Overview

          “Video games foster the mindset that allows creativity to grow.” – Nolan Bushnell. As technology progresses, conventional art and entertainment fail to keep up, paving the path for a new medium of storytelling: video games. Since my ideal job is to work in the gaming industry, for this Project Idea, I am proposing a concept for a third-person action-adventure video game set in the historical periods of Vietnam with the use of Unreal Engine, recounting stories of our triumphs and accomplishments, called An Nam. This project will be the product of my passion for the field of Information Technology, and my affection for my country’s cultures and customs.

Motivation

          The Video Game Industry (or Gaming Industry) is indisputably one of the largest and fastest growing, even exceeding those of the Film Industry and Digital TV & Video Industry ^[1]. Despite such significant economic potential, the industry in Vietnam seems to be stagnating and lagging behind, concentrating on importing foreign games and localising them instead of creating meaningful and impactful culture-rich games.^[2] Furthermore, as video games play a fundamental role in the development of certain technology advancements (for instance the graphics cards), the lack of large-scale gaming projects in Vietnam might inhibit its people from exploring this sector of Information Technology. Understanding and endeavouring to rectify these issues, I want to create An Nam, a project that could revitalise the game development spirit in the country while leaving a legacy spreading Vietnamese history and traditions to foreign lands.

The Narative

          Great video games have good stories, but masterpieces require both phenomenal storytelling and plot. An Nam is set in the historical eras of Vietnam, and you will play as multiple different historical figures as the game progresses. Currently, I plan to have 3 main protagonists:
- Ngo Quyen: a warlord who ended the thousand-year domination of Chinese dynasties and founded the kingdom of An Nam. 
- Ly Thuong Kiet: a great general of the Ly Dynasty, the author of the first declaration of independence of Vietnam 
- Tran Hung Dao: a royal prince and great general who repelled two major Mongol invasions. 

          Generally, the plot structure for all protagonists will be relatively similar, spanning their birth, adolescent years, major accomplishments and ultimately, their death. With this structure, the players will be able to experience the full life of the characters, growing fond of them gradually, allowing them to immerse in the historical setting more convincingly. All characters will be voice acted in Vietnamese and subtitled in different languages, ensuring accessibility for international audiences. The plot and quest designs will also be written with consultation from historians to emphasise the customs and characteristics of the Vietnamese people, fulfilling one of the main objectives of the game: spreading the Vietnamese heritage to the world. 

The Gameplay

          Gameplay mechanics are arguably the most challenging aspect of game development. In a historically accurate game like An Nam, the primary combat system will be melee combat, using a variety of weapons including spears, staffs, short swords, "daos” and shields. A limited range combat system using bows and crossbows will also be implemented. A combat skill-tree will not be used in order to maintain historical accuracy, instead players will unlock new abilities as the story progresses.

          Similarly, to remain faithful to factual events, dialogues will be linear, not branching. While the game is level-based and not intended to be open-world, each level should be large enough to encompass the look and feel of the Monarchical period of Vietnam. Within the confine of these levels, certain traversal mechanics will be in place, such as carriages and horseback riding, along with exploration opportunities.

The Technical Aspect

          The success of a video game depends on how immersive it is, and the same principle will be applied to An Nam. In order to maintain the players’ suspension of disbelief, the game needs to be designed intricately and polished inside out. The most important aspect when it comes to immersion is undoubtedly the graphics. Since a detailed game with Vietnamese characters is rather unprecedented, 3D character models will need to be designed from scratch using Blender. Environment design and textures will be taken from archaeological findings, historical documents and still-standing monuments.

Asian character models are usually not very detailed

         All of these details will be incorporated into Unreal Engine to be assembled for level construction. On the programming department, the game will have to be coded with care, ensuring a minimal number of bugs and physics irregularity. Certain subsystems offered by Unreal Engine like Physics and NPC AI will be utilised to deliver a more entrancing experience. Last but not least, an often overlooked but equally important aspect is sound design. The auditory experience in a video game could be the “make or break” factor, and thus for An Nam, the sound engineering will have to be carefully catered to. Era-appropriate soundtracks will be recorded, and as previously stated, voice acting will be done with Vietnamese voice artists, giving the game another level of ambience.

Technical Skill requirements

      An Nam is unquestionably a very ambitious game concept, and in order to realise it, there are a number of requirements.

       Firstly, a thorough understanding of Unreal Engine is necessary. This includes familiarity with the different features offered by the engine and with the general workflow. While the learning curve is quite steep, it is absolutely possible to get use to the engine given constant usage and exposure. Secondly, on the programming department, C++ coding capability might not even be a mandatory prerequisite, as with Unreal Engine’s impressive Blueprint Visual Scripting System, I could develop the whole game without touching a single line of code. However, as it would be an advantage for me to have a decent mastery of the language, I still plan to further my capacity through online bootcamp classes and forcing myself to avoid using Blueprint when using the engine.

Unreal Engine's Blueprint Visual Scripting System

       Finally, a mastery of Blender and Photoshop is a must if I intend to deliver high graphical fidelity and immersive designs. Fortunately, I have had previous experience with both of these programs, allowing me to adapt swiftly and efficiently to new use cases.

Major potential risks

        In the development process of the game, obstacles and setbacks are bound to happen. For An Nam, I could foresee 2 major predicaments that could impede the progress of the game’s development. First, there is the problem of production cost overrun. For a game at the scale of An Nam, the possibility of a budget overrun is quite high, even with a projected cost roadmap. Unfortunately, there is no real solution for this particular challenge once it has happened, therefore a thorough consideration of the issue at the beginning of the development process will be done to prevent it from becoming a threat to the project. 

        Secondly, on the side of technical complications, there is data loss and corruption. The key to solve this is rather straightforward – data backup. However, due to the enormous size of the game assets, solutions similar to GitHub are unviable. Therefore, I plan to construct a local server running redundancy solutions so as to store and protect these precious data.

Local NAS runing RAID could be a solution for data backup

Outcome

       If An Nam is successfully developed and published, I reckon it will create a shockwave in the gaming community in Vietnam. This shockwave might rejuvenate the stale state of the video game industry, incentivising them to create more meaningful, made-in-Vietnam products. I hope, at the very least, the game will be successful on a national scale, not for my personal monetary gain, but to remind everyone of the glorious past that we proudly build our country upon. And If I am fortunate enough to catch the attention of international gaming media, An Nam could potentially spread the history and heritage of Vietnam far and wide, showing the world that we are more than just the country who fought in a war against colonial France and the United States.

Feedback

              Understanding the necessity of criticism, I showed the Project Idea to my team members, Dieu Lam and Linh Bui. Generally, the concept is quite well received, and they were rather enthusiastic and supportive of it. With that said, the idea is far from perfection, and both of them gave me a number of constructive feedbacks.
             For Linh, the biggest issue he found with my project is its sheer scope and ambitiousness. He brought to my attention the impracticality of working on this project independently without any outside assistance and told me that it might take too much time and effort to develop the game to be worth the effort. I strongly agree with his suggestion about human resources. An Nam is a very demanding piece of work, and thus realistically speaking, I will need to recruit like-minded developers and establish a specialisation system, splitting up the workload according to each person’s strength. However, I have to be on the opposite side when it comes to the value of the project. Good things take time, and masterpieces require even more time and energy to be developed. In my opinion, this project could bring about a change to the gaming industry of Vietnam as a whole, and to that end, I will not falter regardless of what is required of me.
          My other teammate, Dieu only had a single suggestion, and that was the addition of full language localisation for the game. He provided me with the insight that the game would reach a much wider range of audience if I could at least include English voice acting in the game language setting. While it is a very valid recommendation, I have somewhat a mixed opinion on it. On the one hand, including localisation will help spread the game on an even larger stage, but on the other hand, it might undermine the national spirit and feel of the game. Therefore, my approach to this feedback is to put a hold on the idea, and come back to it once I have gained more information on the matter.