Phase 3:
Creating Game Ideas from the theme I Have Researched
The main goal of Phase Three is to take sub-topics of my theme and take them into interesting directions to make the game ideas out of them.
Gameplay Experience:
When analysing a Game a great way to do it is with gameplay experience, this can be split up into five different subcategories:
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Visuals
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Audio
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Haptic
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Verbal
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Ludic
This is a great way to set goals of what you want your game to be as you can divide up what your games experience will be into five different areas.
Game Ideas:
Idea 1: ‘Dilapidation’
After Phase Two, one of the most interesting research that I did that I loved the concept of was the research I did into Boston Dynamics' R&D and how their robots would start to deteriorate but in a modular way (so only the arm gets a problem) and the idea that you could just swap out the problematic limb. the main reason I find this so fascinating is that I think it already sounds like a great game mechanic where you can swap out arms to get one that isn't broken.
So I did a small prototype of how this could work and run it through some iterations and I it wasn't terrible. by no means it was massively fun but to the point it was it getting across worked.
To learn more about this game idea and the prototype above, click below.
Idea 2:
‘One Robot to Save the World’
One subject that i found really intresting was the concept of humans mistreating robots and generally the mistreatment of everything. I thought this would be a good theme to carry on to a game Idea, making the humans in the world of my game the antagonist. I want this idea of mistreating robots to be a narrative drive in this game. Humans almost in a radicalized sense just destroying robots even though they mean no harm to them.
It would be narratively based on you being the last robot in a city being hunted down by a huge group of humans, you would be designed to travel so you would be able to outrun them but they would be swarming you, the reason behind you needing to get away from these humans would be based on you having a schematic to build more and you would be trying to get to a factory where robot sympathisers would help you.
Idea 3: 'Wayfinder'
For my Third idea, I want my theme to be a community of robots on a pilgrimage
I think the idea of a handful of devout robots journeying across harsh environments to be such a thrilling idea, some of them just falling down due to them breaking down but the others just had to abandon them as they have to get to the endpoint.
The thing that drew me too the robot theme to begin with was the viral videos of Boston Dynamics' robots of them doing parkour and dancing. This always seemed fascinating in the sort of sense that robots can have a relationship between them.
Obviously they are all programed to have these reactions, yet still the way they act is powerful enough to invoke emotions in a similar way to fictional characters like the robots from Wall-e. especially recently they have a video of the Spot robots arm attachment singing along with songs and it helps show even non-humanoid robots can portray this emotion.
The main thing that I want to take away from these videos is the sense of community in a group of robots and how natural it can feel.
Presentation & Moving Forward to Phase Four:
The end of Phase Three means I needed to share my game ideas, this is to see what idea people think is the most interesting and viable to make. whichever one gets the most positive feedback will be the game i carry forward into phase four meaning i will develop a proposal for that game.
Chosen Game Idea & Feedback:
Overall I got some plenty of feed back as well as an overwhelmingly strong reception to wayfinder. This means I will be making Wayfinder's project proposal in phase four. If you want to read more about The presentation and the feed back or the work I did in phase four click the respective button below.
Additional Reading:
