Street Rats

Street Rats is an oppressive, 3D survival game featuring stealth and resource management mechanics. For this design, I began with the tone and a few reference images of medieval slums. At the time I was also playing Arkane Studios’ Dishonored 2 and Subset Games’ Into the Breach which inspired me to explore harsh-yet-fair gameplay systems. This sparked the core idea for the multilayered systems of the game and the taxing (pun intended) struggle of the player climbing their way out of poverty. I wanted to impress upon the player the desperation of cumulative disadvantage, a concept I spent much time studying due to my sociology background. This idea crystalized in many ways within the design including the player’s responsibility over two characters simultaneously, the balance between spending/saving money, the different types of fences, the potential rivalry with thieves’ guild operatives, the apathetic townsfolk, the overzealous guards, the month time limit, and the hunger system. All of these components work together to keep the survival elements at the fore while the minute-to-minute gameplay encourages players to scurry around, moving from one hiding spot to the next. In this case, the tone served as the root of the design and each subsequent element of the game served to further emphasize the desired emotional experience of the player.