of the game to prevent players from spoiling themselves/give them a reason to revisit the website after the game.

    • This could also make Kirsten’s experience act as a cool reward for playing all the way through the main game.

    • This idea is probably pushing the limits of the scope of an experience, but it’d be sweet if we did it and hid passwords around each level/the hub for players to find. It’d also add some level of replayability/exploration to the game and would make players very curious, which works with the theme of Kirsten’s level so really this whole thing is a great idea actually.

  • Curiosity

    • This experience would be solely motivated by the players’ drive to see behind the scenes information about the game.

    • Very literal adaptation of “curiosity”.

  • The one major downside of this idea is that it won’t say as much about Kirsten as the others do.

    • A Bonus Room doesn’t leave much for characterization even if it fits thematically.

    • Honestly though Kirsten is 3 so there’s not a lot of complexity in her character that needs to be conveyed anyways.

    • The “meta-ness” of the experience could be a fun hint at the reveal that Kirsten is magical (if ever there was a character to get meta with, the magical toddler is probably the best one). 

Advanced Planning

• The idea we’re ultimately going with is a platformer.

  • Magical mystical vibes with different “islands of personality” representing Kirsten (and her mind palace).

    • Very similar to what exists now but larger.

• Pre-existing mechanics/systems that we have to work with:

  • Jumping

    • Duh, the most basic thing you can do. This can be modified easily, and it seems like adding a double jump would be pretty easy.

  • Running

    • Also basic, we could probably add a dash relatively easily too if we wanted something more complex.

  • Wall Jump(?)

    • Idk if it’s a true wall jump or a janky collision thing but it feels like I’m bouncing off walls.

  • Interactables

    • The infrastructure already exists to allow the player to interact with objects (by looking at them and pressing F) to make them do something.

  • Mass-spawnings (idk how else to say this it’s possible though and doesn’t chug the experience).

    • The infrastructure exists to have things spawn into thin air (like platforms) if certain thresholds are met). They’re using that to spawn a new random island when you collect four macguffins, which is cool and all but it doesn’t do anything other than look cool.

    • We could definitely have spawning platforms, probably even timed ones.

  • Ball throwing

    • Uh I guess you can throw balls in one corner of the castle by clicking but how would anyone know that? It’s something else to consider anyways.

    • Maybe we’ll just let players vomit cookies or sparkles everywhere?

• Potential New Stuff

  • Collectables

    • Sparks of magic

      • Changes the scenery (makes it more magical)

    • We would need a hud/some way to keep track of these.

  • A menu(?)

    • At least let players go back to the homepage.

    • Might be too extra if there’s not a lot going on.

  • Abilities

    • Sprint/run

    • Climbing

    • Wall Jump (?)

    • Double Jump

  • Maybe 3rd person stretch goal?

  • An end

    • We need to think of some way to end the experience now that there’s more to it than just looking around.

    • It probably shouldn’t be a “hard-ending”; players should still be allowed to jump around and have fun even after they ‘beat’ it.

    • Get to the end/get to the toy tea party

    • Sit down at the table?

  • Levels

    • Checkpoints - maybe soft checkpoints.

    • One big hub with branching paths. At the end of each mini challenge you get a guest for your teaparty.Fog 

      • Make it all cool and mystical.

  • Aesthetics

    • Level aesthetic/background changes based on number of collectables

    • Start with fog to make it all cool and mystical.

  • Obstacles

    • Moving Obstacles

    • Moving Platforms

    • Timed Platforms

    • Climbing Walls

    • Slow Trap

    • Twisty Cubes

• It seems like a lot of the work done with three.js so far has been hardcoded into one long document. Maybe we should consider splitting stuff up (if not for readability than at least to make it easier for 2 people to work on it.

  • Index.html - (could use a rename) the landing page.

  • Main.css - (could use a rename)the css for the landing page.

  • [kirstenExperience].js - loads in all other js files and handles scripted things like checking for interactions.

  • [assetLoad].js - loads in all assets/3D models in one folder.

  • [controls].js - sets up all player controls.

• Elmo’s world aesthetics.