Project Concept: Stitches!

In early 2020, before work began on the academic team project Calamity Witch, everyone in the class had to come up with a game concept that would be voted on by other classmates based on if they thought it would be something they would like to work on. Whichever project idea received a favorable amount of votes would be considered for one of the possible group game projects that people can join. Among the highest voted projects were Calamity Witch and a game concept that I personally came up with called Stitches! (the exclamation point is part of the title and is supposed to be a sewing pin with the point facing up). The concept of the game was that it's a puzzle platformer where you play as an inanimate/near inanimate voodoo doll. The only ability that the voodoo doll has is to possess the other creatures/objects within a certain range, with the goal of manipulating said things to help you (the voodoo doll) avoid obstacles and reach the goal of each level. For instance, when possessing a human, they can hold the voodoo doll high and throw it to clear obstacles, when possessing a rat the voodoo doll can avoid large obstacles more easily due to the rat's high speed and low size, and so on. Each level will likely be laid-out and short, the challenge lies in overcoming your low mobility and what possession abilities to utilize to reach the goal. This like my project Witch Doctor in that it was inspired by New Orleans folklore. Although I felt super honored that people were interested in my game concept, I chose to not work on the team interested in making Stitches! instead, working with the team that was interested in Calamity Witch. I thought it would be more interesting, inspiring, and challenging from a design standpoint to work on a game concept that I didn't have much background going into, also I just liked the concept of a clumsy witch.