I feel I have developed a very conceptual game which fulfils the brief by having core mechanics which are heavily influenced by my initial research and by being very innovative in the ideas, themes and visuals. As the brief stated, through my innovation, I have chosen a strongly non-commercial stance. I feel the game may still have a decent appeal to a wide ranging audience of mainly 16+ but not the mass market of published titles, especially on the Wii from which I have gained most information during the research. This is due to the politically incorrect and insensitive subject matter; while still tame in comparison to many published titles, may offend. I do however think the offensive themes have an intelligent grounding, engaging and teasing the user, rather than being outright abrasive. The confrontational and miasmic visuals also lend to the individual feel but may risk seizures in photosensitive users. As such a warning of offense and to those sensitive to effects such as strobe lighting will be placed on the website which will host the game.
I feel that I have completed far more than I set out to, while the theme and intentions from my original outline have been realised. To enhance the experience, I would develop the RPG elements further, with more statistics to improve, add more enemies, make the levels longer, add more minigames as ranging attacks and perhaps move into 3D, to realise the possibilities of disorientating effects. As it is, I believe this playable section of the game matches the criteria of the brief, having been built upon design principles gathered from research and by innovating within those aspects of play.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
11 - 11.05.09 - Sound
With the visuals complete, I added sounds to reinforce actions such as on buttons, and with appropriate music when you are in the levels, enter a fight, enter a boss fight, when you die or complete a fight. I have kept the music and sound effects as eerie and obscure as possible to mirror the visual style of the game. I feel using a cuckoo clock, the ‘loony tunes’ theme and wild west confrontation music reflects the insane and humorous element which I’m trying to bring to the experience.
10 - 04.05.09 - Game Interface
As the game has expanded far beyond my original intention, the flash file has become quite crowded! As it appears in the brief, I feel navigation is a significant feature to refine.
While the HUD changes slightly from level to level, I have kept the interface clean and simple throughout, with consistent sizes, layouts and fonts. The in-game inventory is laid out clearly, with obvious buttons and information and the main menu system is simple and straightforward. I spent some time making a detailed carousel for the level screen, where you cycle through which ‘psychotic episode’ to engage in. I have tried to make an intuitive interface, using skills from the previous Designing for the User brief, as while the game is purposely intended to challenge and disorientate visually, I don’t want the player to become frustrated with navigation.
While the HUD changes slightly from level to level, I have kept the interface clean and simple throughout, with consistent sizes, layouts and fonts. The in-game inventory is laid out clearly, with obvious buttons and information and the main menu system is simple and straightforward. I spent some time making a detailed carousel for the level screen, where you cycle through which ‘psychotic episode’ to engage in. I have tried to make an intuitive interface, using skills from the previous Designing for the User brief, as while the game is purposely intended to challenge and disorientate visually, I don’t want the player to become frustrated with navigation.
9 - 27.04.09 - Level Three
A week later and the game has two individual levels and I have decided to create a third. This will make the game three times longer than I originally intended and should really enhance the experience.
The third and final level of this demo is perhaps the most conceptual. ‘Hectic Narcoleptic’ sees the player assume the role of a motorist, racing as they forgot to set the VRC to record their favourite show, who intermittently falls asleep at the wheel. The player begins with zero ‘dammige’ and 100 ‘peace of mind’. By colliding with randomly generating trees on the verge at the top of the screen, the ‘dammige’ will increase until it reaches 100 at which the player will lose the game. Other objects on the road marked ‘innocent’ will increase ‘dammige’ and decrease ‘peace of mind’ the latter of which will also fail the game, if it reaches zero. Experience from fights can be spent on repairing the vehicle and replacing the characters peace of mind in the inventory. To vary the visual quality again, I have gone for a very psychological theme inspired by idea of ‘text-adventure’ games. Here, the assets are all basic shapes with a simple shadow and repetitive colours. What sets them apart from one another is that they each bear a label, explaining what they are. The main player-character for example, is a grey rectangle with the text; ‘and ordinary-looking car’. Other elements such as ‘freshly mown grass’ on the verge or obstacles on the road being ‘innocent’ or ‘danger’ continue the theme, which challenges the player in a very new and rarer way for a game, by engaging their imagination. While some imagination may be required to aid the suspension of disbelief in a game, to accept the less than photorealistic graphics as reality for example, here the illusion is purposely obliterated thus asking the player to invent the visuals subconsciously. The title ‘freshly mown grass’ for example may invoke varied memories and even nostalgic feelings, covering several senses. Even if the user cannot see past the simplistically styled graphics, they have a unique aesthetic with flashes of colours for objects of interest. The opponents continue this theme, being entitled ‘a terrifying monster’, ‘a cute but surprisingly violent creature’ and possibly the most thought provoking; ‘an invisible monster’. The battle screen background is entirely white, save for the simple line of text ‘the most beautiful landscape you have ever seen’ with ‘a terrifying boss’ being the enemy. As this is a later level, the screen is more cluttered and the enemies move at a greater pace, to be more challenging. The narcolepsy mechanic makes navigation hazardous, resulting in the car swerving off into innocents, enemies or damage causing objects. The direction is randomly generated from several options and so should never feel repetitive and a display is visible on the HUD to tell the player when the character is awake or asleep and the direction of the car when swerving uncontrollably.
The third and final level of this demo is perhaps the most conceptual. ‘Hectic Narcoleptic’ sees the player assume the role of a motorist, racing as they forgot to set the VRC to record their favourite show, who intermittently falls asleep at the wheel. The player begins with zero ‘dammige’ and 100 ‘peace of mind’. By colliding with randomly generating trees on the verge at the top of the screen, the ‘dammige’ will increase until it reaches 100 at which the player will lose the game. Other objects on the road marked ‘innocent’ will increase ‘dammige’ and decrease ‘peace of mind’ the latter of which will also fail the game, if it reaches zero. Experience from fights can be spent on repairing the vehicle and replacing the characters peace of mind in the inventory. To vary the visual quality again, I have gone for a very psychological theme inspired by idea of ‘text-adventure’ games. Here, the assets are all basic shapes with a simple shadow and repetitive colours. What sets them apart from one another is that they each bear a label, explaining what they are. The main player-character for example, is a grey rectangle with the text; ‘and ordinary-looking car’. Other elements such as ‘freshly mown grass’ on the verge or obstacles on the road being ‘innocent’ or ‘danger’ continue the theme, which challenges the player in a very new and rarer way for a game, by engaging their imagination. While some imagination may be required to aid the suspension of disbelief in a game, to accept the less than photorealistic graphics as reality for example, here the illusion is purposely obliterated thus asking the player to invent the visuals subconsciously. The title ‘freshly mown grass’ for example may invoke varied memories and even nostalgic feelings, covering several senses. Even if the user cannot see past the simplistically styled graphics, they have a unique aesthetic with flashes of colours for objects of interest. The opponents continue this theme, being entitled ‘a terrifying monster’, ‘a cute but surprisingly violent creature’ and possibly the most thought provoking; ‘an invisible monster’. The battle screen background is entirely white, save for the simple line of text ‘the most beautiful landscape you have ever seen’ with ‘a terrifying boss’ being the enemy. As this is a later level, the screen is more cluttered and the enemies move at a greater pace, to be more challenging. The narcolepsy mechanic makes navigation hazardous, resulting in the car swerving off into innocents, enemies or damage causing objects. The direction is randomly generated from several options and so should never feel repetitive and a display is visible on the HUD to tell the player when the character is awake or asleep and the direction of the car when swerving uncontrollably.
8 - 20.04.09 - Level Two
I have completed an entire level and what my tutor and I agreed was a suitable section to submit for the whole brief, weeks before the deadline. As such I have decided to develop an entirely new level continuing the theme while bringing new visuals and styles of play to the game.
The second drug induced nightmare ‘Tourette’s Regrets’ sees the player take control of a paranoid ‘recycle bin’ windows icon trying to delete offensive office emails before their employer discovers them. An enhanced windows taskbar grounds the screen, with off-putting messages and an inventory button. The background green sky image is a homage to one of the default windows XP desktop backgrounds, which spins round wildly, disorientating the player. The opponents are zip files, containing compressed enemies, which when collided with will trigger a combat sequence. The layout is similar to the previous level, but with an intensely confrontation pixellated animation in the background to continue the computerised theme. The special attack has been removed to create a greater challenge and the enemies are a .setup file, .exe file or bluescreen. The final boss is a redscreen, with a comedic message on it to replace the error report, and challenging the player with greater health and attack. I feel these enemy concepts are entertaining as they play on computer/internet humour which should appeal to gamers and are quite original. Different to the previous level, a flying windows update icon provides a new resource; ‘om nom’. By colliding with this icon and increasing the ‘om nom’ score, the player can upgrade their speed, which will improve their performance and control over the player character considerably.
The second drug induced nightmare ‘Tourette’s Regrets’ sees the player take control of a paranoid ‘recycle bin’ windows icon trying to delete offensive office emails before their employer discovers them. An enhanced windows taskbar grounds the screen, with off-putting messages and an inventory button. The background green sky image is a homage to one of the default windows XP desktop backgrounds, which spins round wildly, disorientating the player. The opponents are zip files, containing compressed enemies, which when collided with will trigger a combat sequence. The layout is similar to the previous level, but with an intensely confrontation pixellated animation in the background to continue the computerised theme. The special attack has been removed to create a greater challenge and the enemies are a .setup file, .exe file or bluescreen. The final boss is a redscreen, with a comedic message on it to replace the error report, and challenging the player with greater health and attack. I feel these enemy concepts are entertaining as they play on computer/internet humour which should appeal to gamers and are quite original. Different to the previous level, a flying windows update icon provides a new resource; ‘om nom’. By colliding with this icon and increasing the ‘om nom’ score, the player can upgrade their speed, which will improve their performance and control over the player character considerably.
7 - 23.03.09 - Boss
Looking at the current level, it lacks a final goal or objective. I considered adding gradual visuals in the background to give the sense of level progression but instead chose to add a boss as the climax to the game.
The boss concept features a separate and significantly more powerful adversary which appears on screen after 20 seconds. This means in order to fight them and complete the level, they must avoid the onscreen opponents until the countdown is concluded, although fights will be required to raise the characters statistics to be capable of defeating each boss. The countdown clock is influenced by the ominous timer in the LOST television series, as I felt the psychological aspects of the program resonated within this project.
The boss concept features a separate and significantly more powerful adversary which appears on screen after 20 seconds. This means in order to fight them and complete the level, they must avoid the onscreen opponents until the countdown is concluded, although fights will be required to raise the characters statistics to be capable of defeating each boss. The countdown clock is influenced by the ominous timer in the LOST television series, as I felt the psychological aspects of the program resonated within this project.
6 - 16.03.09 - Rapid Development
Early development has been a lot faster than I had intended, as I got quite addicted to the concept and spent more time than I had planned. I now have the main elements of level one in place: a side-scrolling landscape with several enemies in a functioning turn-based-combat sequence. I feel that the game doesn’t currently need a minigame as the RPG sequence has been expanded.
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