What is Relic Run?

Relic Run was my idea for a project that fit the criteria given by Rare for the D&AD New Blood competition. Rare wanted a new approach for players to interact, with this I created the idea of a game where players go on expeditions for various objects. These expeditions can be done for various factions and players must work together or against each other to retrieve the objects.

The USP of the game comes with how players go about their expeditions in the world. For example, there may be multiple groups that are going after the same object. One of these groups may prepare traps so that once the other group have done the hard work, they can take the reward. The traps are another USP of the game, they allow emergent gameplay as all players can craft traps to use in the world. These traps may be used on the AI enemies of the world but mainly they offer ways of combating other players in a way other than normal combat.

While there are smaller stories with the expeditions in the world, another USP of Relic Run is the overarching mystery that players discover together. Players closer to the endgame can work on expeditions that allow discovery of a larger story that will only unlock with players working together. This mystery would also use the real world to better the story, with players maybe needing to decipher glyphs that give a website link where more can be uncovered.

I created a good indication of how the game would look in Unity, while it is basic it offers a menu and an example level. If I were to look at what went right for this project, I would say that the creation that I made in Unity was very good and gives a good indication of how the game would feel. For what went wrong, I feel that I would have gone with a more unique way of player interaction if I were to start this project again. By this I mean that while I think Relic Run is a good idea for the brief, I would like to experiment with a more unique and obscure idea of player interaction.

Overall, I think that Relic Run fit the criteria of the client brief and had some interesting ideas for gameplay. While creating a game like Relic Run would require a lot of investment and work, I feel it would be a good addition to games such as Sea of Thieves.