Homework 11: Chpt. 15 & 16

Chapter 15

1. A goal with no obstacles is not worth pursuing.

          One of the fundamental building blocks of life is having goals and aspirations to pursue, otherwise life would be meaningless. Nothing in life is ever achieved without hard work and in doing that hard work you are almost always faced with some sort of obstacle. In regards to our game, a possible obstacle could be--for me especially--that the textures weren't unwrapped properly causing the entire area to look terrible and function slower.

2. What is the relationship between the main character and the goal? Why does the character care about it?

              

          The goal in our game is for the main character to locate her missing son. Self-explanatory, but she's faced with the difficulty of choosing between the townspeople and her son. I feel like it would be obvious the choice she would take, but it's entire town with many; so either sacrifice one for hundreds or vice versa.

3. What are the obstacles between the character and the goal? 

          Obvious obstacles that are between the main character and the goal are the fog, fog monsters, puzzles and decision at the end (mentioned above).

4. Do the obstacles gradually increase in difficulty? If yes, how?

          The intention was to have each level get increasingly difficult as you get closer to the end-level boss, but time has limited us to a couple of levels. So ultimately, it probably won't be noticed in our game.

5. Great stories often involve the protagonist transforming to overcome the obstacle. Does your protagonist transform?

          Our protagonist definitely transforms during the course of the game. In the beginning, she is just a regular mother visiting her son, but by the end she is a stoic and strong individual. Learning to adapt fast she quickly becomes the heroine of our game.

6. How is the game world simpler than the real world?

           In the game world anything can be altered, even the perception of reality, so I'm not sure if things are much simpler in a game (considering the situation). Speaking only of daily outcome, then yes, the game would be much simpler because at least you know, to some extent, what is going to happen. Our game features a post-disaster world so really this isn't an infrastructure and people are literally crowded together around the sacred area waiting to be saved.

7. What kind of transcendent power do you give to the player?

          We gave the player the transcendent power of willpower. This power has been proven to increase a persons physical capabilities because of the shear determination. It can be equated to the strongest ability for a human. I think there was a quote that stated that our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.

8. What is the weirdest element in the game story?  

          The weirdest element of our game would definitely be the history between the mayor and the mysterious black figure (cause of the fog). All we know is that the mayor founded the city by making some sort of contract with a shady character many years ago and suddenly the city was up and booming and very wealthy.

9. How do you ensure that the weirdest thing does not confuse or alienate the player?

          All of this history and the back story of the mayor can be found through out the discovery of the newspaper clippings, journals and etc., unless the player ignores the notes and continues on.

10. Will the players be interested in the game story? Why?

          When developing any game the goal in mind is to make sure it reaches the targeted audience and that they love it. I do believe the players will be interested in this game because it's mysterious, making you want more, and the storyline is amazing.

Chapter 16

  

1. In what sense does the player have freedom of action? Does the player "feel" free at these times?

          

          While navigating the map the player will have complete freedom within the confines of the area and impassible objects like buildings. Hopefully the player will "feel" free when in the game; all other actions such as jumping and swinging an objection will be free-flowing as well.

2. What are the constraints imposed on the players? Do they feel constrained?

          The constraints imposed on the players are the ability to see due to the fog and each level being locked until the enemy has been defeated. They should feel constrained, especially because the fog slowly creeps on you and eventually suffocates the character; heartbeats should be heard when the fog gets closer and closer to indicate a dwindling in health.

3. Ideally, what would you like your players to do (lens #72)?

          I would like players to fully use everything within the game like clues, finding the son and save the city. I also want them to explore both endings.

4. Can you set constraints to "kind of" force the player to do it?

          Due to the effect of the fog slowly approaching on the player it sort of reinforces the urgency to either move to the next level or find pieces of the shards to protect against it.

5. Can you design your interface to "force" the player to do what you (the designer) wish him/her to do?

          Just as mentioned above, there can be puzzles put in place or key items needed to be found in order for the player to advance anymore. So in a way, as the designer, it is completely possible to "force" the player to go on a set path. 

Homework 6: Chapters 4-5

1. For each of the four elements of the Tetrad, explain how it is addressed by your game. If one of the four elements is not used, please state this. 

• Mechanics: this is basically how the game will be played. The player will control the character in the first person perspective; navigating around the world map the player will look for clues leading to the main story, saving people and essentially rebuilding the town in the process. By avoiding the encroaching fog, the player must collect magical shards that maintains their health.
• Story (self-explanatory): our game centers around a heroine that has been involved in a car accident due to the dangerous fog/smoke that has destroyed the city. The character will have to explore the surrounding areas in order to assess the situation. In order to find her son, the heroine must search the city and, in the process, discover the source of the mysterious fog and save the town. There is a sacred location that is untouched by the fog is the sanctuary since it contains the largest protective ward. 
• Aesthetics: this is essentially the visual imagery of the game as well as what the player experiences. The player will be immersed in a post-disaster setting where they explore the ruined city through very low visibility; the best part for the experience of the player is actually being in first person so everything is up close and personal. A sense of fear will take over the player as they fight to stay alive because of the encroaching fog and creepy music.
• Technology: the only tech being used is the game engine itself (blender) and possibly some python scripts. One addition was added to our game, which was Tree-D, like its name suggests generates realistic tress. It was great.

2. Do the four (or less) elements work towards a current theme?

          

          I believe that our theme coincides with our theme and I can't possibly think of a game that wouldn't follow these four elements, at least not in this class.

3. In your own words, describe the meaning of a "theme", and how does it differ from an "experience" (see book for examples in Chapters 2 and 5.

           Theme is basically the subject or setting given to an activity (i.e. leisure, an exhibition, a piece of writing, etc). In this case, events of the game serve the purpose of other intended venues; usually the theme evokes some sort of relativity with the player like culture for example. Experience is merely the apparatus to implement the theme in.

4. What is your game's theme?

          Our game has multiple themes, but there is one that is the most prevalent and that is moral vs ethical value. The beginning of the game the main character must go through the city, but at the very end she is confronted by the main protagonist and is given the choice to sacrifice the people she saved for her son or vice versa. Fear of the unknown is the next largest theme.

5. What are the elements in your game that are meant to reinforce this theme?

          The elements that reinforce our theme are many, but the biggest would be the "experience". While the playing the game, neither the protagonist nor the player knows the origin or reason for the fog. Adding in the fact that it will be near impossible to see anything beyond a couple steps ahead increase the fear. It is the fear of the unknown that really reinforce the theme.

6. What is it about your game that you feel makes it special and powerful?

          The only thing that made me feel this game special and powerful is the genre, concept and art. Since I'm confident in my artistic abilities I knew that our game would be at least pretty to look at. The other qualities I was sure of were from my teammates because they were amazing when it came to modeling, programming and handling the logic of the game.

Homework 4: Teamwork

1. Do you love your project/game. If not, how can that be changed?

          I'm not exactly how to answer this question. I love the fact that we are able to create something like this, however, I wished we could have done a different genre since I'm not a fan of horror anything. Since I don't like the genre, the only thing I can think of is adding another sub-category (i.e. adventure, free-world, action, etc).

2. Does the team as a whole love the project? If not, what can be done? 

          I'm pretty sure that my team loved the idea of this game, especially when it came down to the components. Every time we meet up it's a flow of ideas and endless possibilities. So overall I think they were very enthusiastic about it. 

3. Are the team members communicating with each other?

          At the start of the class, most of the team members were communicating on a regular once to twice a week basis. One of our members rarely showed up to class and at times out of our, once five member, group only three would come to the meetings we held outside of class. Since one of them dropped out though, everyone else has been doing pretty well.

4.  Does the team have a regular meeting schedule? What is that schedule?

          Our regular scheduled meetings would be at 3:30, then later at 4:30 because one member had class until late. Out of the entire week this time seemed to work best with everyone. Later on in the course when things were getting busy, this changed or was moved around to better accommodate the members (e.g. Sundays and Mondays).

5.  Describe the modes of communication between the team members.

          The main mode of communication happened on Facebook where we vote on decisions about the game as well as keeping up with what each person does, plus we created a group so that when anyone posted something we'd get a direct notification. This seemed to be the easiest, most effective mode of communication because everyone checks their pages, plus smartphones are a great thing. All other forms were that used the game notebook to give little comments, reminders and assignments, plus we had each others cell phone numbers.Google Drive is a thing also.

6. Regarding game documents, what must be remembered while designing your game? 

          Planning things and having ideas are great, but they won't mean anything if you forget things so having a game document, where everyone can put in their comments, is important. It also saves immediately after something is being added and even if we're not all in one room we can still type messages to each other and update it at the same time.