Bagged

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Inspiration

I initially filled a drawing board with over 10 ideas, but all of them felt too ambitious for the competition's tight 8-week timeline. After brainstorming with AI for a bit, I asked my niece for inspiration, and she suggested "something with clothing." While a fashion theme usually defaults to the Tycoon genre, I wanted to challenge myself. I decided to design a non-violent, delightfully absurd Tower Defense game around the concept.

What it does

The game is set in a retail store where players must anticipate the needs of impatient, angry shopping bags. If a bag reaches the exit without finding what it needs, it leaves a low store rating. If the store runs out of stars, it's forced to close its doors! There is also a unique mechanic governing how the "power" of each clothing stand is managed. The full vision is detailed across the four submission documents.

How we built it

Since this was a design competition, no coding was required—but I spent countless hours deeply conceptualizing the mechanics. I relied heavily on AI to brainstorm and challenge my ideas. I didn't want an AI that just agreed with me, so I specifically prompted it to play devil's advocate, tear my suggestions apart, and highlight their weak points.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest hurdle was designing a game that didn't feel like a lazy reskin of popular TD titles. I spent about three-quarters of the competition timeline just refining the core concept. Initially, I aimed for a "cozy" vibe to emphasize the non-violent theme, but I eventually pivoted away from it because it strayed too far from the tense, strategic nature of tower defense games.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am really proud of the final result and for delivering a fully cohesive vision across all four required submission documents: the GDD, Player Journey, Visual Concept, and Production Plan.

What we learned

I gained a deep appreciation for the Player Journey and why it's so vital during early game planning. Even though I've worked on multiple game design projects in the past, I had never drafted a Player Journey myself. It's a tool I will definitely incorporate into my future workflows.

Additionally, while using AI to generate concept art, I quickly realized the absolute importance of using style sheets and reference images to maintain visual consistency across generations.