Trying to Figure out Game Design

A student just trying to make games effectively and working towards inovation.More then anything, just want ot get my thoughts and ideas into something and see what people say. 

[catchymemes]

[tryingtofigureoutgamedesign]

How its Going

We have another playtest coming up for my most recent game project, Ruined. I was able to download RPG Maker MV and start my work on a digital prototype. I will hopefully be able to get a good five people to playtest my game, as we will be splitting into groups and having around 15-minute intervals for each player.

I don’t know whether people will actually use the full 15 minutes for play, but I’ve been formulating questions they can fill out since I will be unable to be there to see them play myself.

I was able to make four maps that the player will be able to go through. One is the main city map and the other three or simple paths in which the character is traversing towards their final destination. 

At the moment the city looks a little empty with the few NPC’s I have included that will have “meaningful” dialogue. I am thinking of putting in random citizens so that the city looks populated. I am also working to program the NPCs with movement to make them not look as stiff and empty. I want it to seem like a normal city in which people are doing things that they would in this world.

To do all of this I had to partly experiment with the engine through practice (and a lot of failures), but I mostly watched YouTube videos by SRDude and read through the RPG Maker MV Forums. This allowed me to see how to make a 2D house look kinda 3D, how to make events, and mess with conditions as well as the class system for battle (though I still don’t have battle in my game yet).

I have encountered the problem with creating the bridge in my game. I want it too look old, unused, and beat up. Yet I can’t seem to get the characters to walk on the bridge. It’s something I’m still messing around with and will hopefully figure out for my final game.

[tryingtofigureoutgamedesign]

Group Experiment

Today during our class period we participated in a game design group experiment. We split into groups that would be apart of a normal, real-world game design group that we discussed. We came up with the following subgroups;

Programming

Art/Animation

Sound Design

Game Designers/Story

Marketing

Operations

I choose to be apart of the Operations group. Me and two other people were in charge of keeping the group as a whole on track and making sure that there was continuous communication between the subgroups.

After our one hour and 30-minute session, we found that the other groups couldn’t do much until the game design group had come up with some basic ideas on what our game would be. It took them a while to settle on a solid idea and when they did have something the other groups had a lot of questions.

The game design group was very solid on their ideas and it was a challenge to get them to move on their ideas when problems arise in other groups, such as programming. If anything we just needed more time then what we planned to allow for more discussion and development.  

I enjoyed this experiment because it allowed me to be in the shoes of the role I want to play hopefully in the future. I enjoy game design, but I would much rather just manage a budget and groups of people making the game than try and design it myself. I know I personally get very attached to my original ideas and though I am working on it, would much rather not watch people tear apart my ideas and change them into something else

[tryingtofigureoutgamedesign]

Looking Back

With my previous game “Mindscape” I decided to pull it out and replay it so I can better pier evaluate it. After I had originally finished the demo of the game and turned it in I left it alone and moved onto another game project idea. This concept still means a lot to me personally and I enjoyed how I was able to make it in the Twine engine. I wish I had been able to add more to it though and really express other ideas I had for the game. 

I wish I had been able to add more for the player to interact with. One of my player experience goals was to add more weight onto the timer system I was able to include in my game so to make the choices the player was given more important because of the ticking away of time. This would add more weight to the exploration factor I was also unable to really flesh out in my demo.

My original idea was to include an upwards of twelve doors, the five on the first level and seven on the second. There would only be five doors in total that would actually allow you to progress through the game and win. With the demo, I wanted to include the three types of doors that the player could encounter; empty, secret, and memory. This was to also act as a sort of tutorial floor, the second floor is more serious and time is way more important because of the number of doors available.

Because this game was trying to look at the mental health of teenagers/young adults the memories that they would encounter in this game were going to be centered around the stress that can be caused by parents. I feel like I was able to express this through the one memory you can encounter which was around body image and how parents can affect your personal views on yourself. The secret door, which on this floor contained a friendship bracelet, is meant to symbolize other positive factors that help with your mental health, in this case a best friend. And the empty doors, as well as the constant voice you hear throughout the game, are meant to represent your own hopelessness and self-doubt as you are trying to navigate through your mind.

I also wish I could have made the adding of depression and self-esteem and the decreasing of time more apparent to the player. I wanted to include sound effects but unfortunately the story format I choice did not allow that easily. If I could make this again in Twine I would use a different format. I was also unable to figure out how to make an end to the game, which would include you running out of time, being overcome by depression, or gaining enough self-esteem to wake up. I resulted in just adding in conditions that would make certain text appear when you reached the end of my game based on how much you had of each variable.

I want to finish the game, but maybe in an engine other than Twine. I would love if the game was in the first person and there was more of a ticking timer going at all times rather then just based on the actions you took. There are also other elements that I came up with during brainstorming that I would have liked to include, but were out of the scope that the Twine engine allowed. An example would be random encounters within the hallway with characters that would increase your depression or self-esteem based on your interaction. I was unable to do that with Twine because of the complexity I would have had to go to in such a short amount of time.

[tryingtofigureoutgamedesign]

Playtesting

Within the first week of working on this idea, I was tasked with creating a paper prototype of my game idea to present to my class. I was able to chart out a rough idea of the demo I wanted to complete during the short time I have to work on Ruined. I creating some rough dialogue and a drawing three areas in which I want the player to encounter.

I set up on a small table with figures that were intended for use in dungeons and dragons that I had access to. I used these figures to represent a small number of villagers within the city and would allow the player to experience the variety of personalities in this city. The player would encounter the head monk of the monastery, two other monks that have completed their training, a mother and son, a young girl, a drunken man, a woman fixing a gate, and a man hard at work in the fields.

The player was represented by a d20 die and could explore the city, ask questions, and I would try and answer them as to represent the game system. I was able to get a good deal of feedback that I will be able to put towards my creation of the digital version of the game.

In between me running my game I was able to play a few games of my own that my classmates where playtesting. One I was unable to test that I was excited to play was one by Sean. It is a nutrition game that would require the player to try and complete their nutritional needs in a college cafeteria setting. I thought it was an incredible idea, unfortunately, I got into another game.

Though I didn’t remember the name of the game it was meant to mimic the political system, though it definitely had its faults, it was an incredibly fun game to play. You were a big company (I was the wheat industry, and the others I played with were gold and corn industry) and had to buy Senators to pass policy. It was a very tongue-in-cheek look at the political system of the United States which was very funny. I didn’t know a lot (pretty much nothing) about our political system but still had a blast!

[tryingtofigureoutgamedesign]

Game Concept

The title of my game is Ruined, it will be a fantasy RPG with an emphasis on exploration with small elements of combat mixed throughout. It will be made with RPG Maker. My intended audience are millennials, those between the ages of 18-30’s. I hope that the fantasy/medieval premise will draw in an audience who is looking for an escape from the real world into a nonfictional one. I believe the idea of fading magic in a medieval world is something people are familiar with in the more recent ending franchise of Game of Thrones. Because this familiarity I think people will enjoy the concept and setting, immersing themselves in the world while the themes of religion and climate change play out.

The game itself focus on a young monk who has come of age and is able to leave the monastery grounds for the first time to complete an earthly curiosity this religion allows its followers before they are fully induced into the faith. Your curiosity is to see the world beyond that of the city you live in and travel down the mountain. You have read in books about the old world and wish to see it for yourself. You travel down and find the world falling apart and toxic, nothing like the books. A native of this toxic world shows you that the great city you have grown up in is the one poisoning the rest of the world. You rush back to tell the others and they deem it nonsense and you are merely poisoned by the world below the mountain. You promise to return with enough evidence to convinces the people that what you say is true. This sends you on a quest to search the world beyond the mountain to find evidence.

I hope through this story people are able to understand the pressure and frustration that ecologists have when trying to prove to others that the world around them is slowly being destroyed. How there is a lot of stress on those of the sciences by religion and how it can make people ignore truths they don’t want to believe.

[tryingtofigureoutgamedesign]

Something New

It’s time to move onto another completely different idea and make something new! What I’ve decided to go with is an idea that has been stewing for a little over a year in my mind and notebook. It's an idea based around climate change acceptance within a society and the effect of religion on the process of proving its existence to others. 

I want this game to be made in the RPG maker engine and have a similar look and mechanics to “The Witch's House” minus the fact that I will also include a turn-based battle system within the game similar to ones you would see in Pokémon or Final Fantasy.

It will be set in a medieval/mythical setting where magic is a fading resource and few are able to practice it. It will open on a beautiful city atop a mountain which is surrounded by a gray-green mist that conceals the crumbling, toxic world below. You are a young monk who is among the few that can still practice magic who has now come of age. You can now leave the monastery into the city around it, as well as the world below. 

Though it is not recommended to leave the city (because everything they need is on the mountain, close to God) you have always been curious and want to see what is beyond the mist. The head of the church allows you to do so and wishes you to return soon and accomplish the one curiosity you are allowed before one commits themselves to God. You find the world bellow is dying and a native is able to show you why. When you return to the city and share this horrible news, no one believes you and demands proof of these outlandish claims. You pledge to go out and bring evidence back to prove that what you say is true, the head of the church allows you to through much convincing of this being your “last curiosity.”

That will hopefully be what I am able to complete as a small demo of my game. I want it to introduce the ideas and themes I will be presenting throughout the game as well as showing you two vastly different environments that will be present. There will also be an example of the fighting mechanics within the demo as well as through that introducing one of the other important NPCs of the game.

[tryingtofigureoutgamedesign]

Mindscape

So I had decided to follow through with the game idea of “Mindscape.” I made the setting within an empty, seemingly endless house that is falling apart and in the constant darkness. The player must explore and find the memories they must face to try and escape this house and wake up.

I while making it on Twine I separate it into two separate “stories” so that I could have a closer look at what was going on and not be overwhelmed by having everything in one (this also saved me from losing my entire game).

They were separated by the content which they contained. One was just the hallways and exploration of the house, including the opening of every door, the ticking away of time, the increase of depression, the increase of confidence, and small secret elements the player could find. The other story was the complete interaction with one of the memories you have to face in the game focusing around the impact of parents on body image. 

If you notice in the picture there is an “ERROR” story, that was my first try and making the hallway portion of my game. I got to a point in which I was almost done and then Twine completely crashed on me. I lost that entire hallway scene and had to completely remake it, I was just lucky I enjoy writing things down on paper and not creating it only online, so I had a general outline of what my story was so I technically didn’t lose everything. (Also a side note, “ERROR” will not let me delete it, it is resilient and refuses to die)

In the end, I was able to make the small demo of the first floor of this house so that people can experience the empty doors, the frustrating voice in your head that just wants you to give up, a secret element that can increase your confidence, and an encounter with a suppressed memory. I’ll try and figure out how to link a playable version of my game to people. If anyone is extremely passionate and wants to play this demo message me and I’ll see what I can do.

[tryingtofigureoutgamedesign]

What Should I do?

So I have a short time to create a text-based game for a class and am tossing around two story ideas. I will be using the engine Twine to complete either idea, with the story format Harlowe 3.0.2. One idea I have has established development and a story on, another is a brand new idea I have near nothing on, just merely an idea. The reason I’m tossing around these two is ease in creation with the short amount of time I have to create.

My one idea is “A Last Salvation.” An idea I originally created with a classmate to be an FPS based on an alien planet. We had created a document with the choices a player could make throughout the beginning portion of the game. I could easily work on transferring this doc into a text-based game, removing the combat and just making it story. 

My other idea is “Mindscape.” A game in which the player is stuck within their own mind (maybe from a coma?) and have a limited amount of time before they disappear into nothingness. The only way to escape is to confront the memories and emotions that you have suppressed. While dealing with time the player must also juggle with balancing the negative and the positive energy around them which can aid them or harm them further. I am worried that since I would be basing this on many of my personal experiences that people would not be able to relate to my game and would not care about the mental health issue I wish to address. Should I even care, would making this game cause me more harm than good?

I know it would be easier to complete the actual story of Salvation and instead focus on making interesting coding, while Mindscape is an idea I have nothing on and am simply passionate about the idea currently.