Activity 4 for Mini-game 3

Game Mechanics, Objects and Rules

Capture the game mechanics for five of the player stories that will be incorporated within your game (task 1):

2. Describe how these mechanics will appeal to your target audience.

Movement: Because this is a side scrolling game, so the character can only move left and right, very easy to control.
Scenarios to provide challenge: this game encourage player to explore the game world and interact with NPCs freely. It doesn’t have clear game story, player will decide the future of the character by her will. It shares some similarity with Sims 4, player is writing the story for the character, not the game.

 

3. Capture the details from in your object table (task 2). The table should include the following :
• Object name
• Object purpose
• Object attributes
• Relationship to Other Objects
• Rules, events and effects associated with the object

Activity 1 for Mini-game 3

Player Experience Goals

1. Clear image and/or text that describes your studio’s three initial ideas for the game player experience goals

Identity.

Questioning.

Social perspectives.

 

2. Clear image / text that outlines your two favorite game ideas. Document how they encapsulate a big idea/concept and take into consideration your target audience

(1) Survival video game that likes “This War of Mine”.

Player as one of the survivors of a war, he/she is trying to survive in a chaos city where was badly damaged by the war. To survive, player is required to explore the game world and obtain necessary resources for everyday life. During the exploration, player will be face different events and each event will be able to complete with multiple choices/decisions. However, every choice/decision come with different results and then lead to different endings finally.

(2) Simulation game similar to “SIMS4”.

Player will be play the character who is a 21 year old new graduated student from university. The character is facing the important turning point in his/her life, so that player will need to decide the plan of the future of the character, and different decision will be cause diferent outcomes that affect the development of game story. This is a open game with multiple endings.

 

Our target audience is Sally, and consider her basic information of game experience, she is enjoying the type of game such as SIMS4. Therefore, the two game concepts are focus on the interaction of character and game world. Every decision that she made will be effect the development of the game and bring out the different results. Such as in SIMS 4, she can decide the future of her character.

 

3. Clear image and/or text that describes your studio’s final PX goal for mini-game 3

Courage and compassion.

Courage: We encourage our target audience to making decision and then take responsible for the result of the decision. She should be having courage to face the bad outcome that her decision brings out.

Compassion: Cause our game idea if focus on simulation and highly interactive game, so we hope she may feel compassion for her character, and consider every decision that she made in the game is important.

 

4. The reasoning behind the decision, particularly in relation to your shortlisted big ideas and your target audience.

Our target audience is Sally who is 21 years old and very experienced gamer. Our game want to interest her, so the game should be contained elements that can draw her attention into. Because of her favorite game is SIMS 4, so we consider add the element of simulation into our game concepts. Our game concepts focus on decision making, different decision bring out different results, and then lead to different endings finally. Her age is important for the development of game narrative, we choose use mature background and characters in order to increase her substitution of the game.

 

5. A list of the type(s) of PX you’re tapping into (i.e. cognitive, physical, social, emotional, creative) Be specific – e.g., cognitive attributes such as visual processing combined with physical challenges related to …

Identity, player should be able to understand the identity of her character and then understand the reason of the character’s decision.

Questioning, player should be questioning how to complete one task from multiple angles.

Social perspectives, the result of character’s decision will affect not only himself but the people around him, so player must consider the influence of her decision from social angle if she wants to achieve the good ending of the game.

6. A description of why PX of this nature is important in the context of the two game ideas you’ve shortlisted and the target audience.

The PX decides what kind of game that player will be enjoy the most. Looks at the PX of player, knowing the favourite game type of her, then we can analysis the elements that interest her, and knowing how to create a game that she will be enjoy to play.

Week 7

Activity 5:

Choices:

(1)    Control the rescue officer to search the surrounding area for clues.

(2)    Control the tracker dog to search the surrounding area for clues.

(3)    Switch between the two characters.

(4)    Control current character to perform certain action.

(5)    Collect tools.

Interface:

The interface of the game is simple as rough drawing below:

 

Timer: showing the time that left for player to discover the missing person.

Tools Bar: the tools that can be used to solve puzzles will be showed in the tools bar, mouse left click and drag for use.

Switch Character: press “E” on the keyboard.

Walk/Run (control character’s movement): W/S/A/D (keyboard)

Collect item/search/Interactive with objects: mouse (left click)

Menu: Press “Esc” on the keyboard to access game menu.

 

Action:

(1)    The rescue officer can walk (normal speed) around the area, and collects items from higher places where the tracker dog’s sight cannot cover.     

(2)    The tracker dog can run (faster speed) around the area, and collects items from lower or smaller places where the rescue officer cannot fit in.

(3)    From current character changes to the other character, sight and speed changed.

(4)    The rescue officer: jump over barrier, open door, walks.

The tracker dog: run, sniff the scent of the missing person, go through hole and small space.

(5)    Move indicating arrow toward the collectable items, left click on mouse, the items will be added to “Tools Bar”.

 

Rules:

The rescue officer and the tracker dog use different sights (High and Low).

The rescue officer and the tracker dog use different moving speeds (Walk and Run).

The interactive objects will be different from the unable to interactive objects (halo on the surface).

The rescue officer and the tracker dog can perform certain action to pass the barriers depend on the current character.

Timer runs out, game over.

Every tool in the Tools Bar can only use once and then disappear.

 

Feedback:

1.       Simple controls, easy to learn.

2.       The game requires to coordinates the use of skills of two playable characters to get through all the challenges on time, interesting and fun to play.

3.       Game narrative is incomplete, there should be a story/reason for each missing person.

Week 6

Class Work

This is the conceptual sketch that we came up with during our time in class. We decided to have two players, a dog and a rescue worker. The objective is that they have to use their set of skills in order to find a missing person in the forest. They will use their skills when they are needed, changing each time you play the game.

The dog will use skills like smell and barking in order to track down the person. The officer will use a flashlight and map in order to navigate around the map.

Overall I feel as if these are some solid ideas for a game, however we might need to add more skills to the dog and rescue worker. We shall discuss these matters as we go, adding onto them if we can.

 

Week 6

Cycle Activity 2:

(1) The style and mood of this game

 （2） The spatial dimensions, size and boundary of this game world

This game is a about searching for missing person, it’s a first person puzzle game.

The game is set in a small city where includes two parts: the modern uptown area and the countryside area.

The modern uptown area is where the home of the missing person is, there will be contain the information relate to the missing person, such as the reason of their disappearance and where may them be.

The countryside area will be available after the player collect enough clues from the uptown area, it’s the place where the missing person is hiding.

 

(3) The setting for your game

Short introduction:

You (player) are working in the police department of the City, as a rescue officer that focus on finding missing person.

You and your tracker dog are known as the golden team in the department.

There are many people missing in the city, your job is to finding them with your ‘teammate’.

Aim:

Use the skills of two playable characters (the rescue officer and the tracker dog) to finding clues and discover the missing person.

There will be time limitation for every quest, if you fail to finding the missing person on time, the missing person will be lost forever, game over.

 

 

(4) The representation of people and objects

The rescue officer: playable character, able to use and collect items to solve puzzles, and perform certain action (e.g. walking and opening doors).

The tracker dog: playable character, able to sniff and track the scene of the missing person to finding clues, and perform certain action (e.g. drag, running,  digging).

Collectable items: notes (information left by the missing person/clue), tools (used for solve certain puzzles to move forward).